Barbie has joined the Instagram world, and she's quickly showing us all how much better she is. Hipster Barbie is living her authentic life to the fullest.
Many people use social media as a way to connect with their friends and family, but recently social networking sites have developed their own sub-communities. In this case Barbie is part of the travel and hipster communities. She's a fan of the outdoorsy, nature-inspired shots or the "so happy to be alive" posts.
These new cultures or communities have placed an even higher importance on getting "likes." According to TechCrunch, Instagram's culture specifically "has made self-obsession pretty much the norm, as people often strive to boil an entire week of their lives into a single photo, ignoring the less glamorous moments, and thereby portraying their lives in a more monochrome filter than inkwell."
The account was created by a Portland photographer, who wishes to remain anonymous, after being inspired by seeing the same photos with the same inspirational captions on social media by users who think they are being unique.
Hipster Barbie has garnered attention from news outlets nationwide and also has 807,000 followers. The creator spoke of the success in Wired saying, “I get it, it’s pretty to look at, but it’s so dishonest. Nobody actually lives like this. And it’s so overdone that it’s becoming boring.”
Instagram is trying to capture the beauty in life, but life has become so manufactured that even Barbie can live a fulfilling social media life and she's plastic. Offline society has become boring, unless we can capture and contrive the moment to appeal to our followers. The simple task of going to a coffee shop or cooking dinner must now be Instagram-worthy.
Our hashtag and like-centered mindset tells us to #neverstopexploring and to live a #lifeofadventure, but the adventure is lost and we're not exploring we are simply recreating and manufacturing. We're not being original. We're trying to show how well we can fit in the box that society has given us.
We are so afraid to be viewed as boring or imperfect that we create an illusion of ourselves, but we're not fooling anyone.
Editing pictures does not make you a bad person or fake, but more often than not people are now manipulating their whole life around the perfect picture instead of being in the moment.
For example the travel-Instagram post: you're on vacation and instead of wanting to explore you must first document the moment on social media or it's like it never happened.
If we are #LivingAuthentic how is it that a plastic doll can be recreating our same moments?
The answer is that we are turing towards likes and hashtag to give our life meaning, but we will never find the true way to live authentic by being plastic on social media.
