PERFECTLY IMPERFECT

The once glossy facade of social media is moving on from colour co-ordinated grids to flip the mirror on daily life

- TANYA MEHTA

It’s Sunday afternoon, the delicate winter light streams through the glass facade of the restaurant, casting a near-perfect shadow on the edge of the table, illuminating the contents sitting in porcelain, the glistening globules of olive oil in a sea of pesto, cheese oozing out of a crispy Croque Monsieur, threatening to clump with the passing minutes while the eager hand of a friend motions towards the truffle fries. Sitting at the edge of my chair, my butt mid-air in an awkward quarter squat as I crane out my neck, my arms are sturdy and resolute. After I click, I quickly crop that unwanted hand, add the vivid warm filter…and add to ‘Stories’, the spinning kaleidoscopic circle almost smiling back at me in approval.

Belonging to a generation that has witnessed the birth and evolution of Instagram over the past decade has been an intriguing observation in algorithms and human behaviour. What began as a platform we all meandered abstractedly has now transformed into a calculated marketplace of wallpaper sunsets, immaculate selfies, and curated OOTDs. Today, the once carefully planned content that passed through an assembly line of filters and scrutiny has metamorphosed (ha, see what I did there) into a slot machine of relatively imperfect imagery.

Grainy, blurry photos, pixelated and hyper-zoomed in, the perfect flat lays of meals have been replaced with flash photography of half-eaten pasta and leftovers. And it’s not uncommon to come across the occasional crying selfie – puffy eyes, greasy hair, and everything. So, what happened to the so-called Instagram aesthetic?