The Conversation (0)
Science & Tech
Indy100 Staff
Nov 07, 2015
A few months ago we reported on one of the best Instagram accounts out there: socalitybarbie.
The account was made to call out all the staged, cliché photos on the social network with a posing mass-produced Barbie doll. It was very good at doing so:
The creator of the account has introduced herself in what will be her final post from the account.
Darby Cisneros, a photographer from Portland, said in her final post that she is quitting the social network as she has simply run out of things to say.
I started SB as a way to poke fun at all the Instagram trends that I thought were ridiculous.
Never in 1 million years did I think it would receive the amount of attention that it did but because of that it has open the door to a lot of great discussions like: how we choose to present ourselves online, the insane lengths many of us go to to create the perfect Instagram life, and calling into question our authenticity and motives.
It's been a blast running this account but I believe SB's work here is done. I will be leaving this account open for a while for people still want to look through and enjoy it.
While Cisneros’ account was shut down in the same week as Australian teenage social media star Essena O'Neill's, Darby says this is a coincidence, as she had planned to shut it down over a month ago:
I had never intended on it being a long term project. I wanted to use it as my own outlet to say things about social media that I’ve always wanted to say. I said all I wanted to say with SB.
Earlier this week, O’Neill told her 600,000 followers she was quitting the network, renaming her account ‘Social Media Is Not Real Life’, before deleting it.
She told her followers that she had gone to great lengths to stage her photographs, arguing that social networks were fundamentally dishonest.
O'Neill said:
Social media, especially how I used it, isn't real. It's a system based on social approval, likes, validation in views, success in followers. It's perfectly orchestrated self absorbed judgement.
R.I.P. Instabarbie. Let's hope all the posers out there learned a lesson.
(H/T Wired)
More:Hipster Barbie is here to call BS on your "live authentic" Instagram pictures