For the last day of my most recent Spring Break trip, my friends and I decided to take a stop in the Windwood Walls Art District of Miami. For the past six months, our Instagram feeds were constantly littered with photos from the Wynwood Walls, a walk in this district filled with eccentric art that had constantly intrigued me. Although not the most intricate, the most infamous of these pieces of art was the Wynwood Gate. Every couple of weeks, I saw pictures of girls at UF posing in front of this gate filled with beautiful flowers of every shade, so much so that the gate beneath was invisible. It was a given that we'd take a picture in front of this gate, too.
We couldn't have picked a more perfect day. As we rounded the first corner of the walk, we were struck with a beautiful mural of a woman nursing her child. It was done in many different shades of gray, blue and red, and was much larger than us. It was really a breath-taking work of art … and then we turned to our left.
On the other side of this corner was a small, decrepit little gate with flowers stuck inside of it. There were maybe six and a half feet of flowers, and half of the gate was roped off. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that these beautiful flowers we had seen on our feeds and timelines weren't even real, and were haphazardly stuck in a wire fencing that covered the gate.
“This is the infamous gate?" One of my friends remarked, “This is such a good example of how people make their lives seem more interesting on Instagram. I thought that the flowers were at least real."
We stared at it for a moment, but ultimately decided we had to take our picture with it too. And when we did, we made sure they turned out just as the ones on our Instagram feeds had. Our finished products looked a little something like this …
At the time, I didn't understand why we felt so compelled to take pictures with such a pathetic piece of work when a stunning mural was right next to it (which we took no pictures with, I regret to say). We insulted the gate just prior to jumping in front of it and making sure we had the right angle. I didn't understand then why it was so important to me to do this. I thought about it and wondered: did I really take this picture for myself, or simply so others would see it? It didn't take long for me to know it was the latter reason.
In this day and age, we only take photos for others. We insist on a good angle, a good shot, something that makes us look more interesting. In all humans, there is an inherent desire to belong. These days we do this by making our lives look as amazing as possible. We ignore the simple beauty of the world around us when we insist on making things look “insta worthy." Instead of marveling at the stunning art of the Wynwood Walls, we spent half our time posing for pictures in front of a gate that wasn't actually a piece of art at all. By becoming so absorbed in our social media, we became numb to the world around us.
One thing I've learned over the years is that the picture subtracts from the memory. Sure, we immortalize a moment in a photo. Yet by focusing so much on getting the right shot, we forget why we appreciate beauty in the first place. When we put the phone or camera away we see things for ourselves and not for others. In doing this, we appreciate artwork, nature or whatever it may be in the most rewarding way possible. As opposed to seeing it as an opportunity for likes, we see it as it truly is. This view immortalizes an image in our memory, something that will long outlast what others see for only a few hours on their timelines.
