Instagram, a mobile photo-sharing app, has gained popularity very quickly, especially, according to this demographic chart, in the college student/young adult/age 18-29 range (http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/online/the-demographics-of-instagram-and-snapchat-users-37745/attachment/pew-instagram-user-demos-oct2013/). After using Instagram for about 2 years now, I have noticed some special traits about it. I noticed that it has some unique features that allow people to build pretty much any kind of identity they want, whether it is realistic of how they are outside of the media realm or not. This article (http://mashable.com/2013/11/17/types-instagram-users/) describes 10 stereotypical identities that many users of Instagram fall into, based on the kinds of photos the user normally posts. For example, there are the users who almost always post pictures of their food, seemingly trying to make people’s mouths water over their delicious looking meals. Other people tend to post a lot of “selfies” (pictures of themselves), who probably identify themselves as “good looking.” These identities are interesting, because even though they sound very stereotypical, they are surprisingly quite common on Instagram. This brings up some interesting questions—do people choose to have that as their identity, or does it just happen? And is it a true representation of themselves, or they do it to fit in as part of a certain social media personality? Do they do it in order to improve their popularity on Instagram and get more “likes” on their photos?

Here is what I found:  Instagram is almost like being back in high school, with its ”popular” kids who somehow everyone knew of and gossiped about, and all the cliques with their stereotyped identities—the cheerleaders, the football players, the drama kids, and so on. I realize that these kinds of stereotypes are not really easy to come by in real life, and that they make big, sweeping assumptions about people, but I have noticed it popping up in my own high school years. Going to a big public high school, people formed groups of friends because my grade was too big for everyone to know everyone. Therefore, these kinds of cliques formed with people who had similar interests.

I did a bit more research on these “identities” on Instagram, and come up with this article: http://www.mobiledia.com/news/181440.html.  The article builds on this idea, relating Instagram to the “high school life,” with its stereotyped personalities and people with “edited” identities. And I have found that, in a way, Instagram encourages this. First of all, part of what makes Instagram special is its range of 26 different filters to edit your photo with, enhancing it and giving is a special “look.” This gives users the ability to make their lives look “polished” and more enhanced than they actually are. This is similar to high school students who act a certain way in order to try and make their peers think their life is so much better than theirs. For example, the head cheerleader (which is mostly seen in movies, but it’s still something that relates well to what happens on Instagram). She may get all the boys after her, look naturally pretty and seem happy all the time, but this could just be a cover-up of her life that may not be so “perfect.” She may use make-up to cover up bad skin or a fake smile to hide sadness. This is very similar to what happens quite frequently on Instagram. People choose specific photos that may make their lives look exciting and fun all the time, making them look even better by editing them with special filters, but these pictures usually only represent a small fraction of the experiences, both good and bad, that people go through.  In addition, Instagram encourages a kind of “popularity contest” with its “like” feature, allowing users to like other user’s photos, and all of the photos display how many “likes” they have received. Many people are beginning to judge themselves on how many “likes” they get on their photos or how many followers they have, and that determines how they perceive themselves socially. Even popular hashtags have started to encourage this, such as “like4like” and “follow4follow,” basically telling other users that if they like their photo or begin following them, that person will like or follow them back. I find it sad that we are beginning to perceive ourselves in this way, especially when many users are most likely putting on unrealistic, fake identities that don’t even truly represent their lives.