Lift selfies, lobster porn and pool feet: how Instagram redefined the summer
Lift selfies, lobster porn and pool feet: how Instagram redefined the summer
Instagram is to summer what the John Lewis advert is to Christmas. Just as that first hit of small-screen schmaltz puts us into Christmas mode (equal parts consumerist fervour and hashtag-friendly nostalgia #blessed), your Instagram feed now fires the starting gun on summer. Once upon a time, you knew the change in season by the cooing of the first turtle dove; now, it’s the ping alerting you to the 14th my-new-pedicure-and-sandals selfie of the day. Whereas once you just needed a lunchtime shopping trip for a new bikini and a pile of paperbacks to prep for your holiday, you now need to update your Instagram look. For instance: you do know, don’t you, that the “sunglasses and phones in the middle of the table” picture has overtaken last year’s “shoes in a circle” as the hot group-shot meme? Phew. And that skyscrapers should always be shot from pavement level, and your lunch from directly above? And that’s just the start …
The wing of the plane
Those people who post their flight details on Twitter (LAX >> LHR, or whatever) – what’s that about? By all means text your mum your flight number, but the rest of us really do not need to know. Anyway, the Instagram version of this is, naturally, prettier. Find a window seat with a nicely framed wing-tip view against soulful clouds. In the same way that the sweeping aerial shot of a night-time city from above is a classic opener for an urban movie, the plane window shot is a scene setter for the incoming Instagram slideshow of your travels. If you are in first class, you can annoy absolutely every single one of your followers by substituting this for a photo inside the cabin, with telltale flat bed/boarding pass with Seat 1A “casually” in shot. (Handy tip: don’t.)
Fierce “squad” group shot
Smiling is, like, so basic. Nobody smiles when they are having fun any more. The all-together-now photo from a night out is a classic – some of us are old enough to remember the days when, in order to do this, your most responsible friend would bring their camera – but it’s no longer enough to put your arms around each other and grin. As if! And no, you can’t do duckface, either: that’s only slightly less lame, being straight-up 2014. In 2015, you have to be fierce and/or silly. Both is best. Start with what Paddington Bear calls a Hard Stare. Flex your bicep in mock-Popeye style, take a Beyoncé-on-stage feet-planted-wide stance. If possible, arrange your friends in a graphic pose: Alexa Chung and friends made a human pyramid on the beach; Taylor Swift and Haim hiked along a riverbed until they found exactly the right number of photogenic boulders to straddle in hotpants and sneakers. Let’s be honest: if you want to achieve your Squad Goals, holidays can be hard work.
The half-lobster holiday food-porn shot
The fashionable Instagrammer is much more concerned with colour combinations than Michelin stars. Avocado on rye toast has become a hipster obsession mainly because it is so much more aesthetically pleasing than, say, poached eggs on toast (delicious to eat, but looks unappealing on camera). So much so that avocado has, arguably, jumped the shark. Key summer food Instagram memes: fish and chips, in Cornish-type setting, held by someone looking slightly chilly in a Breton-stripe top. Platter of grilled prawns/lobster, sandy beach visible beneath the scrubbed wooden table. Food that looks good on Instagram all year round: doughnuts and sliders (good graphic shapes), heritage tomatoes (colour), bowls of yogurt swirled with berries and honey. Unwritten rules include: photos of green juice are only acceptable and not totally annoying if hashtagged #hungover.
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