Times have changed since the days of taking fruit from a snake and boarding an Ark when the weather takes a turn for the worse, but essentially the Seven Deadly Sins still apply in our favourite picture sharing app. Here’s how these offences have turned Instagram into an app we love to hate:
Gluttony
A familiar scene: scrolling through your Instagram feed after demolishing a sizeable bowl of Coco Pops and someone has uploaded a rather smug photo of their ultra healthy ‘yoghurt and granola’ breakfast, which immediately leaves you feeling like naughty school kid. Food fascism was one of the first Instagram phenomena, with countless pictures of dainty scallop and salad bites that are enough to make your home made spaghetti bolognese feel rather inadequate.
Lust (or Love)
Forget lust, love has overtaken the stakes here thanks to the many infatuated couples of Instagram shamelessly sharing their relationship bliss through the medium of the ‘Amaro’ filter. Except no one (especially singletons) is really interested in a ‘cute’ picture of an under the thumb male and his girlfriend, in their matching onesies with vomit-inducing hashtags such as ‘#boyfriend’, ‘#love’ and ‘#happy’. Best to keep the Insta-PDAs to a minimum.
Greed
Post-Christmas, Birthday, or just an average shopping trip? We all follow one person that makes us green with envy with their daily shots of new Kurt Keigers or a Michael Kors watch, which in turn, just makes us want more. Uh oh… goodbye student loan.
Vanity
Need we say more than the word of 2013 that found its way into the dictionary; all dolled up pre-night out is no longer worth it if it hasn’t been photographically documented, and thus the ‘selfie’ was born. A concept, when you think about it, that seems ridiculously vain, but if you haven’t got a master photographer like Mario Testino at your beck and call, they do say if you want something done, you should do it yourself…
Envy
Are the hashtags #WomanCrushWednesday and #fitspo familiar to you? Then you’ll know all about the days when we females become self-deprecating and sad because we don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models. It all seems believable, until a bikini selfie is posted the next day that is.
Pride
If you’ve made, done, or completed something you’re proud of, then of course it’s got to go on Instagram. Hell, who’s going to know you’ve finished your dissertation or that you can do a backflip unless it’s on their news feed?! OK, this sin is forgivable, but the abundance of smug ‘Revision set up’ snaps makes Insta a real snore around exam time.
And the one the Good Book missed out… Hashtagging
We’re sure if Hashtagging existed in Biblical times, it would probably be up there with the unforgivables. It’s a head scratcher as to why a simple photo of a landscape requires twenty separate hashtags, seemingly to grab as many likes as possible. And what on earth is the point of ‘#instadaily’, ‘#instagood’ and #like4like? Someone please enlighten us!