I Love Instagram: let's play nice

So Instagram's android app was released yesterday. Yay. More people to join the community. Or so you would think. But today and even later last night, I read tweets and stories about how 'iPhone' people are angry at the thought of 'Android' people being on Instagram. How very fucking idiotic can you get eh? There's also those who just criticise it without taking the time to have a look and see what it's all about. Granted, there is loads and loads of shite on there, as with every other social media platform you get. But the cream always rises to the top and you can choose who you follow, so if you don't like their photos don't follow them. Simple. In the same way that if you are seeing Instagram links in your Twitter feed, because the natural thing to do is to share these photos in several different ways, well if that bothers you then don't click the link to view the photo. Simple too.

In saying that there are a few tiny things that bother me about Instagram. In fact it's got nothing to do with the Instagram app itself because I love it and have been on there since day one, but it's the way people are using it. Kevin Systrom (Instagram CEO and co-founder) said recently "We've been very careful about making sure that Instagram photos are about what's happening right now in your life, and we want to allow for more of those photos to end up on Instagram regardless of where they're taken."

And therein lies the thing that niggles away at me. More and more people seem to be taking the instant nature away and are uploading photos that are not in the moment nor are they happening in your life right. In fact they are most probably scenes that happened months or years ago. And more often than not they are photos that have quite obviously been taken with a digital camera or SLR, tweaked, uploaded to Instagram and tweaked even more. And that bugs me. It just niggles away for some reason. The pure, instant, happening right now nature is then taken away and for me so is a little bit of the magic in most of those photos. I mean they are quite good photos (most of them), there's no denying that, but the fact that Instagram is a mobile phone app, whether it be an iPhone and now an Android phone so to me I couldn't think about taking a pre-shot photo and loading it. Use Flickr or something for those shots! Maybe that's just me though.

Whilst we're here I should also add that many many many many lists and lists and lists of hashtags (#) is a bit naff, to say the least. I know that you tag things so that other people can see them but how many actual #Instagram hastags do you need on a photo? Here are some examples #Instagram #IG #Igers #Ignation #bestphoto #igdaily There are more but #popular is also used too. Now, there is a Popular section on Instagram. I'm not sure if using #popular tag gets you on there or how they pick them. Edit: i've just checked the Popular section and can confirm that none of the photos i checked had used the #popular tag. Surely it's up to your followers (or likers) to make your photo popular?.... Less is more people, less is more.

Anyway, I've gone too far on the things that bug me. Rest assured that Instagram along with Camera+ are my two favourite iPhoneography apps. Love them. And let's not start little cliques of Android versus iPhone users. That's just plain silly. We are all in this together. Play nice.

Angela x
Instagram ID: Ange77H