When your complete experience with every social network you ever tried comes down to installing the app -> using it for 15 minutes -> what in the fucking Christ am I looking at -> uninstalling the app, you tend not to understand the impact those apps have on the minds of people around you. Life has become too comfortable so we are all collectively devolving, you think, but no. It’s more than just that.

I took this picture in a bad neighborhood known for criminal activities, violence and drugs. I’m alive and well, by the way, thank you for not asking. But would you believe me if I told you that just a month ago the body of a missing 8 year old girl was found in the trash container behind these grilles, with over 200 stab wounds? If scrolling through social feeds is a part of your daily routine then yes, you would absolutely believe me.

I’ve had a conversation about photography the other day with two highly educated people, both claiming that the aesthetic quality of a photograph doesn’t matter at all. Because what makes a good photograph, according to them, is the text that goes with it. They were dead-serious, stubbornly defending that point. Then one of them – a museologist, mind you – pulled out his phone to present me with an argument-winning example. I fucking shit you not, he opened Instagram.

It was a post by someone he follows: a phone snapshot of a woman with a suitcase sitting on a park bench, and a piece of text saying how just moments earlier this woman was screaming about getting evicted from her home with nowhere to go. “See?”, he said, “That’s a good photograph. There’s a real human story behind it with a strong social element.” His friend agreed and they both looked at me the way high royalty looks at peasantry, while I was wondering what kind of crazy shit are they on.

“I get what you mean”, I said. “But since this real human story is nowhere to be seen on the picture itself, don’t you think it could have been made up?”

For a moment their eyes got lost in the distance – the so-called ‘oh shit look’ that happens when you’re boarding a plane and you suddenly realize you left the stove running; or when, in your 12th year on Instagram, you realize it never crossed your mind that the whole thing might be fake. They still stood by their point, of course, but the energy was gone.

After I left I imagined them awkwardly talking about the weather, avoiding eye contact.