We’re trapped in a novelty arms race.

Scenes From A Wedding

“Look! Do you see the donut wall? Through the window!” Neat. It wasn’t exactly a wall of donuts, but more a wall of pegs on which donuts were hanging. I found it aesthetically pleasing to an extent, but I kept asking myself why. Was this a functional way to array donuts? Would it help maximize donut throughput to the wedding guests? Was it respectful to the donuts?

Instagram donut storage

The answer became obvious as I watched the other guests take pictures of this “donut wall.” It’s cool, creative (or at least once was), and is exactly the thing you might expect to see on the Instagram explore page. As I approached the wall to retrieve the donut I would eat, I noticed that they were melting. It turns out a peg board is not the ideal donut storing solution. The combination of the July heat and gravity caused the glaze to ooze down from the donuts and fall at the foot of the “wall” leaving the donuts with noticeable bald spots. But at least the pictures had already been taken.

I think the donut wall is a good example of the havoc social media wreaks on our lives. We have donuts, a near perfect creation, but they are too commonplace. We must elevate them to be worthy of a Post so we torture them by sticking them to a wall until their iced goodness melts into a puddle.

Standard donut storage, Dunkin’ Donuts

The need for novelty outpaces the organic photo opportunities of life, so the social media user must manufacture novelty. We’ve seen donuts before, but have we seen donuts on a wall? Donuts suspended from the ceiling? A donut sculpture of the bride and groom, who are in turn eating donuts? We chase these novel, or semi-novel aesthetics until they lose Instagram-worthiness. How much longer does the “donut wall” have before its been done too many times and (thankfully) relegated to irrelevance?

Am I a donut?

When I was planning my own proposal, nearly all of the people I talked to mentioned the pictures. It was clear that the pictures were how the event would be measured and signified. Many people expected something grand and were seemingly disappointed by my humble plans to propose in a public park. What could I do to make things bigger? Should I emerge from the Boston Public Garden pond in a scuba suit, start a flash mob, and then propose? I spent the lead up to the proposal wondering if it was going to be good enough. Not good enough for my fiance, but good enough for the world, that world of distant acquaintances whose approval one seeks on social media. Why was I worried about them? It should just be about me and her. Nevertheless I was.

So yea, I am kind of like a donut. I’m special enough on my own merits and yet I’m not special enough for social media. I have to sing, dance and hang from a peg until my skin melts, thaws and resolves itself into a dew.

If photographs could capture the full context of life and its endless novelty, generating social media content would be significantly easier. Photographs reduce the beauty of life to a single, often-boring snapshot. Instagram makes us value the depiction of experience over experience itself, the theatrics of the proposal over the actual gesture of love, and the presentation of donuts over their taste. I hate it.

A goat-cheese salad

A backlit hammock

A simple glass of wine

Incredibly derivative political street art

A dreamcatcher bought from Urban Outfitters

A vintage neon sign

Three little words, a couple of doves

And a ring on her finger from the person that she loves

Is this Heaven?

Or is it just a white woman’s instagram

“White Woman’s Instagram” by Bo Burnham

A “novel” (unnatural) pose