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Confronting White Supremacy in Photography
It took me a while to get into Instagram. I joined Instagram in 2012 and put some really basic photos on there just to keep the account open. My thought process was that Instagram was entering an already crowded social media world. I didn’t need one more account. I can share photos on Facebook.
But in 2018, I see the value in Instagram. It allows me to share what I’m working on with the public while keeping my Facebook account accessible only to my high school classmates, college colleagues, and my chainmail-sending uncle (I love you, uncle, but I’m not passing this to ten other people). I’m reluctant to add people I’ve never met to my Facebook, but I’ll add random Instagram followers all day.
I almost exclusively follow other photographers, filmmakers, and artists. I also love to follow various hashtags and subjects. But I started to notice a pattern: with the exception of filmmaker geargasms, cute dogs, and “celebrity” appearances, Instagram photos are disturbingly similar.
You know what does extremely well on Instagram? Pretty white people doing pretty white people things. Yeah, there are hashtags like #blackart, #melaninpoppin, and #latinx, but it’s a natural resistance to all the images with pretty 20-something white girls in gorgeous places. Instagram isn’t even close to Black Twitter status. This happens because…