#Nofilter: Exploring Self Promotion and Identity Creation Through Instagram

Abstract

Instagram, a photo editing and sharing mobile app, has become an ever prominent means of communication, especially among young users. With more than 100 million users, Instagram has become a viable and innovative forum for users to express and assert their individuality. This paper explores how Instagram, as a social media tool, has been transformed into a platform for self-promotion and identity creation. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the authoritative way in which information is conveyed on the photo-sharing medium makes it an excellent forum for users to validate their social position through both conspicuous consumption and how they are perceived through Instagram. Pulling from Viviana Zelizer’s and Pierre Bourdieu’s theories on intimate economies and capital, respectively, I intend to demonstrate that Instagram constitutes an intimate social network where individuals can display economic, social, and cultural capital through the images they post.