How Instagram destroyed the essence of freelancing

If you started to use Instagram several years ago you must have noticed how this application has changed since that time. Instagram used to be a platform where you could share personal photographs, pictures and events with people that "follow" (Instagram terminology) you and then receive a "like" for the shared image. Later, Instagram grew up in its purpose and became a place where people expressed their opinions, thoughts and ideas. This phase opened many doors for creative artists, talented personalities and interesting individuals, as they became recognizable for what they were posting and writing. Millions of "followers" were reading their daily posts and taking it as a source of inspiration. After this period, Instagram became a business app where the above mentioned personalities, plus numerous new bloggers, promoted and shared their lifestyle, products, services and etc. The networking machine quickly transformed into a gathering facility for bloggers, mushrooming a generation of freelancers and fake accounts.

Why did Instagram destroy the essence of freelancing? It is a question of this article and based on the above written paragraph it sounds like a contradicting statement.

Any good idea starts with a purpose. Instagram was born to connect people from all over the world through the language of pictures. Freelance jobs were created to free people from a routine nine to five schedule and to allow individuals to use their skills while being self - employed. A number of freelancers took this opportunity on Instagram and used it to show their talent in different arts, including photography, writing, designing and storytelling. As a result, these freelancers became recognizably successful, even famous on the social media, which resulted in some of them earning a steady and decent living. This wave of online success, in my opinion, was a cause of why Instagram destroyed the original purpose of freelancing. Instagram today has reached an abnormal level of scrutiny making it an online financial institution where it no longer is about the talent and originality, but how to make money out of advertisement.

Simply click on the "followers" on your page and you will see what I am talking about here. For example, I "follow" one family who regularly promotes their online business school for freelancers. They post attractive and inviting posts about how to earn money online without having any talent in anything. Recently they advertised their new course about "How to create an account on Instagram and start earning money". I personally studied what such course can teach its students and came out with disappointing facts. The course will teach you how to download other peoples' photographs, how to write template - based posts that are attractive to the general mass, and how to artificially increase the amount of "followers" on your account. The creators unashamedly guarantee that this is a path to freelance success on Instagram. Simply "copy and paste" is the motto of this newly formed assortment of Instagram freelancers.

What do you think about it? Does it sound familiar?

This recently started trend went viral among young bloggers and "stay at home" mums and dads. The new layer of online bloggers shadowed the genuine talents, making it hard for us, the users, to distinguish between real and fake accounts, honest and plagiarized posts, photo shopped and real photos. A person who was not interested in travelling all of a sudden became a guru in it, quoting "inspiring" phrases of famous people, advertising and selling travel items in their posts. A mother of five kids tells you her story about how she suddenly quit her daily job and became an online mogul and successful business lady. Casually, she will encourage you to purchase something on her page, so you can get the feeling what it is to be successful like her.

The categories of these manufactured accounts are endless: everyone wants to be an expert in something and yet do nothing to gain the expertise except sitting on the laptop duplicating others people's ideas and inventions. And maybe we should not pay attention to it by simply letting the bubble blow as it's happened with many other artificial trends. But as honest bloggers and freelancers it concerns us. It concerns the community of real freelancers who have had enough of the talent imitation.

When does it stop?

Image by Mousavi