We've all seen it-- those perfect eyebrows to offset a well contoured face, full lips, popping highlight, and lustful lashes. You have probably seen some version of this face on Instagram, YouTube, or other social media platforms. Girls everywhere are oftentimes becoming synonymous creatures, created in their own molds to look like Kim Kardashian West. Of course, the thirty-second time-lapsed Instagram videos of hot girls swatching their new Kylie Lip Kit are videos that nearly everyone, including myself, indulge in watching regularly. However, is creating an American standard of beauty ultimately an example and precursor of the untimely death of creativity? The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the aforementioned inquisition may very well prove to be true.
As a photographer, I spend a lot of time sharing my photographs on social media, with a specification in Instagram. I believe that it is due to just about everyone to integrate some form of art throughout their daily life. I try to, especially as of late, generate images that are not thoroughly altered. I typically bump up the contrast and exposure of the picture to ensure that the viewer can wholly see what it is that I saw when I fired the shutter, but that is about it. In addition, I utilize my Instagram captions to pose a possible truth, thought, or question regarding what it is that I am viewing and its relation to the world. However, when I graduate college with a degrees in English and Business, employers are not going to look at the online social media platform that I use to dispense my images to the greater world, they will instead look at the manner in which I can be creative or original in my thoughts and processes, as I have listed in my resume and cover letter. So why the hell are we spending so much time on social media? And is it killing our creativity?
From browsing many art-forms that interest me, I have continually been bombarded with a "more of the same" ideology on social media, especially Instagram. From the makeup tutorials that I talked about earlier to uninspiring photography littered with God-forsaken fairy lights, mason jars, hot girls, and reflections are altogether killing my creative vibe. Seeing artists imitate one another is a matter that honestly abhors me. To be honest, the simple fact of the matter is that artists, or those who produce a sort of medium conveyed to the populace, are intended to be creators and innovators, rather than imitators. The cliche that "imitation is the highest form of flattery" may be true, but imitation is not the means by which society can progress themselves. Those who claim to be artists have the obligation to express their own individuality. Individuality comes from an experience of the world that requires those who pursue it to express themselves in a manner that invokes their audience to think critically. Generating cookie cutter clones of Instagrammed "perfection" is not the manner in which creativity is reclaimed. One must innovate themselves by the manner in which they percieve this world.
