Types of Instagram Friends
by LARA MILLS
1 The one who only uses Instagram to post pictures of him/herself partying.
Photos look like: people, people, people, people, beer.
I say: I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, give me some.
2 The one who takes glorious photos with Instagram but consistently blurs out everything except his/her intended subject.
Photos look like: What might be the most stunning cliffside view of a foreign country you have ever seen except the cliffs are all blurry and the ocean waves are a smear in favor of highlighting one travel companion or significant other on the crest of that cliff who is permitted such exquisite detail by the Instagrammer that you can read the sports team motif on their trusty sunworn baseball hat.
I say: Your composition is so good that your intended subjects will be naturally highlighted. Please don't be paranoid and controlling and instead let us enjoy every detail of your wonderful photographs.
3 The one who only uses Instagram to post pictures of his/her family, family home, and family traditions in celebration of their wonderful family.
Photos look like: people, dog, cake, mom's pie in the window, dad being goofy, two or more relatives wearing matching costumes.
I say: I am so happy for you that your family is perfect but I live ten thousand miles away from mine plus we're really not cute or into each other or even ever really talk so I'm going to ignore these representations of the perfect American family but thanks for the assertion despite all my years of denial that the archetype actually does exist.
4 The one who lives in a foreign country and has fun relating daily street life back to friends at home.
Photos look like: Street food carts, adorable foreign babies, weekend trips into badass equatorial nature.
I say: Oops sorry this is me and about a dozen of my Instagram friends so I don't know how this comes off but people seem to like us okay. I admit it always makes me a little sad to share a foreign country with more adventurous travelers than I am whose Instagrams present some of the most stunning pictures of places I actually have access to by living out here but will never visit because I missed out on some weekend trip or another.
5 The one who somehow manages to take bad photographs with Instagram.
Photos look like: Zoomed-in latte foam which looks like rolls of naked human body fat; a chicken-shaped napkin holder on a table with its shadow; rotting oranges.
I say: I do not know how you manage to create such terrible images with the easiest, most intuitive photo editing software available on the market. Let’s reevaluate how you see the world and begin again with an online photography tutorial on composition and possibly a stronger glasses prescription.
6 Foodies
Photos look like: Perfectly arranged hyper-zoomed deliciousness framed by black or scrubbed-out white borders.
I say: How do you have so much free time on your hands to cook and consume such incredible meals seemingly every single day? You make me feel like an unhomely mess and I hate you and on top of that I'm hungry now but I don't want to eat peanut butter and jelly for the fifth day in a row so your picture of melon-ensconced prosciutto on a bed of radicchio leaves is making me want to go to the hypermarket in rushhour Jakartan traffic with a 100 degree typhoid-induced fever.
7 The one who thinks that hashtagged captions create grammatical sentences.
Photos look like: Oh, anything.
I say: #You #have #norespect #for #your #followers #if #you #think #wearewillingtoreadallyourhashtags #plus #ITDOESNTEVENWORK #if #you #are #makinguphastags #totes #random #whatevs. Double curses if they import their Instagram hashtags into facebook’s newsfeed because that doesn’t even make sense leave us alone.
8 The one who can use the word "selfie" in every day conversation with a straight face.
Photos look like: One big head at an angle plus half an arm backed by some famous historic monument or beautiful nature or at its worst, nothing particularly discernible.
I say: I'm biased against needlessly abbreviating the English language and especially abbreviations which just tack on a lazy "-y" suffix or its sonic equivalent so I find the word "selfie" inherently annoying. But I like you or else I wouldn't be following you on Instagram, so I do want to see your face in interesting places and will use selective blinders on your super hip hashtags because my word bias is my problem. However if you are taking pictures of yourself in a mirror again and again and then again in a different mirror then you are using up the wrong app's bandwidth.
9 The one who is really into his or her budding nuclear family.
Photos look like: Happy homebodies cheerfully snapping pictures with their significant others and especially their dog and in another year or two probably their baby(ies).
I say: Luckily my friends aren't child-bearing yet (though they're close!) yet a streak have lately adopted their first official relationship dogs which I guess is a precursor to toddlers except way more destructive given how many slobbered-beyond-recognition shoes or leery-looking beagles with a chew toy are popping up on my Instagram feed lately. Also I am not a huge fan of being subjected to a relationship's whole lifecycle from those initial months of cutesie look-where-we-are-together pictures through to dour shots of rain-soaked windows and ice cream tubs and breakup-friendly cats but this is another area where I realize that how you use the platform is your prerogative so good luck to you and I hope you find catharsis in at least making the pictures pretty.
10 The one who really likes his or her cat(s).
Photos look like: Cats looking grumpy, piled on top of each other, or snuggled in a lap in a carefully-framed self*e.
I say: Wouldn't it be fun if Instagram let us add big block Impact font letters to photos to insta-meme the cat pictures but then also everyone agreed to use one specific hashtag for all of their attempts and then Instagram let me filter out that single hashtag so I never actually had to look at them? That might work.
Lara Mills is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Jakarta. You can find her website here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.
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