In today’s fast-paced world, and following the movement of the global pandemic, the more traditional practices of advertising and brand endorsements are branching out into something intangible, interweaved in a web of networks. Known to man as the world wide web, social media plays a huge role in this digital space. For this particular instance, I will be talking about Instagram’s “normalized aesthetic” in relation to brand-related content posted by one of Indonesia’s many fashion and beauty influencers on the platform, Molita Lin. To tie this in with the course, this idea includes certain media practices that are being implemented in order to achieve a particular form of aesthetic. ‘Each platform has its own vernacular that shapes content and context’ (Gibbs et al. 2015). Therefore, it could be said that apps reinforce a sense of practice.
With Instagram being a photo and video sharing social networking site, the platform is more often than not associated with the idea of the “normalized aesthetic”. ‘Platform vernacular draws attention to how particular genres and stylistic conventions emerge within social networks and how – through the context and process of reading – registers of meaning and affect are produced’ (Gibbs et al. 2015, p. 258). Therefore, since this idea is technically subjective to each individual, and using Molita as a case study, my take on the “normalized aesthetic” would be a “clean-looking and minimalistic” kind of look as can be seen in the 3 photos above. Furthermore, ‘the vernacular of a platform is also shaped by the mediated practices and communicative habits of users’ (Gibbs et al. 2015, p. 257). And so there’s this term called “Rinsta”, or real Instagram, which is often referring to one’s main account; it is tightly curated with one’s polished, idealised self for a wide audience to see. ‘Events and activities become measured through their Instagrammable quality as part of broader tensions around user creativity’ (Lamarre 2017, p. 24).
Speaking of the practices involved in achieving Instagram’s “normalized aesthetic”—and this is according to how Molita does it as she once explained in her Instastories—once a picture is taken, it is then edited in a third-party app called Adobe Lightroom, whether it’s just applying a preset—and basically a Lightroom preset is like an Instastory filter—or editing the raw images according to the preferred style, and then it’s finally posted on Instagram. This might be quite a hassle for those who just want to casually and randomly post content without giving it much—if any—thought at all. But maybe to Molita, it is something that just makes sense in her life. I can second this idea. I too have been guilty of jumping on the bandwagon in downloading and trying out various third-party apps “that everybody uses to edit their photos”, like Lightroom, Facetune or VSCO. However, they actually prove to be useful in the end for different purposes. I use them quite a lot, even though initially I never thought I would. So as I’ve previously mentioned, apps reinforce practice. To wrap this up nicely, the process that goes on behind posting content on Instagram could actually be quite tedious and intricate, especially if you’re a perfectionist.
For Molita, creating an Instagram account started—and still continues to be—where she shares photos and videos of her day to day life. But focusing on brand-related posts specifically, aside from having an “aesthetic” feed to suit her own style and preference, I remember her saying that brands tend to prefer and almost “demand” her, and influencers alike, to author their posts in such a way. But I’m going to expose myself a little here by saying that I almost always gauge the quality, or my personal rating of something, based on how “aesthetic” it is, be it through the packaging’s design itself, or how it is portrayed through a post. So essentially, the more “aesthetic”, the better.
However, there may be some backlash being brought up as a result of this. First is the idea of Photoshop edits, as can be seen from the screenshot on the right taken from one of Molita’s Instastories.
So she probably edits her picture in a certain way to be able to say that the product that she’s endorsing, has worked on her, or maybe she edits herself to look better in an endorsed piece of clothing. And from this other screenshot on the left, there was actually one point in Molita’s life where she openly expressed and talked about her Instagram “burnout”, which is somewhat reflected through her Instagram feed, such as not editing her photos the way she normally does to have the usual aesthetically pleasing look, or having little to no brand-related posts, but are rather quite random and personal, like ones with friends and family. This may or may not necessarily be tied to what I said previously about brands demanding so much of her. But despite all this, I’m still able to find the notion of the “normalized aesthetic” somewhat acceptable, in the context of it being part of Molita’s work at least.
References:
Gibbs, M., Meese, J., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Carter, M. 2015, ‘#Funeral and Instagram: Death, social media, and platform vernacular, Information, Communication & Society, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 255-268
LaMarre, T. 2017, ‘Platformativity: Media studies, area studies’, Asiascape: Digital Asia, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 1-31
