Why Instagr.am Is Successful - Make Art Easy
If you haven’t already played with instagr.am, it’s an application that lets users take photos on their iPhone and apply artsy filters to them. The filters make the photos look way better than they originally do. Then they also make it very easy to share the photos out to existing social networks with ease. The app reached 500,000 downloads in it’s first month, and although for some reason, I often don’t like ‘spreading the word’ - you should check this out.
Now, considering the wildfire success of this app, I was thinking - what is it really that makes the app successful. I was laying on my couch, fiddling with it, taking photos of the lamps on the ceiling. Then it became easier to articulate - Instagr.am makes the average person, who may have very limited artistic ability, feel like an artist.
They replicate the same feeling you get when using a KORG Kossilator - a device that lets even the average person make some semblance of decent electronic music. I remember how good it feels playing with the Kossilator - to just make art very briefly, in a light-hearted way, and receive appreciation from others for something that took so little time to make. Both the Kossilator, and instag.ram take the challenges out of art, and make it into a more light-hearted, and accessible activity. Instag.ram has an added power over the Kossilator because it also makes it really easy to share my art as well! It gives me an audience.
Everyone wants to feel creative, and they would love ways to express themselves without the burdens of mastering specific skills. Photography was particularly well suited - because as a medium it’s already something that most people can participate in, and produce fairly beautiful photos given the quality of today’s cameras (although I am sure I am under-appreciative of the subtleties of photography as an art-form). All this reminded me of an essay (I thought it was by Arthur Miller, but I can’t find it), that talked about how one day, most of the ‘work’ we have to do will be automated, and humans will primarily define themselves by their artistic expression. This got me thinking - how can we simplify other art forms to bring them to the average person? I’ve got some ideas around poetry … so maybe one of these weekends i’ll take some time to hack something together :). Do you have anything in mind?
