Instagram shifted from status-escape to glossy personal-brand advertising platform

Evidence

Instagram accelerated this trend. The site began as an escape from the pressures of status signaling on Facebook, one in which the creative class could delight in posting abstract Polaroid-like snaps. Within a few years, however, it became a launching pad for glossy personal brands. Influencers inserted products into curated snapshots of beautiful yet relatable lives, offering brands an authentic-feeling advertising medium. With enough followers, influencers could command large sums for sponsored posts, become paid “ambassadors,” or partner with private-label manufacturers to create their own product lines. Millennials embraced this new model, seeing it as the ultimate dream job: getting paid to be the best version of oneself without answering to a boss. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 549

Categorization

• XREF: Instagram beginning ‘as an escape from the pressures of status signaling’ circles directly back to the status-competition dynamics defining Marx’s mechanism across periods.