Chapter 4 - Instagram as a Community

INSTAGRAM AS A COMMUNITY

The fourth and final chapter will aspire to study Instagram as a Community and how the app can be used as a support network to help mental health. This final part of the case study will include positive movements such as the #HereForYou campaign, Black Lives Matter Movement and, Gay Pride. In addition, the negative aspects such as individuals not agreeing with certain elements of the movements, will also be addressed.

“Social media breeds positive communities and experiences” – Hannah Forbes (Forbes, 2018).

Some view Instagram or any social media platform a place of escapism, where they can get away from real life problems. Instagram has a hashtag (with over 9 million posts) called #HereForYou, which includes many quotes and a lot of imagery regarding equality as a support system and to raise awareness surrounding the subject (Instagram, 2020). The #HereForYou campaign took place on Instagram in 2017, in order to “increase conversation around mental health” (Leaver, Highfield, & Abidin, 2020) during mental health awareness month. The amount of support and positivity that was spread among this month, portrays Instagram as a support network, helping millions of users around the world with their mental health and well-being. In addition, the fashion industry has various brands/collections attempting to improve and raise awareness regarding mental health. For example, Madhappy used hoodies to market happiness and encourage conversation around mental health (Mau, 2019).

In addition, the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) was and still is an enormous step in the right direction for the black community. The movement started back in 2013 after the murder of George Zimmerman (Matter, 2020), but only properly took to Instagram in 2020. A prominent date for BLM is 2nd June, where approximately 28 million users on the app posted plain black squares as part of #BlackOutTuesday (Ho, 2020). This was a trend across Instagram where users came together as a community to silence the platform and not post anything other than the black square for this particular day, in memory and respect of George Floyd, who was murdered due to police brutality (Coscarelli, 2020). This trend had a momentous meaning behind it in the fight for equality across the Black community and for the future of diversity across the globe. Instagram played a huge part in this movement influencing gen Z consumers in a positive way, to stand up and fight for equality. In addition, a collective of five black fashion designers opened the women’s Fall/Winter fashion shows at Milan Fashion Week back September of 2020, with their We Are Made in Italy initiative (AFP, 2021). Showcasing this significant movement within the fight for equality, while also being an important and strong message for young individuals. In a 1:1 interview via Zoom conducted by the researcher, focused on a black female (who wishes to remain anonymous), the participant stated that she was proud to see the Movement happen. While viewing consumers using their platforms to speak up and make a difference, inspired and made the interviewee feel proud of who she was. The interviewee felt empowered to share her own stories to help others, and how the Black Lives Matter Movement made her feel part of something in a significant time. Even if there were other individuals continuing to negatively criticise the remarkable movement, she still chose to focus on the positives in the situation (See Appendix F).

However, an opposing view would be the fact that certain individuals around the world did not accept that Black Lives Matter, but All Lives Matter. Shaka Hislop explains

“The issue is that is white lives have always seemed to matter more. What Black Lives Matter as a movement is saying is that all lives matter equally. Black lives have to matter just as much as everybody else’s” (News, Anti-racism: What does the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ mean?, 2020).

The idea of Black Lives Matter is to find equality and peace for all races. The main point and goal of the movement is to find justice among all, and to remain to fight for equality which many people seemed to not understand.

Furthermore, there were plenty of protests for the Black Lives Matter movement, which was showcased on Instagram of everyone coming together as a community. Members of the public who attended these protests, ensured to take photographs to post on the Instagram app, to continue the movement through social media. This suggests that the platform itself is a blessing to allow incredible movements like this occur, setting a great example for gen Z consumers to carry on with the trend of equality.

Another area of conflict and controversial opinions on the Instagram app is the Gay Pride movements and campaigns. Due to Covid-19, Pride events have been postponed for 2020 until it is safe for the public to proceed with mass gatherings (Shop, 2020). Pride month occurs in June, as this is the month when the Stonewall Riots occurred, which changed gay rights for huge amounts of people around the globe. In addition, the 27th June is dedicated to Pride. (Newsround, 2020). Hashtags on Instagram such as #GayPride and #Pride provide opportunities to make connections all over the world, helping them understand others are going through the same thing as they are, which has a positive impact on their mental health. Numerous fashion brands have created products to promote the LGBTQIA+ community and Gay Pride as a celebration. For example, Levi’s, who created a Pride themed denim jacket back in 2020, that wrote ‘Use your Voice’ in multiple colours with all proceeds being donated to Outright Action International to not only support Gay Pride, but also give back and help the community (Bevan, 2020). In contrast, an opposing argument for the Gay Pride movements and campaigns would be religion. Many religions do not agree with civil partnerships, for example, Church of England. They believe

“that marriage between a man and a woman is the proper context for sexual intercourse” (Michael, 2020)

and therefore same-sex civil partnerships are wrong and should not occur. This suggests, those who agree with these beliefs could leave negative comments, on Instagram, which could then cause unnecessary hurt to the person they are attacking. Instagram is known to be a place of expression and escapism, and while consumers have the freedom to post what they want, it could be seen as unjust when they receive pessimism for living their life the way they choose to. These negative comments could be seen by gen Z consumers and possibly influence them in a negative way. However, a brand that is sending out a great message within the fashion industry for young gen Z individuals is All Saints. They have created a tank top reading ‘All Beings, All Seeing, All Lovin’, All Ways, All Saints’ and donating £10 from every sale to the Kaleidoscope Trust (Bevan, 2020).

There are also numerous recovery pages on Instagram for mental health illnesses as well as eating disorders which are another great support system on the Instagram app for individuals who are struggling with these sicknesses. For example, Ryan Sheldon (@realryansheldon on Instagram) explained what he went through before finding the strength to change

“I lost my job, I was in debt, and I hated myself – and all of this was due to my eating disorder. I thought there was nothing I could do” (Harold, 2020).

Ryan decided to start up an Instagram page with a message of learning to love yourself, whilst being a huge inspiration to many as he is overcoming a huge obstacle, as well as sharing his experiences with others. Again, this acts as a huge support system as it allows others going through the same thing, to have someone to relate to and learn ways to overcome the illness, which has a huge positive impact on mental health. Within the fashion industry, there is a program called the Garment Project providing women who are undertaking recovery programs with brand new, sizeless and tag-less clothing for free helping make it a little bit easier while the clients go through their recovery process (Dupere, 2017).

Leading on from this, in a recent focus group conducted by the researcher regarding body image in regards to Instagram; it was a general response that the level of support networks on the app is very high, but there is a lack of pages aimed at men which could be seen as unjust. (See Appendix D). Also, there is a possibility that these pages could be triggering to individuals undertaking recovery, even though they are created with the right intentions.

In addition, it was also suggested by an interviewee, within a 1:1 interview via Zoom, that there are a large quantity of pages and accounts that put out information and helping people in the gay community. The participant also stated it definitely helped her when she came out, by referring to Instagram to view how others dealt with their situations (See Appendix F).

Overall, these areas of conversation portray how Instagram allows users across the world to connect, as well as bring people together as a community. These campaigns and movements form support networks for individuals surrounding the subjects which increases and helps their mental health, as they are aware they are not the only ones going through it, which could really benefit mental health and help gen Z consumers.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is clear that there are both positive and negative elements of the Instagram app, although this is uniformly the consumers using the platform, as well as the app itself. Negative and positive comments can equally affect individuals’ mental health. However, Instagram have introduced measures in order to try and decrease the amount of negativity within the app. Even though there are elements such as ‘cosmetic surgery’ filters present on Instagram, the creators of the platform have also now put measures into place to lessen the impact of this on users’ mental health. The Instagram team are doing what they can to positively impact mental health, however, there is only so much they can do when users are only posting the best parts of their lives and tricking users into thinking they have a perfect life. Instagram could be seen as both, beneficial and damaging to gen Z consumers due to several factors that tie into this subject. Social media can be a dangerous place due to the toxicity of users, but could equally be seen as an inspiring place in regards to the support systems and inspirational individuals utilising their platforms for optimistic reasons. Instagram can be seen as an extremely inspirational and relative place because of the communities on the app that have previously been mentioned. There are even some Instagram pages dedicated to communities like this, such as Gay Pride Apparel (@gayprideapparel on Instagram) who produce high quality apparel focused around Gay Pride (Apparel, 2021). Pages like this support individuals within the community who can relate and pride themselves on being their true selves. Even though there are many users who can be negative towards pages and communities like this, Instagram is portraying great things through the use of support networks. In regards to users on the app leaving negative comments on posts, there is only so much Instagram as a company can do. In addition, the fact there are several brands producing products to support and raise awareness of motivating events such as Gay Pride and Black Lives Matter, allows Instagram to help promote these revolutionary movements. However, they have implemented features within the app to try and make consumers think before they leave any hate, which is a huge win for mental health (Petter, 2019).

Also, it is clear that influencers bring a lot of revenue and attraction to the photo based app, making Instagram money while also providing entertainment to consumers. However, this revenue and attraction is not always in a positive way. Trolling and negative comments are always going to be a big threat to these types of individuals who put themselves out there on the app which can clearly affect mental health in a damaging way. There is always the option given by Instagram to disable the comments section, disallowing users to leave any comments and therefore, decreasing the amount of hate (O’Brien, 2016). To summarise, even though there are several negative aspects of Instagram that are possibly never going to be changed, a number of these negative elements within the app, have been/ have attempted to be tackled by the Instagram team to lessen negative affect on one’s mental health. This could be seen as greatly appreciated by users, as they are doing everything that they can to make the app a safer and better place for all consumers.