This tweet caught my interest a few days ago: ” Instagram makes everyone’s memories look the same, just as Facebook does with people’s lives.” I have a couple of points to make about this statement, but no real conclusions.

What intrigued me most about the tweet was the second part ”…look just the same, just as Facebook does with people’s lives.” I had been thinking much the same about Facebook. I know it isn’t completely true. It isn’t that Facebook makes everyone’s lives look identical, but the framing of it creates a kind of uniformity, a blandness. My news feed is a mix (high school friends, PBS, the Dali Lama, people I know professionally, Charlie the Bassett Hound) but each element in the feed is framed the same way.

What about the first part – that Instagram makes everyone’s memories look the same?

I question the idea that Instagram is about memories at all. But when I think about the photos I share, some might serve as replacements for memories of trivial things. Loaves of bread I have baked. Like most casual photography, it complements memory. And obviously that is the most common use for photography.

Does Instagram make images look the same?

Instagram carries a burden of clichés. The clichés are largely visual, but there are social and business factors involved as well.

Visually, there are two main components to Instagram. First, the square form factor of the image. I like it; and as a purely formal choice, it is a good one.

The second, optional component when posting a photograph in Instagram are the filters. They seem popular with other Instagram users, but I rarely use them. I probably have more interest in using the filters that change the framing of the image, or make a color photograph monochrome, but the color changes and fake film effects bore me. I am sure there are photos on Instagram that I like better because they were processed through a filter, but I KNOW I see mediocre photographs that are even more mediocre because they were filtered. These are qualities of the medium that dominate what the viewer sees, and like the way Facebook “frames” updates, it seems arbitrary. And uniform.

Beyond the formal, visual, there is an awful lot of photo sharing on Instagram that falls into the category of non-technical clichés. Partly the result of Instagram memes. Photos of the ground, with the photographer’s feet popping up from the bottom edge (#whereistand) for instance. Other clichés seem to be the result of the popularity cycles built-in to the Instagram system. There is a popular page, where photos that have been well liked are displayed, increasing their ability to be found and liked more. This seems logical. I don’t think it is good, if what you want is creative diversity, but I guess it serves another purpose.

I prefer to browse the “news” tab, looking for images that are liked by people I follow.  This is a great way to find interesting images, “curated” by people whose images were interesting to me.

Instagram is an example of a tool that excels at a narrow form of sharing. Something I have been thinking about lately, and hope to write about soon.