Instagram, the Best of All Possible Worlds

I have seen a man throw a CD 3,000 times against the soft opening of a CD player until it fits. I have seen how a giant hamburger is cooked, a big pizza, a giant paella, and the vast sandwiches made by a lovely countryman from Úbeda named Ginés. I have met Robert Wido, an endearing gentleman from Bilbao who smokes marijuana and listens to Kendrick Lamar. Another gentleman in the United States, much sexier, a fan of denim clothes, tries on jeans daily, with boots and t-shirts of punk rock groups. I have seen almost perfect bodies (according to the most widespread canons of beauty) tanned by the sun on the beaches of Bali, Malibu, and Benidorm. I've seen dozens of people shuffle and dozens of others doing fantastic parkour stunts. It looks like they were going to kill each other. I have witnessed expeditions through the jungle, traverses through the rapids of an equatorial river, and adventures in the snow. People who dance ridiculous dances. Infographics on the size of black holes found at the center of spiral galaxies. Philosopher quotes, writer promo, lousy verses. Ellen Allien DJing, Anfisa Letyago DJing, Deborah de Luca DJing. A gigantic machine reducing a car to a small cube of cables and metal. A soccer player in a bikini scored an incredible goal for the entire squad. People posing with Alfaguara novels to act interesting. Animals, many animals: a man who tries to put a bear in his van, a cute koala that hugs his baby, a dog that gives kisses to everyone, a fox sleeping on a tree branch. A man walking on the wing of an abandoned Boeing in Indonesia. Another man who puts all the billiard balls in one shot. A trick to get a broken key out of a lock using candle wax. Slow motion footage of a burning match. People paragliding between the sharp cliffs. A concert offset by the Dead Kennedys in the '70s.

I have seen all this on Instagram, where I have seen more things than in my real life (if Instagram is not part of my life). If Twitter is Hell, Instagram is the Garden of Eden. Instagram as a window to the world, Instagram as a cabinet of curiosities, Instagram as a room of wonders. In one of the most famous stories by Jorge Luis Borges, the author finds in the house of a deceased friend, on Garay Street in Buenos Aires, under the basement stairs, a point from which all points of the universe can be seen from all points of view: that point is called the Aleph. Instagram is not the Aleph, but it is like it: a place to see all the places in the world from all points of view. The crazier, the better. On Instagram, one reconciles with the presumption and stupidity of the human species.

In the 90s, when TV reached its highest popularity quotas, when the "video killed the radio star" made its most powerful sense when the MTV video clip was the most, people began to talk about how the culture of the image was devouring alphanumeric culture: seeing prevailed over reading, and a picture was worth a thousand words. Then, unexpectedly, the tables turned with the arrival of the Internet, which, in principle, had much more to do with reading and writing. The letters triumphantly returned and became the means to access websites, blogs, messengers, gasps, and social networks: many people were surprised that the keyboard began with the letters QWERTY and not in alphabetical order because they had never used it. If the networks had traditionally been based (that is to say) on the written word, Instagram, born in San Francisco (USA) in 2010, bought by Facebook in 2012 for 1,000 million dollars, brought back the image and the video to the first end of communication, as the Chinese TikTok would later take to the extreme.

Inside and outside of social networks, Instagram is the best of all possible worlds. There is some politics and anger everywhere. Still, it is residual compared to the jungle of hate that is Twitter, or Facebook, where cyber-social conflict also occurs, although in a less virulent way. There are not many trolls, fake news or haters on Instagram, people just want to show their asses (since the nipple is banned) and the beautiful room they have put in the luxury resort. A part of Instagram is dedicated to wonders and curiosities, and another part to being the magazine. Hello! that shows the life of anyone, especially if this anyone has fitness bodies. Nothing appears on Instagram that excludes a smile: Instagram is that country where the pandemic did not arrive, where the news of the war in Ukraine does not come, where the world is not about to end, but instead, it is a cake that we are about to eat us But, many times, the pretended happiness showed on Instagram makes the viewer unhappy.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day!