Is my life Instagram-worthy?

GOOGLE “Instagram-worthy” and you will see that the pursuit to create a stream of well-curated images that document one’s effortlessly fabulous life, is one of top obsessions among the urban, smartphone generation these days.

What is “Instagram-worthy”?

In essence, anything that is relatable, beautiful and awesome that will evoke emotions among one’s followers. But does it really matter?

I, for one, must confess that my Instagram posts consist of nothing more than micro-moments of my normal life as a young woman in her late twenties.

Apply photo filters and effects to add a shade of edginess to an image of an otherwise nondescript coffee? Been there, done that.

Documenting a visit to a new spot in town through a filtered image? Done that a gazillion times.

Smartphones and the Internet make it possible for us to be digital storytellers about experiences uniquely our own.

With the tap of a finger, we have the option to share our life’s most significant events or our most mundane moments with equal ease.

To some, it has become a race to develop and curate a stream of images that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye; imprinting life’s more interesting and exciting micro-moments through cleverly captioned, filtered images.

I once read an article on tips to make photos more Instagram-worthy, and “staging” seems to be the secret sauce.

It basically means moving objects or people around in order to compose an eye-pleasing image.

One person who does this well is a South East Asia-based entrepreneur who goes by the Instagram handle ‘yongfook’.

Yongfook adopts a minimalist approach in his images — many of which have the subject matter (mostly food) positioned to look good in photos. The approach seems to work in his favour and has won him quite a following.

Having said that, as storytellers, we have the liberty to express ourselves and the experiences we’ve had in ways that we feel most comfortable.

Although double tapping (which indicates a ‘like’ on Instagram) a particular photo does not provide any real connection to the micro moment it represents, I have found that it does allow us to find and share inspiration, laughter, and sometimes even healing.

Unless the objective is to make money (like with most lifestyle bloggers and notable brands), Instagram it is not a popularity contest, but just another means for us to connect.