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As I finish my work and crawl in bed, finally excited to spend some ‘me time.’ I pull over my blanket and take out my phone. To relieve off my exhausation of the day, I am gonna watch some reels. I know, I know those who are reading this might be judging me way too hard but everyone can have different ways of spending their me time, right?
I quickly reply to all those annoying messages on instagram and then waste no time to watch my absolute favourite thing in the world-the reels. Before reels made their entry on all social media platforms, long-form video was the only thing available to us. Those 20-30 minutes long videos on Youtube and Instagram were our only source of entertainment (this was before OTT platforms became popular). Now, when I think about it, I cant even began to wrap around my head how we as audiences could sit for so long and watch one video. Anyway, that’s already a widely discussed issue and we shall not ponder over it yet again.
I pressed that Reels button and I came across the first of the hundreds reel I was gonna watch. Reels are placed according to the algorithm which is basically what you frequently search or watch. So, one can expect to see reels of specific people/creators or related to themes they regularly search about or related to some keywords. However, sometimes it is also related to what the Instagram feels ‘we might like.’
I started my process of Doom-scrolling and noticed one commonality among most of the reels.
Instagram is the epicentre of trends. It gives rise to myriad of trends, ranging from dancing on a hook-step to lipsyncing on a popular song. And the amusing fact is that such trends are taken on by both the common people as well as celebrities. Recently, the trend of ‘So beautiful, so elegent..just looking like a wow’ which took instagram by the storm was also used the Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone.
Personally, I am not a big fan of these trends and I strongly discourage people to follow them. I believe that it just kills creativity. However, my opinion about this new trend will be quite constrasting to what I said earlier.
The newest trend on Instagram is all about ‘Romanticising your life.’ The idea is to film and post your absolute random moments of life like drinking coffee, walking on the road or maybe just eating your favourite food. It stems from the idea of ‘enjoying the little things in life’ which often get unnoticed. For me, this trend is all about feeling that ‘main character energy’ in your life. Like in movies where we see the protagonist dressing up cutely, meeting his/her friends or just getting ready to take on his/her day. For me, these reels emite those ‘positive energy’ where it makes the audience feel that the protagonist in the reel is really enjoying his/her life.
I think another reason for the popularity of this type of content is that Gen Z loves all visual-centric content. They are all about posting visually-pleasing stories, posts and reels. For them, whenever they look at anything which pleases their eye, they waste no time in capturing it in their phones’ camera. And with the popularity of filters, they have the power to make ordinary photos look exceptionally beautiful.
As I said earlier that I am not a big fan of Instagram trends, I feel this might change my mind and I agree some trends might not be that bad. My inquisitive self made me read more into this trend and I got to know that this trend actually began during the Covid era on Tiktok. During lockdown, everyone was in their influencer phase so everyone over Tiktok was filming themeselves and romanticising their lockdown lives.
Although Covid era is finally over, this trend is here to stay. And according to experts, this trend is actually good for your mental health as well. It helps people to be mindful of little things in their lives and be grateful for rthem. Moreover, it also helps them to be aware of themeselves, their surroundings and their lives in general.
Alviya Haider is a freelance writer who likes to write on gender, art and culture, lifestyle, and entertainment. She skillfully uses both her words and her art to tell diverse stories, bringing unique perspectives to read more...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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