A social media party: Instagram is ten years old today. The photo app started in 2010 as a platform for (amateur) photographers to share snapshots of their surroundings, with or without a filter that gave the vintage effect of a Polaroid photo.
Ten years later, about 1 billion people a month post many photos and videos on the social platform.
The app was launched on October 6, 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. That day 25,000 users signed up, after six weeks the app had 1 million users.
No existing photos on Instagram
At that time, the app could only be used via iPhones. An Instagrammer could not load existing photos into the app, but only use the app to take photos and share them – with or without an effect – on the platform.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian Instagram was the first social medium to really understand how important the smartphone had become. Twitter and Facebook were much more focused on desktop use in the early years of Instagram.
Metro also has its own account, of course.
Birth of the influencer
Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for $ 1 billion. This changed the app’s revenue model, which transformed from a hip photo app into a social medium that would increasingly dominate public life. The sentence ‘Do it for the ‘gram‘- doing something that looks impressive to be able to share it on Instagram – was taken up by the online slang dictionary in 2013 the Urban Dictionary. It meant the birth of influencers: people who earn their money by promoting a certain lifestyle and associated brands.
Some people only discover Instagram in their tenth year, such as the popular IC doctor Diederik Gommers last week (at the insistence of Famke Louise, so that he wants to spread his message about the corona virus among young people). It earned him 251,000 followers in a few days.
Self-image of young people
The app’s audience was getting younger. According to statistics platform Statista, two thirds of Instagram users are currently 34 years old or younger. More than a third are younger than 24 years old. This also increased concerns about the effect of Instagram and other social media on the self-image of young people. According to the recently released documentary The Social Dilemma the number of hospital admissions of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 for self-harm is said to be 70 percent higher than in 2010 and for girls aged 10 to 14 years this is even 189 percent. Filters and Photoshop would cause a negative self-image.
Social organizations find Instagram
But there are also various social organizations that have found a large audience for their message, partly thanks to Instagram. There were several ‘challenges’ that went around like wildfire, such as the ‘ice bucket challenge’ in 2014 where people challenged each other to empty a bucket of ice water over their heads, to film this and also to donate money to a foundation that commitment to fighting the muscle disease ALS. The hashtag #icebucketchallenge was used 694,000 times.
Black Lives Matter
According to the American newspaper The New York Times The campaign raised more than $ 115 million and thanks to that money researchers have discovered a gene linked to the disease. On the platform, 28 million people supported the Black Lives Matter movement by posting a photo of a black square on #BlackOutTuesday.
Although the action was later also criticized, the platform remained an important way for the movement to raise concerns.
Also read: David Attenborough (94) creates Instagram, half a million followers within 2 hours
Spotted a mistake? Mail us. We are grateful to you.
Reply to article:
Hoera! Instagram has been around for ten years now