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The Instagram Generation

23rd November 2019 /

I originally started writing this for a client but the whole thing got way too long so I just finished this and gave the client something else.

A couple of days ago I was browsing Instagram, mindlessly double tapping posts that meet my double tapping criteria (which boil down to ‘none of those bullshit distortion-laden concert clips,’ and ‘no inane selfies for absolutely no reason’) and after I got done I closed the app, answered a message or two on Facebook Messenger, and then I opened Instagram again. This might not sound weird to you but as I was sitting there holding my phone, looking at it as if it was a live grenade that someone had thrown in my lap, a distinct feeling of dread came over me.

Do you know those couples where both parties are vegetarian and they really see that vegetarian part as one of the defining factors of their relationship? Hopefully not, because those people can never fucking shut up about it, but I’m sure one or two couples come to mind. Well anyway, I felt like I was one of those vegetarians, one that had just been caught by his significant other while holding a big, fat, 100% pure beef burger. I sat there, in shame, deep thoughts about the man I had become running through my mind.

You see, I have always thought myself to be a reasonable person when it comes to these kinds of things. It’s a point of pride for me. I am not a blind hater of everything that’s cool like some people are, but I’m also not someone who has to jump in and join the crowd without thinking as though I’m some sort of single cell organism. I am, as one would say, ‘open minded.’ Everything in moderation. Yin Yang, whatever, you get the point.

But there I was, opening Instagram on autopilot as if it’s some sort of reflex that’s ingrained in me, like rolling my eyes whenever someone I don’t really know all that well wants to show me pictures of their small child for the umpteenth time. Fuck that kid, Betsy, it still looks the same as it did last week, don’t bother me with that stuff. 

Had I become a part of the dreaded Instagram generation? Would I, from that point on, start documenting every meal that I ate? Would I also document the stool that followed? Well, no. It didn’t get to that, but the event did give me pause. It’s interesting how the advent of social media (and smartphones and the internet in general) has caused us all to have to be performers of sorts. 

Even if you leave social media out of the equation; it used to be that when someone called or texted you and you didn’t immediately reply people would just think ‘well they’re busy, try again later’. If you don’t immediately respond now you can expect a message on WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, and if it really takes a long time to answer perhaps you’ll get an AMBER alert piled on as well. It’s come to the point where not immediately responding has become abnormal and isn’t that ridiculous, if you think about it for a while? Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all of that jazz have really connected the world, but sometimes it’s a good idea to disconnect, you know? 

This particular analogy is a bit on the nose (in fact it’s the literary equivalent of a haymaker to the teeth) but if your phone is constantly connected to stuff through Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 4G its battery is going to drain real fast. The same seems to be true for humans. Human batteries are draining all over the place. In fact, recent studies have shown that excessive consumption of social media has been linked with depression and feelings of loneliness in teens. We’re all so connected that we can share photos of our exclusive dinner with our friends in Afghanistan while also sending cheesy pickup lines to some chick in Los Angeles, and yet we feel increasingly alone while more and more teenagers are getting depressed. If you don’t live in LA this example is only possible if you’ve paid for Tinder Gold, by the way. You didn’t think you’d find your true love for free, did you now, you dumb fuck?

If you feel offended by that ‘dumb fuck’ then don’t direct your anger at me, by the way. Or at least not all of it. It’s quite literally what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg thinks of his users. He said this when instant messaging with a friend shortly after launching Facebook when the friend asked how The Zuck managed to get a hold of over 4000 emails, pictures, and addresses. He said ‘people just submitted it – i don’t know why – they “trust” me – dumb fucks’. So in case you’re completely new to this I’ve got some shocking news for you: social media companies aren’t there for you. They’re not ran by philanthropists.

yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard […] just ask […] I have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, to an anonymous friend shortly after creating Facebook

At this point it’s important that I stress that I’m not writing this from any sort of high horse. I got off of that horse back when I wrote my first absolutely inane Facebook post way back in 2009, so I’m not some social media teetotaler who felt it opportune to give you all a little lecture on how I’m so much better than you guys. I’m not. I can say that I’m not as deep down the rabbit hole as some others, though. There are definitely people out there who measure their self-worth by counting the amount of likes or retweets that they get on a certain post, or people who absolutely cannot go out without showing the entire world where they’ve been at now, even if it means posting blurry and deafening distortion-laden clips of them screaming like harpies in some sort of cheap club.

These things have, slowly but surely, taken over the lives of many people and by extension also the world. Not convinced? Try starting a business without having any sort of social media presence, see how that works out for you. Unless you’re in the business of slinging dope and you’d rather keep that on the old down-low you’re gonna want to be searchable on Facebook or Twitter, and at the very least you’ll need a website or have some way for people to find you online. The president of the United States uses Twitter to casually threaten nations with nuclear war while he’s on the shitter, so don’t try to tell me that this is some sort of bubble that most people can opt out of. 

People these days, especially younger people, almost need to be on social media. How many times have you heard the sentence ‘just show their profile on Facebook’ when you were talking about that hot date you scored a couple of days ago? How many times have you had a casual, ‘friendly’ nudge from one of your peers prompting you to follow them back on Instagram? If you’re under 20 years of age then the answer is probably ‘too many.’ 

If you don’t have any sort of profile anywhere you’re basically a ghost, and while it’s known that the newest generation doesn’t use Facebook as much anymore (probably because its infested with those darned boomers and their stale memes) they’ve all gone and migrated to Instagram and the likes, and that’s basically the same. Hell, Instagram is owned by Facebook. 

In any case, it’s no real surprise that teenagers are feeling like hot garbage these days. In the fantastic world of ‘the Gram’ nothing is special. You might feel like you’re looking pretty good today, but then some influencer (that word really makes me want to blow chunks) posts a ‘no makeup’ photo of herself that makes you look like a real life version of Shrek coming down from a six day acid trip and boom goes the self-esteem dynamite. It’s hard to not feel like shit when you’re sat at home downing a bucket of Ben and Jerry’s while it seems like the entire world is doing more interesting things, and they’re doing it while being beautiful too. 

It’s a contest where everybody tries to be the most interesting and unique individual out there, and that’s just not possible. It’s an unattainable goal. Just like there’s always someone out there who has it worse than you there’s always someone out there who has it better than you. Yet that doesn’t stop people from spending entire trips taking photos of their own face or perfectly photoshopped butt in front of some vista in order to impress a bunch of people they’ll never meet in real life. 

In any case: even if these kids somehow make it through their childhood without killing themselves they’re not out of the woods yet. All of their data now belongs to the Zuck and his pals. This is true for everyone, but with this new generation of ‘always online individuals’ Facebook and co. have a unique insight in how these people get formed as adults. They’ll have a complete timeline on how 13 year old Timmy changed from a happy-go-lucky child with a tendency to have socialist thoughts to a bitter and disillusioned 19 year old hard Brexit supporter. 

I know I’ll have lost some people here at this point, but do me a favor and go and download your own Google and Facebook data and then tell me it’s not possible for a bunch of smartypants engineers and scientists with billions of these profiles (along with near unfathomable amounts of money) to create some sort of algorithm that can completely figure out who you are. If these people can predict when you’re about to be in a relationship before you even properly know it yourself then you can be damn sure that they’re able to tell what kind of political soundbites tickle your fancy.

Now you might say to me ‘this doesn’t matter, I’m a decent citizen and I never do anything illegal and I’m a proud voter for party X so I don’t care who knows about that’ and I have to say that I can somewhat understand this line of thinking. After all, there are billions of people out there and the vast majority of those people are completely unimportant, so why would a company that can buy several countries without breaking a sweat be interested in whatever you have to say? Then I would say to you ‘well, we don’t know what the future holds, do we?’ Facebook’s data might leak, or all of this knowledge that they have on vast, vast amounts of the population might be used by nefarious organisations to influence elections. That’s obviously a bit of an exaggerated– Oh wait, that already happened.

I mean, it sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true, as long as they are believed […] often we set up -if we are working- then we can set up fake IDs and websites. We can go in as students doing research projects attached to the university, we can be tourists, there’s so many options.

Alexander Nix, Chief Executive of Cambridge Analytica, speaking to an undercover journalist on how they can help win elections

Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t have any social media and thinks that only idiots allow their votes to be influenced by a silly social media website you should still be worried, because the world is full of idiots who do allow their votes to be influenced by silly social media websites. Soon enough, companies like Cambridge Analytica (or whatever the fuck it is they’ve renamed themselves to in an elegant and successful attempt to dodge any sort of consequences for their mishandling of private data) will be able to sell elections to the highest bidder, and that’s not really a rosy outlook if you’re asking me.

Facebook itself has been known to handle private data with all the grace of a lifelong crack addict tossing their baby aside looking for their last bag of dope yet they’ve barely gotten a slap on the wrist for it. These companies keep getting bigger and bigger, and we’ve long passed the point of no return. Pretty soon, privacy will be a thing of the past and all of our lives will be on some sort of server, ready to be sold, hijacked, or used by governments and organisations to limit our freedom. That might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but who’s to say where all of this will stop? At this point; no one. 

As long as these mega corporations are of use to ‘the powers that be’ (and they keep stuffing the pockets of those powers with crisp dollar bills) it’s hard to imagine them ever going away. No, scratch that. They won’t go away. At least not in the near future. Facebook could go tits up in a few years (if it isn’t too big to fail already) but it’ll just be replaced by something else. Maybe it’ll be replaced by something hip and clean, developed and maintained by a small team of friendly neighborhood nerds in their garage who just want to help the world connect (hahaha) but unless something drastic happens that changes minds and societies on a global scale the idea of social media is here to stay.

That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, though. The idea of an ever-connected world isn’t a wrong one. It’s just that it’s a bit shit that this ever-connected world is being controlled by a handful of companies that are seemingly too big to control. There are no regulations for these companies whatsoever, and if some malfunctioning algorithm decides to effectively cancel your life for at least a few days there’s no one to hold these companies accountable. 

‘How do we stop this,’ you ask? Well I’ll be damned if I know, I’m just here to complain. And truth be told it’s probably too late already. We need to push for (stricter) regulations on these behemoth companies but unless you’ve got a few billion dollars laying around to buy your very own election we’ll just have to wait and see what our politicians do. And we all know how that usually turns out.

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