If you click Instagram or Tik Tok, you will see a post of a bunch of photos that seem to give the viewers a look into their seemingly perfect lives. There is an impression that the creator casually just threw a bunch of random pictures from their camera roll onto social media yet still remained to be aesthetically pleasing. This trend of having every photo, no matter how seemingly random, be aesthetic has created a pressure for people to perceive their lived experiences as dull and looking to the ‘perfect’ lives that are seen on social media as what they have to achieve, even though most of the time the life that is seen on those photo dumps, as these posts are called, are not achievable or true.
This trend of creating these casual yet aesthetic instagram posts has stemmed from the fact that with the advancement of technology and the constant availability of a camera that our smartphones offer us. In Susan Sontag’s essay, “On Photography”, it describes the evolution of photography from when it was hard accessible to the modern times where it is practically always accessible, and has changed the meaning of photography. “Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing—which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art.” (Sontag 5). That may be true as we use photography for things as simple as taking a picture of a grocery list so that we don’t have to physically carry one around. However, with the increasing popularity of the trends of curating aesthetic photo dumps, it has become more of a type of art. Each photographer has a specific meaning or idea that they want to convey to their viewers and that is what causes it to become art. In “When Staged Photography Becomes Art,” Elena Martinque mentions that staged photography has emerged as an art form. “Rather than capturing the moment, artists make specific choices when staging their images. By consciously placing elements and arranging compositions, they create the events, environments or emotions.” (Martinque).
When people post on social media, they only want to post what makes their lives look shiny and perfect, not about the hard realities that life can actually hold. Even though what these creators photos may look as if it was just hastily taken with no serious care, the photos has a specific meaning or outlook that they are trying to put out and in turn showcasing an unachievable and romanticized aspect of their lives, while trying to make it so that it is as natural as possible. The fact that it looks so natural causes people to grow misconceptions on what reality actually looks like rather than this flawless, curated aspect of one’s life.
I like how you talked about photography on social media. I agree with what you said about how people play this persona online where we often show the world what they want to see. It’s all about being aesthetically pleasing and to be aesthetic. No one has the perfect life, there are many stories behind each photo. We often post our “perfect life” to make up for the struggles in real life.