We all know that one Instagram account. All their photos are of them doing something adventurous and 'authentic.' Everything they take pics of could be given the appellation 'rustic.' Every single image is tasteful, selectively filtered, and completely inert. It's a formula: Lots of photos of artfully made lattes, dilapidated buildings, and clothes that are probably from Anthropologie. It's the account of a hipster, and it is, quite often, utterly awful in its banality.
Well, now Barbie is getting in on the game. Presenting 'Socality Barbie,' an Instagram account aping and satirizing the monotonous tastes and activities of a certain monochromatic breed of narcissistic hipster, whose every coffee is an experience, whose every trip is a life-affirming adventure, and whose every moment is recorded to demonstrate that moment's sonder-inducing solitude. It is the Live, Laugh, Love lifestyle for the millennial set, except with Barbie it is somehow not-annoying and completely hilarious.
The photos are funny, but the real satirical punch comes in the captions, which ask questions like "Will there be Instagram in heaven?" and "Could I be any more authentic?" and are then followed by a thick shrub's worth of hideous hashtags that would make you want to punch someone if that someone weren't a tiny plastic hipster.
According to Taylor Glascock in Wired, the creator of Socality Barbie is "wedding photographer in Portland, Oregon, who wishes to remain anonymous so to preserve Socality Barbie's authenticity," which is just perfect. The satirical point of the account is not that people are into these kind of folksy tastes, but that so many are into it in the exact same way. Said the creator, "People were all taking the same pictures in the same places and using the same captions ... I couldn't tell any of their pictures apart so I thought, 'What better way to make my point than with a mass-produced doll?'"
What's really interesting is that making the Socality Barbie photos necessitates such a level of care and craftsmanship that one could call it, well, authentic. Says Glascock, Barbie's "fashionably disheveled wardrobe is often handmade-a hipster backpack made from an iron-on patch and leather, a beanie cut from the finger of a glove. The quintessentially Pacific Northwest Pendleton blanket is a scrap of felt with painted lines."
So the next time you're in a beautiful spot, wearing skinny jeans and a beret, and sipping on a locally-produced white wine while snacking on artisanal crackers, and you feel the urge to snap a pic for your feed, take a second to ask, "Would Socality Barbie do this?" If the answer is yes, maybe just put away your camera and/or smart phone, and take a moment to actually enjoy the moment.
For more of the glory that is Socality Barbie, check out the Instagram account right here.