There was once a time - a glorious time - when photos were fun. Facebook feeds were filled with albums of about 80 images, each a varying degree of awful, and that was fine. Back in the day, Instagram was just a place to dump a heavily-filtered snap or two. A diabolically unrealistic ‘pencil drawn’ border? Sign us up. As much vignette as your already distorted image allows? Well wasn’t that the point? Pre-dog filter Snapchat was an absolute dream.
The social media situation is very different now, of course. It’s perfect pictures only, please. No more silly (and kind of gross) pictures of you and your mates hazily sticking your tongues out and throwing awkward peace signs for the camera. No more posting 20 versions of the same generic holiday scene to an album that every single one of your Facebook friends would scroll through and comment on.
The era of low-key sincere silliness is behind us. Not taking life, and the way we present it online, too seriously is out the window. Excuse me while I mourn for the early-phase stage social media of the noughties…
**WATCH: How Many Hours Do You Spend On Social Media? **
It’s not all our fault though, we’ve spent the most part of this year being told what we kind of knew all along – while there are benefits, social media is also having a huge impact on our mental health, is making us lonelyand putting us under serious pressure to be perceived as perfect. Which is precisely why you’ll be delighted to discover the Chinventures account.
Chinventures is an Instagram account run by 21-year-old Michelle Liu. Michelle’s thing is travel, but instead of the usual heavily staged shots of young women posing ‘candidly’ in front of Instagram friendly landmarks, Michelle takes pictures from below, angled so you get a good view of her chin.
We all know that the double chin pic is nothing new. We’ve all taken them and privately Snapchatted them to mates on a hungover Sunday afternoon. But before now, you wouldn’t be blamed for assuming there isn’t a place for them on Instagram. Michelle is here to tell you that you’re wrong. ‘I would say in a way it was a personal reaction of wanting to be able to entertain my friends and make them laugh, but also a way for me to encourage not caring too much about how you look all the time,’ Michelle told the Independent.
It's hard because I'm sure we're all guilty of tirelessly trying to mimic the super chic and totally together way one seemingly flawless Instagrammer snapped themselves at brunch. As social media has progressed from being a means of connecting with friends to a medium in which to promote yourself, your career and make money, the majority of what we see isn't reality. And while most of us already know this for a fact, the impact of scrolling through a feed of these unattainably perfect pictures of people who probably *are *taking themselves a bit too seriously, is a difficult one to run away from. So here's to interrupting that feed with a #chinfie and bringing the funny back to an otherwise stagnant part of our lives.
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Follow Jazmin on Instagram @JazKopotsha
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.