Mar
2019
Week One.
THE APPROPRIATION OF CONTENT THROUGH NETWORKED IMAGERY
Due to it being recognised as the primary platform of discussion for Networked Media this semester, Instagram will hence become my primary focus for my week one blog. As a lover of this social media application, I was happy to discover we would be studying Instagram in detail during the course. Throughout the last decade, I have seen this app thrive and grow. More friends have created new Instagram accounts than Facebook accounts.
In fact, I created an Instagram account before I even wished to create a Facebook account!
I was excited by the aesthetics that could be created through Instagram; how photos told the story about a person rather than just words. However, as platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr become popular, I began to realise how visual content can be appropriated through it’s networking. As stated in Sabine Niederer’s text ‘Networked Images:visual methodologies for the digital age,’ “online images become ‘networked’ when users like, share, comment or tag them, and also when platforms and engines format, filter, feed and recommend them to others” (Niederer, 2018). Through this networking system, millions of viewers are able to take such content from any platform and use it for personal gain. For example, the rise in meme accounts on Instagram has led to the discussion of these users “stealing” content from Twitter and Reddit, without crediting the original owner or author of the content.
Upon researching a bit more into this, I came across an Instagram account which I do in fact follow myself, called “FuckJerry.”
User @FuckJerry has recently become under fire for stealing content from comedians off other platforms, and profiting off of it through the likes of advertising.
This account is not alone. Thousands of meme/comedy accounts on Instagram are doing the exact same thing. As Niederer discusses further in the reading, the existence of mass production of imagery on social media platforms is due to the act of appropriation; “Studying
the ways in which such publics repurpose existing images (e.g., by turning them
into memes or creatively appropriating them by using filters and other visual
and textual elements), provides new insights into the dynamic user cultures of a
particular platform,” (Niederer, 2018). Yet, users aren’t simply turning what they find into memes. They are without remorse stealing content for personal growth in profit and followers (FuckJerry currently has 14M followers, 300k less than when the Fast Company article was written a month ago.)
This is an interesting issue which I would enjoy delving deeper into as I learn more about Instagram and how it work’s within this networked media culture.
READING: Niederer, S 2018, Networked images: visual methodologies for the digital age. Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam. (read pp.1-20)