The Gr8 migration

Part 1. Those tender years. jk jk lol!

There have been many ups and downs in my relationship with social media, clearly I can call it that, a relationship, so ubiquitous it has come to be. On way too many occasions since its inception, I have been disillusioned by one app in particular, and no surprise there, its Instagram. I want to begin this very constructive piece (or rant) by recalling my personal experience of its early years.

It was in the late hipster years, 2010s, I was hanging out on tumblr scrolling through emo-girl pages and pink sunset gifs. People were obsessing about coffee, modifying motorcycles, minimal tattoos, vintage typography, and polaroids. I think being ‘boho’ and the use of ‘macrame’ was not totally kitsch yet. Now that I think of it, it seems as though nothing much has changed, but that opens another topic of how we exist today in a society without a consensus and with forces that pull us in different directions.

Back to Instagram, I saw a platform meant for photography change, becoming less about the photograph but more about the person taking the photos, catapulting that phenomenon of the selfies. I remember some disappointed pseudo-photographers amidst this trend tired to voice their concerns, “arre, but it is meant for photography yaar!”

It was the first app that began to really glue us to our phones, Facebook & Twitter just did not have that kind of presence on the phone (or the kind of apps). One could say that as phones became better, the development of the apps became irrevocable, and as cameras got their xy-zillion pixels and we flooded the internet with better images of our lives. And while we all thought we were connecting over the internet, with technology making us less dependant on others, we were also slowly disconnecting from a certain reality and people, with the phone was becoming the perfect companion.

Whenever Instagram changed and I adapted, thought at its core, I still think it has retained the aspect, where people share their personal data, like in a visual diary. Eventually though, like any other physical space with too many people, groups began to form and like, Facebook, Instagram too became a host to many online and offline subcultures, meme pages sprouted, along with a sharp rise of ze influencers. I think, I hung around until these years, took a short time off, by the time I came back (in just a matter of few months) it was whole different place again.

By now celebrities were here ‘doing it for the gram’, professionals putting up their work portfolio, major fashion brands opened shops and target ads began. It was entertaining watching this place morph into all sorts things but over the years, it also got a bit repulsive or maybe by the virtue of trying to accommodating everything in one place; more degenerate. News alongside fake news, call for donations amidst shopping and product drops, music videos - swipe - snippets of war - swipe - flash dance mob in a mall - swipe - cute cat videos and this doesn’t even cover all the contradictions that bloomed alongside on the platform, or the trolls.

Part 2: Freedom

Nothing is a constant, not in the real-life and definitely not in the virtual. I have benefited a lot from the platform, it gave me the space to share my work, to get confirmations when I was unsure and opportunities that made what I was doing very solid in my real life. I have stuck around, adapted, but every time I reached a point, when I felt I had to post something just to keep the ‘engagement on’, I remember a very simple but great advice by a professor in my college back in 2010. When I told Suresh (my late professor at N.I.D, Ahmedabad) that we needed to know how to use the latest tools; Adobe illustrator, to create better work, he refused to buy it. He said it was irrelevant to my work, tools and mediums would keep changing and what one needed was to develop the mind that controlled the tool, and not the other way around. A very Yoda moment.

So when People, say ‘I have to post yaar, otherwise Instagram will punish me.’ And when someone complains about ‘the algorithm’ that has changed, when it’s about reels, when it’s not about reels. And terms like the ‘shadowbanning’ entering our language without legitimacy, doesn’t it all seem kind of fanatical?

A wise hammer never once said “grab me, hit me to that nail, everyday! And for max engagement at 6pm, when most people are walking by the barn,” because of course, hammering is one such activity we must all bear witness to as a society.

Anyhoo!

Part 3: Old Mc Donald had a (data) farm, AI-EI-OOPS

My very recent distress, was caused by Open AI’s, Chat GPT and Dall-E. I remember scrolling through my instagram feed, as the floodgates of these ai generated images spilled opened, and oh my god! At first, of course it was impressive! All these fascinating images created by a machine, taking your mind to places where your hand and other tools could not have so far. But to be honest, very soon after, it felt like a khichadi (rice-lentil broth) of our own data being thrown back at us. These large language models for image, text, video, sound generation are still a very first level thing of what artificial intelligence could unleash. Or how I fondly like to say: add to the digital sewer we live. And like any other skeptic I have a feeling that BIG TECH might axe its own feet, or ours. And I am not even addressing the fuck-up prophesied by the ‘singularity’ yet.

Also, not to go into territories I have little understanding of I want to come back to what I know best, my own case study, and the ongoing business with Instagram. So in between AI generated Putin in Goa and facial surgery ads, best pasta recipes to couples in Bali, Gen-z’s fashion, Unicef donation calls & crowds swimming to DJs, when I post my work, I feel, I too am trying to squeeze in for lil space in this oversaturated space. And like a vendor with a thela (stall) in the World’s biggest bazaar, I am asking you to look at my sabzi (vegetables).

And to put it briefly it’s starting to feel a bit, eh. And even though I could say amidst all the changes, I have been sort of vigilant and reflective, in so many ways it does control me, and surely affects me.

Part 3: The Great Migration

So, sitting in my studio as I take a photo of recent work to share on my Instagram and this eerie feeling crawls upon me.

We are amidst a great migration, our luggage as megabytes is rapidly uploading real-life into the virtual and we are sleepwalking into these infrastructure of the meganets.