‘Instagram-worthy’ is undoubtedly my least favorite buzz phrase in the travel sphere these days. It suggests quite strongly that nabbing a photo that will explode with likes on the ‘gram is the best (if not the only) reason to visit a place.
In short, it goes against pretty much everything I stand for as a traveler.
The need to brag about your latest getaway in the form of a tiny curated square has turned travel into a spectacle and a glorified photo-op rather than the meaningful, fruitful experience it should be. It’s hard to learn about the ruins you’re oh-so-candidly frolicking around when your face is buried in your camera screen, making sure the last set of portraits you took in front of, uh, “Where are we again?” weren’t overexposed.
The above anecdote might be funny if it wasn’t one I’d experienced just a few weeks ago. While visiting the ruins of Monte Albán, one of the most important archeological sites in the Oaxaca Valley in southern Mexico, we stumbled upon a group of three girls it was obvious had no intentions of learning about the sacred grounds they were tromping through. They snapped photo after photo for one another, posing this way then that way; “Now hold your hat! Now look to your left!”
How many girls have gone out of their way (and their travel budget) to buy long flowing dresses, hats they’ll never wear again, or the perfect shade of reflective lens sunglasses, all in the hopes of being featured as a #dametraveler? These glorified Instagram props are not the average travel accessories–at least, they weren’t when I began backpacking half a decade ago–and I doubt they are even today.
Most girls I know wear pants, for one, and rarely think to coordinate their outfit with whatever famous site they plan to see that day.
If I’d been active on Instagram when I hiked the Inca Trail five years ago, for instance, you would have seen the raw, unfiltered me. Sweaty, decked out in athletic gear, covered in bug bites, and sporting a cheap pair of shades I picked up in Cusco. I would have shared those moments not for the likes but because I was truly proud of my accomplishment; the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-of-Instagram mentality simply did not yet exist.
These days, it’s far more common to see people perfectly preened no matter where they are. As if we’re expected to believe they hiked to that glacial lake in a beautiful red dress whose color just so happens to pop brilliantly against the cerulean water.
I seem to recall a time when even the big influencers of Instagram posted fairly standard photos of themselves. Full makeup and a cute outfit were not required and people were still impressed with the actual destination, not how good the poster looked standing in front of it.
And good old-fashioned travel photography (you know, the kind where the traveler is the photographer, not the subject?) was much more common. Now it seems the quickest way for an account to gain popularity is for each and every new photo to contain the account holder in question–to put their beauty on display for others to admire, or at least their ability to take a well-framed looking-the-other-way GoPro selfie.
Don’t get me wrong, here–I have a lot of respect for photography as an art form and can appreciate photographers who take this approach, and I’m not about to pretend I’ve never gone out of my way for a beautiful shot. But it seems that Instagram, in making photography (and subsequent recognition as a ‘photographer’) accessible to everyone, has paved the way for people to practice “photography as narcissism” under the guise of “photography as art.”
I consider myself a pretty decent photographer, but on the grand spectrum of talent, I still fall somewhere between beginner and amateur; to call myself a photographer would be insulting to real, professional photographers, and that fact will not change no matter how many Instagram followers I rack up. The claim of ‘travel photographer’ becomes even more dubious when you’re the subject of every single one of your own photos.
I love creative photos that invoke strong emotions or convey feelings of whimsy–the vision required to dream up such images is a talent in its own right. I guess when it comes down to it, I just find it easier to respect artists who focus their lens on the destination more often than themselves.
Even worse in all of this is that many popular ‘Instagram-worthy’ destinations are actually suffering from the influx of travelers hoping to recreate images they’ve seen on the platform. Overcrowding is a real problem, and people are often putting themselves in dangerous and even deadly situations in the quest for the perfect shot. Tourism boards may be thrilled by the power of influencers, but with more and more people getting their travel inspiration from Instagram, there will likely continue to be unintended consequences.
What really concerns me the most, however, is that travel is no longer serving its highest purpose, which is to educate the traveler through experience and interactions with people. If the only goal of a trip is to create pretty pictures, how many learning opportunities are being overlooked in pursuit of that goal? How many chances to meet people and hear new perspectives are being missed because you’re preoccupied with your camera or phone?
It’s true that as a blogger with the desire to grow my own Instagram account, these facts are sometimes hard to reconcile with. Knowing that photos with me as the subject are generally the most popular means I do ask friends and strangers to take photos of me far more often than I’m comfortable with, and I’ve most certainly been known to tote around a tripod in order to take portraits myself.
And it’s not uncommon or dishonorable, whether blogger or not, to want to preserve memories of your travel moments, but you don’t want the effort to get them to overshadow the experience entirely. At the end of the day, the real challenge is finding an acceptable balance. Take your artistic ‘Instagram-worthy’ shots if you must–but don’t forsake the truly beautiful parts of travel in the process.
For me personally, I plan to make a few changes to the way I go about using Instagram in the future. I want to utilize the platform responsibly, in a manner that I respect–if it hurts my ability to hit new follower milestones, so be it.
For one, I will cease to use explicit geotags and opt instead for tagging the region. If people want to know the exact location, they can ask me for details. I will also work harder to photograph lesser-known places as a way to encourage others to do the same; my goal will be to create my own “Instagram-worthy” spots without inviting others to photograph the exact same thing.
I also plan to continue using Instagram as a place to spur insightful discussion; I’ve long been writing verbose captions that reveal behind-the-scenes details about my experience or my current thoughts and emotions, and connecting with my followers in this way has easily been my favorite part of using the platform.
Travel and photography go together like peanut butter and jam, and I’m not in the least suggesting that travelers stop sharing their experiences via Instagram. I just hope that collectively we can take a good hard look at our practices and figure out how we can begin to reduce our impact.
Are you active on Instagram? Has it changed the way you travel?
