Since Instagram’s launch in 2010, it has become—in my opinion at least—the ultimate online platform for the sharing of photographic content that are both “real time” yet also carefully calculated. ‘Filters and square frames, part of Instagram’s initial affordances made millions of people … feel like they were crafting photographs that suggested professionalism’ (Leaver, Highfield & Abidin 2020, p. 12). By monetizing one’s daily life for a living through digital activities, influencers then perform a new type of labour in a neo-liberal economy (Abidin & Cover 2019). They engage with their followers in physical and digital spaces—with the latter being especially prominent during the pandemic—monetizing their following by integrating advertorials into their Instagram posts.
This time around, I’ll be using 2 Instagram influencers as my case study; Molita who’s based in Indonesia, and Alisha who’s based in America, with the objective of finding out if there are any significant aesthetic differences—in terms of brand deals in a cultural context—and what these differences may be. Just a quick thought though, based on the Indonesian and American Instagram influencers that I do follow, I can already make a mental list of aspects in which they both differ. But to make that argument credible, I obviously need to research for more evidence in support of it to seek validation.
Back to the case study at hand, by comparing Molita and Alisha’s Instagram brand deals, right off the bat we can see a distinguishable difference in both their aesthetics. Molita’s aesthetic on the left leans more towards the “normalized aesthetic” I talked about last time. While Alisha’s aesthetic on the right is authored in a more “casual” manner in my opinion.
So one thing I’ve noticed is that although both influencers create content on Instagram and YouTube, Molita features more brand deals on Instagram, with little to almost no brand deals on YouTube as far as I can remember. And using the same example I used last time, just in this screenshot alone, I can already identify most of her Instagram posts promoting at least one brand or another.
To contextualise Molita’s Instagram brand deal, I’ve stumbled upon a relevant technical concept called ‘designed photos’ in a reading by Manovich (2017), that I think accurately describes Instagram’s “normalized aesthetic”. Similarly, Khan (2017, cited in Astuti, Khasanah & Yoestini, 2020, p. 48) argues that items visually stand out more because of the number of filters used, and could automatically direct one’s attention to it, therefore influencing subsequent preferences that play an important factor in the case of impulse buying. Furthermore, I’ve also come across the term ‘visibility labour’ coined by Abidin (2016, p. 90) which is ‘the work individuals do when they self-posture and curate their self- presentations so as to be noticeable and positively prominent among … followers and fans’. This then begs the question; is slapping on a filter necessarily equivalent to one being inauthentic? What exactly is considered “authentic”; is it ‘authenticity labour’ (how producers intend to be perceived) or rather ‘authenticity consumption’ (how audiences perceive authenticity), and is it is fully possible to achieve “authenticity” in the digital world we live in (Maares, Banjac & Hanusch 2021, p. 9)?
Moving on, I find it interesting that Alisha on the other hand features more brand deals on YouTube. These are 2 examples that I remember at the top of my head, of Alisha collaborating with Casetify and Sony in 2 of her vlogs.
From the same Manovich reading, I’ve also happened to come across another technical concept called ‘casual photos’. The reading also states that out of the manually tagged sample of dataset, the findings show that the proportion of ‘casual photos’ is at a whopping 80%, while that of designed photos only sits at 9% (Manovich 2017, p. 50).
So I think that an example of Alisha’s Instagram brand deal ties in nicely with the concept of ‘casual photos’ (Manovich 2017) in my opinion because you could say that she’s documenting and sharing her experience of a typical self care day in her life; wearing a robe with a cup of coffee in hand and putting on a beauty mask that just so happens to be a brand she’s endorsing. I also think that it is considered “casual” in terms of the authoring process, in a sense that it may not be as heavily edited as that of Molita’s seen previously. Moreover, what I also find interesting is that out of the 2000 something posts of hers, I literally had to scroll through her Instagram feed only to find 9 Instagram brand deals so far, which probably speaks volumes.
Based on what I have summarized so far, my critical essay then aims to explore the key question: “Should Instagram brand deals in this particular instance be authored following Manovich’s (2017) idea of ‘designed photos’ or ‘casual photos’?”. I’ll just leave this question as food for thought.
Reference List:
Abidin, C 2016, ‘Visibility labour: Engaging with Influencers’ fashion brands and #OOTD advertorial campaigns on Instagram’, Media International Australia, vol. 161, no. 1, pp. 86-100
Abidin, C & Cover, R 2019, ‘Gay, famous and working hard on YouTube: Influencers, queer microcelebrity publics and discursive activism.’, Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship, pp. 217-231
Astuti, SRT, Khasanah, I & Yoestini 2020, ‘Study of impulse buying on Instagram users in Indonesia’, Diponegoro International Journal of Business, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 47-54
Leaver, T, Highfield, T & Abidin, C 2020, ‘Instagram : Visual Social Media Cultures’, pp. 12-16
Maares, P, Banjac, S & Hanusch, F 2021, ‘The labour of visual authenticity on social media: Exploring producers’ and audiences’ perceptions on Instagram’, Poetics, pp. 1-10
Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, pp. 50-67
