A couple of years ago, the “Instagram vs. reality” trend sprung from Instagram’s body positivity movement. The trend encourages Instagram users to post side-by-side images of themselves — one side being the highly curated “Instagram” depiction and the other being a more ‘real’ depiction. One study has explored the trend academically, and it found that engaging with “Instagram vs reality” and “reality” images decreased body dissatisfaction amongst its participants relative to viewing idealized “Instagram” images. In an effort to understand who is participating in the trend, what they are contributing to the trend, and why they are engaging with it, this study examined 150 images and their captions from #instagramvsreality on Instagram. Results demonstrated that the subjects participating in the trend are less diverse in appearance than those in the body positivity movement. Yet, many subjects spoke about how Instagram is ‘fake’ and that people ought to not compare themselves to the images they see online. While subjects often did engage with body positive messaging, the authors concluded that the Instagram vs reality trend may be more about promoting media literacy, and hence, that could explain why the trend contains less diversity in appearance than the body positivity movement, which aims to challenge the narrowly-defined standards that govern beauty and appearance.
(This is the lay output for the research project. The research paper will be available elsewhere or on this site at a later period.
