A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE VANITY INSTAGRAM GIRLS
The internet is in an uproar over the list that Quote published last week with the 9 most vain Instagram girls. Among others, Olcay, Nikkie Plessen, Estelle Cruijff, and Kim Feenstra are in the spotlight and are being ‘named’ (as in: ridiculed) for their Instagram presence. And yes, well, Quote does have a point, but on the other hand, I find it very easy to score points.
Instagram is, after all, the platform for vanity. In fact, Instagram itself already shows a certain vanity. You find yourself and your own life so interesting that you believe everyone should be aware of it. The silly things in life are expertly left out (we already talked about that here) and the fun things become even more fun through the right editing or filters. Instagram is a collection of beautiful, fun, amazing things, and everyone is allowed or required to see it. So yes, talking about vain Instagram girls is, if you ask me, quite like kicking in an open door.
But that doesn't change the fact that some really do take it too far. What Quote mainly rants about are the supposedly unthought-out nonchalant poses that any reasonable person can see have a whole team of stylists behind them. Or at least; a lot of thought work. Especially Nikkie Plessen is very good at this, she can drape herself très casual on a couch from head to toe in designer pieces and then say something along the lines of “just hanging out after a hard day of work.” And I can't deny that I also get quite prickly about it.
Personally, I always try to add some sort of funny text to vain photos, to take away some of the vanity, like here for example. The same goes for clichéd photos. Put something non-clichéd underneath and then the whole thing is already a lot less annoying. At least, that's what I think. But well, it remains vain one way or another.
By the way, something new is happening in the vain Instagram world. Or at least, I suddenly notice it. Namely, the perfectly styled photo of a perfectly beautiful girl, who then very cheekily and oh-what-am-I-doing-now sticks out her tongue. But just the tip, see here, here or here. It is completely unclear to me why people do this, and I suspect this is a bit of the new duckface. It has the same advantages (slim face) but not the negative connotation. Because by now it is well known that a duckface is really quite hopeless, this tongue move seems not to have that label (yet).
All in all, yes, Instagram is intensely vain. But that's almost the same as saying it's so annoying to keep seeing baby photos on Facebook: quite obvious. I really hope that this silly tongue doesn't catch on because man, I'm already getting furious about it again. But oh well, that's at least for a new list of irritations.
