Is Instagram Dead? How the App Lost Its Identity
Instagram was built on photography. The word “photography” is used rather loosely because when the app was released in 2010, most of the photos uploaded were low-resolution images with a filter baked on that made everything look faux-vintage and twee. This was the appeal of the app: photos that looked like they’d been doused in sepia and dried out in the fake lens flare sun. You didn’t post photos. You posted Instagrams. Smartphone cameras in the 2010s were awful, and Instagram cleverly realized that even the lowest-resolution selfie could be saved if it embraced the natural filters of old film cameras.
This is all to say that Instagram had an identity. It was the cool, hipster app that encouraged frequent postings of daily life via those filtered photos. I distinctly remember Instagram debuting when I was a teenager, and everyone around me snapping photos for it between games of Fruit Ninja (those were truly simpler times). No one put “professional” photography on the app; the maximum file size for uploads during that time didn’t even allow “real” photographers to post anything taken with a DSLR and keep any semblance of quality. Instagram was just about capturing ordinary photos with your phone’s camera and showing them off to your friends with the included filters. It was fresh and youthful and had a clear idea of what it was. Even though the filters made the photos look “old,” the app was a huge hit with nostalgia-hungry millennials.
So, what about Instagram in 2021? Over a decade after its birth, Instagram has an entirely different identity than what it began as. Around 2014, the original filters were toned down and made more natural, and the images on the platform steadily became higher-resolution and professional as smartphone cameras improved (and as professional photographers began flocking to the platform). Then came the rise of social media influencers, and the novel idea that one could make a great living by posting pretty photos on Instagram. The app had permanently changed. No longer the “rebellious” outlet for young people to post obnoxiously edited photos for their friends, but instead a massively popular brand that allowed users to create their personal brands and possible careers in the social media space. For years this extreme shift in Instagram’s identity worked and made the app hugely popular and profitable.
However, since 2019, Instagram has shown signs of being adrift. When Snapchat popularized its “story” feature allowing users to post content that would vanish after 24 hours, Instagram copied it. It was the exact same service, but thanks to Instagram’s immense user base, it succeeded and actually surpassed Snapchat’s original creation. After this, Instagram continued to copy the homework of its burgeoning competitors – including Twitter’s Explore page and YouTube’s video content. Instagram became a cobbled-together mix of services that were “inspired by” other apps’ services. Thus, Instagram’s original service, photo sharing, had become much less important. The app had strayed from what made Instagram what it was.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why members of Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) don’t use the app nearly as much as millennials before them. In fact, Instagram only reaches about 4% of users ages 13 to 17. This is compared to TikTok’s whopping 25% user base of those under 19. Instagram has been racing perhaps too late to pivot to short-form video in order to offer the content young people want. Worse yet for the app, many Gen Z-ers simply think Instagram isn’t cool anymore. The overly curated influencer feeds don’t appeal much to Gen Z when they’re able to watch more authentic TikTok videos from other young users in an app that knows what it is. TikTok has a clear identity: short-form video sharing. But what’s Instagram’s identity nowadays? A semi-professional photo and video sharing platform with influencers and marketplaces and stories and reels and a mountain of ads on top? Instagram lacks a clear identity of its own, and this is in direct opposition to Gen Z’s search for truth and identity that is shaping young people’s thinking.
Can Instagram become relevant again? Time will ultimately tell, but the app will continue to struggle if it doesn’t establish its own identity and offer fresh ideas and features (that aren’t just ripped from other apps). TikTok is the king of short video content the young demographic loves, and Instagram can only hope to be a distant second place. So, what can Instagram be #1 at? It may be time for them to look at their own history and revisit what made those original over-edited photos so much fun to post, and pinpoint what made them feel so innovative.
Written by: Taylor Crow