Story by Emily Weisz
Photos by Gabe Carlin
I admit, I am addicted to Instagram. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past year, Instagram is an application where you can take pictures and add different effects by making them lighter, darker, or even black and white. Essentially, make your pictures look edgy or artistic with the push of a button. After choosing a filter you can upload them to other social media sites so all of your friends can see how amazing and artistic you are. I would prefer if life could have Instagram effects; it seems to make everything and everyone look just a little better.
What makes Instagram so addicting you may ask? For someone like me who is not artistic in the least bit Instagram gives me the tools to let my artsy side out. It makes anyone with a smart phone a top-level photographer, or at least think so.
The ease and mass appeal of Instagram comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Instagram in the wrong hands can just be a tool for people to post eight different pictures of the same blouse they bought. While Instagram is an avenue to express yourself, the people you share with only care so much.

Instagram makes the normal into something edgy. For instance, a normal piece of sushi can turn into an artsy masterpiece with a switch of the filter. Instagram makes the simplest of things more appealing and unlike other social media outlets, allows users to express themselves solely with pictures.
People are now integrating different forms of media by tweeting or uploading the photos they take on Instagram to Twitter and Facebook. I now find that my Facebook timeline is chock-full of Instagram photos. The merging of social media outlets now expands how we express ourselves.
Instagram is also being used in a variety of mediums. While Instagram is widely used on Facebook and other social media, it is also being used in popular television shows and advertisements. The new Doritos Locos Tacos commercial by Taco Bell is a compilation of different Instagram photos. The pictures give the commercial a more homemade and raw feeling, giving a large corporation like Taco Bell a more boutique feel that is often lost in national campaigns.
Their commercial specifically appeals to broke college students like myself, who enjoy eating their tortilla-wrapped goodness. Using Instagram could only work in certain commercials, and Taco Bell is smart enough to know their demographic is made up of avid Instagram users like me.
Instagram is also leaving its mark on TV shows. The introduction to Galley Girls on Bravo is entirely composed of Instagram photographs. For a show that is based on women who work in galleries in New York City, it’s interesting that they value Instagram as an “art form” and use it in there introduction.
We are constantly seeing social media changing and evolving. Instagram is no different. I am very excited to see the new social media that will be coming out in the future and how it will be used.

Gallery • 8 Photos

Instagram: Becoming an Insta-Artist