Songs I Love #14 - INSTAGRAM by Dean: A song about how social media can mess you up...

Nowadays, people choose to live vicariously through an alternate reality which is through social media instead of facing our actual reality. This song mostly focuses on Instagram and how we obsess over other people's feed to pass time and find entertainment, and end up comparing our own life to theirs which makes us feel miserable instead. We feel lonely even if we're with other people because we're used to living online through our avatars who live better lives than we do. People are too absorbed with social media that we feel uncomfortable with face to face communication because we rather face situation behind our keyboards or phones.

The singer, Dean, describes music as "raw, rebel, and root" and he uses this to spread truth about how we're all so buried in our phones that we fail to see what really happens around us. The song is pretty calming in way as it may sound bland with a very minimal backtrack of acoustic guitar and little to none added effects which just reflects the detached judgement about reality that the song is trying to convey.

You may feel depressed while scrolling through Instagram because it can be a bit of an empty place emotionally at times. You look at what others are doing and it often feels like they're having more fun than you are, or that they're more successful than you are. He describes Instagram as a form of escape but at the same time it is something that he wants to escape from.

In the music video, you can observe these themes:

1. Instagram can be overwhelming and numbing.
2. Comparing yourself to others on Instagram can make you feel depressed.
3. A lot of Instagram posts focus on positive images, e.g food, vacations etc... but all of these images may just be disguising a lonely, miserable existence.

The Setting

It's very clever actually. Dean put himself in the middle of a warehouse where there are boxes stored on the side which is a visual metaphor of what Instagram is, a dump or storage for posts, pictures and memories you deem worthy of keeping and at the same time looking through the mass storage can easily become very overwhelming.

The whole video is in black-and-white where black symbolizes the depressing feelings you get from Instagram and the white represents how we hide the fact that we feel this way so we pretend to be happy. This matches the lyrics:

"Posting these pictures. My hidden feelings behind them."

and is shown in this shot:

The Paint

At this part of the music video, you start to see black paint dripping down which then transforms to a lot of different images such as war, Barack Obama, Charlie Chaplin, etc. and after awhile it becomes too overwhelming that the paint floods. In a way this represents how overwhelming and numbing Instagram's capacity can get.

And according to Dean's lyrics:

"This damn information age. There is definitely a problem. These days knowing more makes you miserable."

Simple, yet effective.

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The thing is that everyone is probably the same. We show our best sides on social media to try and portray the best version of ourselves to try to convince other people, and hell even our own selves, that we got our shit together even though that may be a far cry from the truth.

Social media has become our virtual escape from reality and we try and use it as a form of therapy that is easily becoming our own form of destruction as well.

Like everything else, social media and the modern age is great and all until it isn't.

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It's been a while since I've posted about songs. So here it is and enjoy!