06 May 2017 "Instagram of the Future"

A few months ago, my cousin Juliet introduced me to some key tricks for maximizing the amount of “likes” I could get on Instagram—simple things like waiting to post until later in the evening, taking lots of pictures in order to maximize the possibility of getting an ideal one, and only posting every few days in order to keep a regular crowd interested but not overloaded. I got some of the highest amounts of likes on my Instagram photos that I had ever gotten, and it was a pretty satisfying feeling.

            Fast-forward this past semester—when I began watching Black Mirror. One of the first episodes I watched was from season three, entitled “Nosedive”. It’s centered entirely around the story of a woman living in a world endlessly dependent on the rankings of social media. She’s on a quest to improve her social ranking in order to obtain better housing, and, she hopes, happiness. I couldn’t help but feel helplessly attached to the main character; the episode made me feel sad and seemed too eerily true to my own experience—in this particular episode’s world created by Black Mirror, I could see the same tricks being utilized by characters that I had grown accustomed to using for my own Instagram posts.

            In fact, the pressures inherent in an app like Instagram have taken on a life of their own—and the “Nosedive” episode of Black Mirror seeks to highlight this. Somehow, Instagram has managed to capture the negative aspects of both Twitter (the less words used to describe something, the better) and Facebook (pictures meant to convince that one is having a better time than one actually is) by creating a hybrid social media site meant to highlight only the best photo evidence any given person has to offer.

            In the opening scene of “Nosedive”, main character Lacie Pound is pictured running through her neighborhood with her face buried in her phone. She obsessively swipes her finger up across the screen, and the viewer is introduced for the first time to the sweet jingling chime that accompanies Lacie’s every move on her phone and later, in her life. As the episode goes on, we learn just how pervasive internet/digital rankings are to Lacie’s society—in a glimpse of the not-so-far-off future, “Nosedive” details what will happen as we allow ourselves to become more and more absorbed into our status-obsessed nature. When given a tool like social media, something that ranks people based on the digital/online approval of others, we feed into this mania of image-absorption that “Nosedive” tells us we already clearly have.  

            The culture of Instagram is very addicting—researchers have worked hard to develop the most aesthetically pleasing format for the app’s interface, and celebrities and supermodels alike are some of the most well-known characters who craft a life on the app, using only pictures and light, breezy captions. In addition, endorsing products has gotten significantly easier on a site where a picture crafted so as to make something look desirable is more successful than traditional advertisements. So many people now spend so much of their energy scrolling through Instagram and looking at pictures, preferring the easy engagement to activities that would require more in depth involvement.

            Alexis Ren provides a perfect example of someone made famous by her posts on Instagram—her fame is completely image based. In the world of “Nosedive”, she is Lacie’s distant friend Rene, the woman who is always desirable and whose every move seems so effortless. Alexis Ren exists in this way right now—her posts attract additive scrolling from adoring followers, her smile is labeled as intoxicating, and all the while, everything she does is carefully calibrated to maximize her physical image and in turn, her popularity. As I do some brief research about her now, I find myself getting distracted for twenty-five minutes at her Youtube videos, past Instagram posts, and GoogleImage search results—all designed to highlight Alexis’s famed 34-22-34 body proportions. I find myself absorbed, just as I am supposed to be. This says much about my inherent human nature.  

            “Nosedive” seeks to bring forth (albeit with a negative and pessimistic tone) all the dangers that seemingly innocent aspects of Instagram and people like Alexis Ren convey. When given a way to literally label each other within a hierarchy, groupthink places people physically lucky enough to fall into the correct standards of perfection at the very top. In popular culture, beauty has become our top standard for giving merit to individuals, and the majority of ascents to fame are based on a person’s physical desirability. We now live in a society where exhibitionism and status are, as detailed in “Nosedive”, given preference over actual substance or merit.

            Born in Santa Monica, California in 1996, Alexis Ren is a tan, long-limbed blonde beauty who was scouted in a mall at age thirteen, and made famous by a Tumblr post featuring her in a skimpy black bikini that went viral in 2012. She now travels all over the world, partially on her own dime and partially through funding by brands who want her to endorse them to her over 7 million followers on Instagram. She’s the epitome of what teenagers and twenty-somethings wish they could have—what appears to be a carefree, beautiful existence posing almost nude on various white sand beaches and receiving millions of Instagram “likes” each day. It’s exactly what social media has been designed for, and when I really started to care about my own personal appearance on Instagram, I became all the more absorbed in Alexis Ren’s addictive presence on it.

            “Fifteen Million Merits”, another of Black Mirror’s episodes, examines more in depth the concept of “going viral”. Though this particular type of exhibitionism is a bit different from the type that forced Alexis Ren into the spotlight, it still speaks to an aspect of our image-based society. In the episode, the main character, Bing, after going onstage and holding a shard of glass to his neck in a defiant attempt to prove the falseness and vanity of a famous television show, becomes widely famous himself, eventually selling out on his beliefs in lieu of the comforts of fame and fortune. It is this willingness to do something outrageous, this ability to hold the attention of a society so entirely devoted to watching images travel across screens that allows Bing to achieve his fame.

In this way, Black Mirror speaks to an additional method that current society has developed in order to judge individuals’ worth. Rather than using an adherence to typical standards of image-based value, this type of exhibitionism allows the average Joe to boost his rank in society by marking him as decidedly different—he is willing to make himself into entertainment all in the name of status. Lacie, in “Nosedive”, in a desperate attempt to regain the attention and acceptance of her beloved “Nay-Nay” and the wedding party, makes a spectacle out of herself when she begins reciting her maid of honor speech in her filthy, ruined gown. This last desperate attempt at achieving social acceptance is proof of how powerful the system of ranking has become in Lacie’s futuristic reality.

            In effect, it all comes down to social ranking. As a species, we are quite obsessed with social ranking, despite our constant ability to convince ourselves with idioms that other things matter more. Apps like Instagram, and social media in general, Black Mirror warns, are dangerous tools given to a society with an unavoidable tendency toward status obsession and exhibitionism.

            If you take the time to observe Instagram in general, you’ll begin to see a real trend—it appears that everyone is trying hard to emulate their own version of what people like Alexis Ren have so successfully commoditized. Each post is designed to emulate some scenery or scenario in which those who see it feel that they have missed out on something. The more time you spend looking at pictures on the app, the more you tend to actually feel left out. Instagram’s experience is designed to make you feel invalidated, in a way. The validation comes from the likes you receive when you participate in the culture by posting your own version of a “perfect” experience. In “Nosedive”, Black Mirror successfully captures this sense of invalidation that can only be solved by the validation of others via social media.

            At the beach with my family this past summer, I remember showing my cousin Juliet a few pictures of Alexis Ren, believing that she would be quick to express her jealousy and reverence for the social media supermodel, just as I had. However, Juliet gripped my phone for a moment, then turned to me and stated, flatly, “this girl is so anorexic”. I was a bit taken aback, not just because Juliet has had her own personal struggles with anorexia and so would be somewhat of an expert at recognizing the signs, but also because I wondered how I had been so blind to it. Upon looking more closely at Alexis’s pictures (and putting together the clues about her career as a model and adamant claims against Photoshop), I realized that Juliet seemed pretty right. When I look at Alexis Ren’s photos and videos now, I find myself examining more closely her individual body parts and reassuring myself that there are pressures in her life that I can’t begin to know about. It makes me feel a little less jealous, but only for a few minutes.

            That’s the power of Instagram. Even though you rationally know the way that it has been developed to present an image of perfection, you can’t help but believe in it anyway. Black Mirror takes on this tendency, and warns of the bleak future in which our status obsessed tendencies have been allowed to roam free. Is a world with Alexis Ren as famous as she is really a world worth living in in general?