The Aesthetic Movement Sparked by Instagram | Knowledge #12

In recent sociology and media history, the concept of 'culture' is widely used to characterize the behaviors and beliefs of groups at specific times and places. Culture has expanded with the rise of new media, particularly evident in online photo-sharing platforms like Instagram.

Research by renowned digital media scholar Lev Manovich reveals the diversity of photographic culture and the complexity of identity construction on these platforms.

Today, Instagram serves as a platform where users individually construct and share their aesthetic definitions with a global audience. However, in the early days of digital media research, Instagram was often viewed as a monoculture of globally disseminated photographs.

According to Lev Manovich's research, it is now suggested that users with diverse attributes utilize Instagram, forming and expanding diverse photographic cultures from the aesthetic essence extracted from these interactions. Consequently, Instagram has evolved from its initial perception into a multicultural platform encompassing diverse cultures shaped by individual contributions.

The research employed deep learning to detect 1,000 types of content from a dataset of over 100,000 images on Instagram, comparing visual styles and aesthetic characteristics geographically. Specifically, it involved original visualization techniques, data clustering, and multi-class classification to compare sample pools uploaded in five cities.

The study highlights Instagram as a driver of aesthetic movements through diverse styles expressed via different subjects, compositions, color palettes, and contrasts. Like a fluid or living organism, new trends and styles spread rapidly, allowing users to express themselves flexibly and creatively. The process of forming individual identities through such photography is much simpler than music production, with many young people shaping and expressing themselves through various subcultures and fashion styles.

Instagram functions as a stage for innovative aesthetic movements, creating instantly changing personalities through photography and serving as a venue where diverse identities merge through different stylings and perspectives. It can be seen as a fluid, ever-evolving platform for expression.