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This weekend I saw a great cartoon depicting two teenage girls on their omni-present smart phones and one is saying “When I make eye contact for the first time, I want it to be with the right person.” Sharp, satirical and prescient.
A couple of weeks ago I commented that I wasn’t overly concerned about the blogging industry being in the pockets of the corporate as I believed everyone realises this and isn’t taken in by the fake nature of the implicit advertising. And I still believe it.
The fastest growing social network, Instagram, is a site where, predominantly children and teenagers, post their photos and get their friends & followers to rate them. It’s the modern day equivalent of posting a piccie to your European pen-friend, except far more popular and far less time-consuming. By default, I’d also wager far less rewarding for everyone concerned! So why should we be surprised when it turns out it’s also a site where corporate retail choose to boost their brands by paying the key influencers? The fashionistas, foodies and fitties peddling their impossibly perfect lives to the gullible and all-consuming public? No sh*t, Sherlock!
So, when Australian blogger Essena O’Neill came clean to her 600,000 supporters about not buying that dress, being paid to use that particular lipstick, feeling guilty about dancing the corporate waltz, and not really enjoying the ‘hot’ Instagram life at all, who exactly did she think she’d been duping? Yes, it sells product, yes it promotes ‘the brand’ but poor Essena is truly deluded if she thought anyone, whatever their age, was taken in for one second concerning her motives. The issue is more about the youth of today being in thrall to shallow materialism, for which the vast majority of us need to accept the blame & responsibility, and realise Instagram is merely this year’s messenger.
I heard an interesting quote on yesterday’s Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time (I know, I know) regarding when was the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago and now, was the answer. At the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious, time to start seeding a few trees me-thinks…
