My go-to move this crisis is taking cute, slightly pretentious aesthetically pleasing photographs for the gram. You might be familiar with my personal Instagram account Nat7x that went through a little rebranding in recent days.
From full, messy posts with dark and vivid color palette to soft pastel tones. From travel the world to stay at home aesthetics. Transition from thorough backgrounds to detail focus. From calculating the best time to post a photo to posting whatever whenever I feel like. A change from fitting Instagram patterns to embracing my own creativity. From what would people think about it to I don’t care I like it.
Rebranding comes with an expected shift in the unfollow/follow ratio. But since Instagram implemented hiding likes the importance of the numbers fell drastically. More about hiding likes in my Why is Instagram hiding likes a good thing?
I was lucky enough to be in a hidden likes trial with one of my side accounts and it was awesome.
It came down to seeing posts as *insert Instagram account name here* and others like this picture and it was so freeing to create an opinion on the piece without a constant reminder of what others thought of it before me.
Again, I was still able to see the number of likes on my own posts, but I was the only one who could do so.
If you still have an old pressuring version of Instagram give it a little more time. It’s coming.
Adding photos that don’t fit my usual style but brings me so much joy was not enough. I wanted more to express my current state of mind, therefore I transformed my blog Instagram side account into my vibe side account.
Renegades.aesthetics was born and thriving.
The inspiration for a change was a long time coming but the final straw came one simple day on a subway. To understand it further you need to know that I’m on a queue of reading classical literature and sappy romance stories.
As I was reading Nicholas Sparks The notebook masterpiece, I came across a quote that really hit me. It wasn’t one of the mainstream ones and it’s not even that memorable unless it’s as personal to you as it was to me.
“And again she cursed herself for forgetting something as important as creating beauty.”
That evening when I came back from work, I dug out my old sketchbook, some pencils from all around my drawers, and tried to remember what it was like when I was a child. Back in the days, I would go wild with every scrap of paper I could find around the house. Just drawing and painting for the pure joy of it without seeking praise that would add value to my doings.
I didn’t know shit about perspective, anatomy, shadows, or whatever. All I knew was I had my crayon and a piece of paper and I was happy making art. I never once questioned if I was good enough. Good enough for what? I was drawing for the joy of drawing.
Creating beauty is a shapeshifter.
It went from children’s drawings to painting throughout my whole life. From bleeding in colors to bleeding in words on paper or on the computer. And now you can be part of me creating beauty and capturing it on a photography on my renegades.aesthetic page or nat7x stories.
Good morning and very interesting post. Also cute photos too.
“I don’t care I like it.” Beautifully Said. The social disconnect in social media creates a vacuum of sorts, where our Self is stifled at the expense of a ‘thumbs up’ a ‘heart’ or what is termed a like. In that, we begin to be shaped behaviorally by the movement of the crowd, versus our own inner movements. I loved your post here. You are on to something much larger than a posts capacity to move get a thumps up. I can tell you, the journey to find one’s Self moves me, in whatever shape it comes. Thank you for sharing.
That made me pause, too. I very rarely create for the sake of making something beautiful. If I’m being honest, I’m always rather quite pretentious with either my photography or music. Lol. Maybe I need to follow this example.
The superficial nature of a like on social media does not mean one has taken the time to understand. Good for you that you have embraced this point to enhance the creativity of your own expressions.