Considering how photography is being experienced, with a consequent loss of value, it also occurred to me that more than a loss, there’s been a mutation of that value into something else.
The main use of social media like Instagram is mostly to grow hordes of followers, therefore the real objective is not photography itself but the number of followers. There are a few techniques to help the process, nevertheless, the main vehicle is still the photographs that fill up the feeds.
When the images become a value in order to achieve a second purpose (the real one), the images themselves cease to have a photographic quality. The heterogony of ends is what describes this situation in a rather accurate way.
Besides automated tools created to increase the number of followers (bots), there are methods that people regularly use. The mechanism is really simple: I like your image if you like mine, I start following you, counting on the fact that you will follow me (and later, I’ll unfollow).
The consequence of this approach is that images are now being used as a currency value.
For reasons discussed here, and for the fact that images on social media can also assume a currency quality, it follows that they can hardly be considered photographs anymore.
Not even in the best-case scenario (e.g., when we look at some honest photography) we can consider what we perceive as a true photographic experience, if we consider the nature of the platform where we experience it.
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