Taking photos has become second nature to Millenials due to the rise in social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat occurring in this decade. Instagram founders Kevin System and Mike Krueger launched the app in October, 2010.
Only two months later the app drastically rose in popularity gaining over a million users. The success of Instagram may be attributed to the simplicity, unique filters at the time and the ability to quickly share photos with ease to various social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Additionally, due to the amount of popularity Instagram received. It was announced on April 12th, 2012 that Facebook bought the company for an extremely large amount of one billion dollars in cash and stock (“Instagram,” 2012). The content of Instagram is diverse amongst a variety of different accounts. There are accounts purely dedicated to posting photos of food, clothes, travel destinations to even accounts that don’t actually post photos but just screen grabs of “memes” and of course the accounts run for pets by their owners who crazily enough post and write captions from the perspective of their pet as if the pet has it’s own voice and can reply to comments. Brand endorsements are also used through Instagram, with those who have a large amount of followers doing brand deals to promote products to their followers. Today, there are 400 million users per month on Instagram (Winkler, 2016).
In Roland Barthes Camera Lucida, Barthes explains the theory of studium and punctum. Studium being the general knowledge in the photography and its cultural coding or cultural context. It’s the element that grabs your attention. On the other hand punctum is cultureless and personal. Being the detail in the photograph that attracts the viewer and makes the viewer feel something (Villi, 2010). In today’s generation does the theory of studium and punctum in relation to photography is less prominent. Today, majority of people are taking photos because they have the tool to do it. Not because they want to necessarily evoke someone to feel something by looking at a photo. We’re starting to feel less when viewing photos becoming desensitised because of how used to looking at photos we’ve become. In this day and age, everyone has access to a camera. They’re embedded within our mobile phones making us able to take photos of anything and everything whenever we like. Most photos are often mundane and random that don’t have much thought put into it. Instagram is more used to promote yourself and to put yourself out there, posting photos for likes and validation (Winkler, 2016). Documenting moments in life like attending concerts, going out for a night out in the city or your “outfit of the day” and of course. Selfies. We tend to document moments instead of living in the moment and enjoying what is happening while living it as we have the ability to take photos and videos to be able to watch and try to relive what happened through these photos and videos. Photography on Instagram is mostly about aesthetics and with the use of hashtags we’re able to filter exactly what photos we want to be looking at. In fact 239 college students when asked in a survey on what the main use of Instagram is for answered that they use it for surveillance/knowledge about others, documentation, coolness, and creativity (Sheldon & Bryant, 2015).
Photography may be dying as an art form because of our ability to take photos whenever we want. Being digital may also be a factor as when film photography was the only form of photography. People had to choose carefully as to what they wanted to capture, as the process of developing photos was an expensive and lengthy process. You couldn’t take an unlimited amount of photos or delete and retake as many photos as you wanted. There was more thought put into the images that they wanted to capture to be able to maintain important moments and memories by immortalising them in time.
Of course there are a few Instagram accounts that do indeed convey studium and punctum. One of these is Humans of New York, which is run by photography Brandon Stanton. Humans of New York was originally a website where Stanton started his photo series which is dedicated to sharing unique stories and quotes from random people he photographs on the streets of New York City. By doing this he captures the lives of strangers to share the diversity of people within the city (Grinburg, 2013). The context behind these photos causes viewers to instantly be drawn in to wanting to read more about the stories of the lives of these people. Being photographs of diverse people that Stanton encounters and having photographed hundreds of people. It’s possible to find at least once person in this photographic series, which will cause the viewer to be able to relate and feel empathetic towards.
Overall, photo sharing on a social networking app like Instagram in today’s society conveys that Barthes’ theory of studium and punctum has become less prevalent within today’s society. Due to being able to take photos digitally and photography becoming more second nature to people, our emotional attachment to photographs has decreased. As we view photos more for their aesthetic value and look for photos that interest us. Anybody can be an amateur photography with the use of a smartphone.
Reference List:
“Instagram.” UWIRE Text 22 Apr. 2012: 1. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA343087040&v=2.1&u=macquarie&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&asid=630ec171e7aee19ea3d8b6276b83990f
Villi, Mikko and Matteo Stocchetti. “Visual Mobile Communication, Mediated Presence And The Politics Of Space”. Visual Studies 26.2 (2011): 102-112. Web.
Grinberg, Emanuella. “The photographer behind ‘Humans of New York’.” CNN Wire 18 Oct. 2013. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA345975619&v=2.1&u=macquarie&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&asid=f3a71da145905c3c205995aa1916464a
Sheldon, Pavica and Katherine Bryant. “Instagram: Motives For Its Use And Relationship To Narcissism And Contextual Age”. Computers in Human Behavior 58 (2016): 89-97. Web.
Winkler, Elizabeth. ‘The Manufactured Life’, Religion and Philosophy Collection, EBSCOhost. New Republic, 247, 3 (2016): 16-17. Web.
Studium, Punctum & Instagram 