This post might be a foregone conclusion for some, but the UK’s The Guardian featured a column about how Instagram is ruining travel – specifically, the most popular places in the world are so ubiquitous on the platform that they are becoming “unpopular” with tourists.
The columnist, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, recounts a recent trip to Sri Lanka and the hordes of selfie-obsessed tourists she encountered along the way.
She goes on to say that the “Instagrammability” of a certain location is of top priority to millenial travelers.
Let that sink in for a moment – the random opinions of strangers and their ability to tap on a photo catapults over other considerations when planning a vacation for millennial travelers.
What a trip.
The invasion of social media into nearly every facet of our daily lives remains unabated even while on vacation.
All in all, there’s a certain sadness to a desire to take utterly beautiful, yet totally soulless, pictures merely for the sake of a social media like.
Of course, some people are paid to be on Instagram – think brand reps and “influencers.”
But for the rest of us, is it really that important that our vacation create Instagram magic?
As Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett points out, the market trends for millennial travelers point to a desire for catered experiences that are both unique and aspirational. This would seem to suggest that catering to the Instagram crowd is more of a market-response mechanism than an actual, conscious desire on the part of millennial travelers.
The Guardian piece gives pause for photographers and fans of the art alike when considering how ubiquitous photography has become and what that exactly means for the future. As budgetary considerations for capturing photos have increasingly shrunk, has the art behind it all also diminished?
Or perhaps everything is evolving? One thing that has definitely stayed the same – tourists are tourists no matter what the social media follower count.
