Opinion | Temporality of Instagram
If the app’s design is any indication, Instagram appears to have no interest in making memories. TIFFANY LE, Staff Photographer
On July 2, 2021, conceptual artist Ai Weiwei uploaded a photo to Instagram of himself and his friends with their t-shirts rolled up in protest of China’s ban on the “Beijing bikini,” a fashion trend popular with men trying to keep cool in the sweltering summer months.
Caden McQueen, Opinions Editor
For reasons unbeknownst to myself, I found Weiwei’s devil-may-care attitude along with the pride with which he and his buddies displayed their bellies to be irresistibly funny. I must have stared at it for minutes on end, giggling like a fool all the while.
In that moment, I thought it was without a doubt the greatest Instagram post I had ever seen; I simply HAD to share it. I took a screenshot of it, put it on my story and sent it in practically every group chat I was a part of before it promptly slipped out of my mind that very same day.
Had I not chosen to write a piece on Instagram, I assume the jovial expressions of Weiwei and his companions would have remained forever forgotten. Coincidence alone has brought this experience back from the brink of oblivion. And now that Weiwei’s post is once again at the forefront of my mind, I wish to re-examine my short-lived infatuation.
I didn’t know how to react to Weiwei’s post when I first saw it again. It’s unlike me to so quickly forget a piece of media that evoked such a visceral reaction. But instead, I found myself feeling detached from the media that earlier entranced me — like there was a punchline I just kept missing.
Upon further reflection, I quickly realized this experience was totally unremarkable. Infatuation is a fickle thing. A trip through my DMs reveals that I’ve unknowingly repeated this cycle countless times over the last few months. My friends and family have been bombarded with whatever image or video I find myself temporarily obsessed with on an almost weekly basis.
Regardless of how strongly I felt about these Instagram posts when I first interacted with them, I can recall nothing about them now. While I was initially inclined to attribute my inability to commit these images and videos to memory to my own fallible brain, I could not shake the feeling that something more was at play.
According to my phone, I take about an hour and 16 minutes a day to scroll through the unending stream of algorithmically curated content that Instagram provides. In that stretch of time, I pass by hundreds of different posts. Sensory overload is inevitable practically every time I open the app. It doesn’t take long for the stream of cats, movie clips, news and memes all melt together into a slurry of meaningless imagery.
Like a somnambulist, I am made to wander through the swaths of content Instagram presents me with, as if acting on some unconscious desire to numb my brain to the point of apathy. Rarely do I snap out of these trances once I’ve fallen into them. Oftentimes, I waste hours on the app without even realizing it.
Everything on Instagram is intended to hold the users’ attention for as long as humanly possible. Those on the app must continually forge onward to the next advertisement in order for Instagram to even turn a profit. At this point, the app’s various systems are so finely tuned that it has no trouble with succeeding to this end.
It’s no wonder I can’t remember any of the content I see on Instagram; the pace at which the app keeps me moving hardly even gives me the chance to distinguish one post from another. I do not have time to consider whether or not the content I consume is worth remembering; the images on my feed are confined solely to the precise moment in which I first perceive them, vanishing from my mind the second that moment passes.
The moments I spend with these posts are thus utterly meaningless, unable to generate any lasting emotional or intellectual response. All they are capable of offering is a brief escape from the horrors of modernity, yet that too is fleeting. Instagram offers me nothing; I realize that now.
I value my finite time on earth far too much to spend another second on that godforsaken app. I am no longer complacent with forgetting; I desperately want to remember.