“Instagram is a universe of stories: The algorithm is the scriptwriter, we are both the narrator and the character.”
Introduction: Today, we can look at social media not just as a communication tool, but also as a medium for narrative construction and storytelling. In a previous study, we analyzed X (Twitter) as a digital theater stage; this time, we will examine Instagram as a narrative-building tool. A platform where users present their lives as an aesthetic story, where digital storytelling techniques are at play, and where algorithms act as an invisible director deciding which stories get the spotlight: Instagram. On this platform, every post, every “Story,” is actually a part of a grand autobiographical narrative. In this article, we will explore themes such as self-performance, aestheticized stories, the algorithmic attention economy, influencer narratives, viral dynamics, and the narrative relationship established with followers through a theoretical lens (using concepts from thinkers like Barthes, Ricoeur, Bruner, Butler, and Baudrillard). The goal is to understand Instagram as a narrative-building tool and to decode how our digital-age identities are transformed into stories.
The Narrative World of Instagram: Platform Structure and Narrative Culture
Built on photo and short video sharing, Instagram has evolved from a simple album application since its founding in 2010 into a massive digital storytelling platform with over 1 billion users. Its initially chronological feed structure shifted to an algorithmic ranking in 2016, filtering the content users see based on popularity and interest level. This change also transformed Instagram’s narrative world. Now, every user creates a kind of autobiographical album with the posts (photos and videos) they share on their profile. The profile page is like a story collection that the user puts on display; posts present a digital life story in a chronological series from the past to the present. Moreover, it’s not just permanent posts; the daily flow of life is also included in the narrative as small episodes through the 24-hour disappearing Stories feature.
The core element that distinguishes Instagram from other platforms is its tradition of aesthetically curated narrative based on visuals. Users often present the most perfect moments of their lives, accompanied by filtered and edited images. On this platform, even a photo of an ordinary coffee cup can represent a lifestyle myth; an ordinary street corner can be transformed into a “fairytale” scene with the right framing and filter. If we reconsider Roland Barthes’ concept of “mythologies” in the digital age, Instagram creates modern myths by idealizing and re-signifying images of daily life. Indeed, one study found that the most dominant myth themes in content shared on Instagram were “professional (successful career)”, “the good life (luxury and constant happiness)”, and “the sophisticated individual (cultural and aesthetic superiority).” In other words, users often display not their real selves, but a mythic version of who they want to be or appear to be. Instagram’s interface design also supports this myth-making tendency: Filters, effects, photo editing tools, and like/comment counters that highlight follower engagement all encourage everyone to act as the director and editor of their own life.
Instagram's Curation-Focused Culture
The platform’s culture is more “curation-focused” compared to other media. While X prioritizes instant thoughts and discussions, on Instagram, users often carefully select, edit, and present their posts within a theme or aesthetic whole. Thus, Instagram profiles become curated story collections. For example, when you open a travel-focused user’s profile, you can see their “adventure stories” from places they’ve visited in the last few years in an aesthetic whole; if the same person has an X account, they likely make more casual and scattered posts. Instagram’s “follow” relationship is also, in a way, a writer-reader dynamic: The people we follow are actually storytellers who regularly publish their narratives, and the followers become the readers (or viewers) of these stories. With comments and likes, readers also react to the story instantly, and in some cases, even guide it.
A development that highlights the difference between Instagram and other platforms occurred in the early 2020s. Instagram, trying to compete with TikTok’s rise, attempted to radically change its algorithm and content formats: moves like prioritizing full-screen videos, the short video format called Reels, and showing a lot of content from accounts users don’t follow… However, these changes were met with backlash from the loyal user base. Even famous influencers like Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian reacted to the platform, saying, “Make Instagram Instagram again, stop trying to be TikTok – we want to see our friends’ posts.” As a result, Instagram took a step back on its recommendation algorithm following the outcry voiced with the slogan “Make Instagram Instagram Again.” This incident showed that Instagram’s unique narrative style (primarily seeing photos and stories of acquaintances) is still valuable to users. In other words, what makes Instagram different is not just viral videos, but its nature as a social album based on users’ personal narratives. Although the platform has evolved and adopted TikTok-like tendencies, its core culture of aesthetic and personal storytelling sets it apart from other media.
In summary, in Instagram’s narrative world, every user is both the author and protagonist of their own life; every shared photo is a scene from a story, every Story is part of the daily narrative. The rules of this world are shaped by audience reactions like likes and comments, and the invisible guidelines of the algorithm. Now, let’s examine this world in three dimensions: From the user’s perspective, persona and self-narrative; from the platform’s perspective, algorithmic curation and the attention economy; and in terms of content, aesthetic story construction, virality, and the audience relationship.
User = Narrator: Digital Persona Creation and the Self-Narrative
Every Instagram user, from the moment they step onto the platform, enters a narrative construction process. As they fill out their profile, the photos they choose, the bio they write, and the posts they share all begin to build a story about themselves. In this sense, Instagram becomes a medium where people “storify” themselves. In the words of psychologist Jerome Bruner, “The self is a perpetually rewritten story,” and in the digital age, Instagram is like a stage where this rewriting constantly takes place. With each new post, users add another page to their stories, redefining themselves.
Judith Butler and the Performance of Self
Judith Butler’s theory of identity performance is also very explanatory in the context of Instagram. According to Butler, identity is not a pre-existing, fixed self; rather, it is constructed through repeated actions (performances). On Instagram, individuals also perform a persona (digital identity) with the content they share. For example, someone who constantly shares fitness content adopts the identity of a “health enthusiast” in the eyes of their followers; someone who shares photos in luxury venues creates an image of a “person living an elite life”; someone who posts artistic photos is perceived as an “intellectual with developed aesthetic tastes.” This is, as Butler mentioned, the construction of a role through stylized repetitions (e.g., the repetition of posts with a similar theme). After a while, the user begins to embrace this online role; they start to live as if they are that persona, or at least try to appear so.
Instagram’s structure makes this persona production process permanent. Since all of a user’s posts can be seen together on their profile page, every shared piece of content becomes a “building block” of their personal narrative. For example, consider a user who has been sharing landscape photos for years: Over time, their followers begin to recognize them as a “nature-loving photographer.” This person may have initially shared landscapes just because they found them beautiful, but the likes and praise they receive motivate them to continue their posts along the same lines. After a while, this identity formed on their digital profile becomes so prominent that a completely different piece of content (for example, suddenly posting a party selfie on a landscape profile) can surprise their followers. Indeed, social media observations show that users tend to avoid posts that do not fit the online identity they have created: For someone who has built a “landscape photographer” image, even sharing a personal selfie from time to time can create anxiety about “breaking the narrative.” Thus, a pressure to present a “consistent story” emerges on Instagram. Every user tries not to deviate from the persona their followers have become accustomed to seeing them in; it’s as if they are striving to keep the genre and tone of their life’s script constant.
Of course, this situation also has a feedback loop: Instagram provides the user with constant audience feedback through instant likes and comments. If a photo you shared receives less attention than expected, you might consider not sharing that style again; conversely, if a certain concept gets a lot of likes, you continue with it. This dopamine loop can bind users even more tightly to the persona they have created. For example, someone who shares funny moments from their daily life reinforces their role as an “entertaining storyteller” through follower interactions and takes care not to deviate from it. Thus, the digital self is conditioned by the follower base’s instant reward and approval mechanisms and remains within a specific story axis.
Algorithm = Curator: The Attention Economy and Control of Narrative Flow
The actor that largely determines which stories on Instagram will reach wide audiences and which will remain in the background is the platform’s algorithm. Instagram, which once ranked all posts chronologically, now offers each user a filtered feed based on their interests, previous interactions, and content popularity. This algorithmic curation functions as a kind of editor or curator in Instagram’s narrative ecosystem. So how does the algorithm perform this “editorship”? The answer: according to the rules of the attention economy.
Algorithmic Attention Management
Social media platforms have created an economy based on keeping users’ attention on the platform for as long as possible and maximizing engagement. The Instagram algorithm also tries to provide each user with content that will engage and interact with them the most. As a result, which narratives become visible on the platform? Of course, the ones that are eye-catching. Research shows that the content that gets the most engagement on Instagram is generally content that evokes emotion (especially positive feelings or aesthetically pleasing images) and provokes a reaction from the user (asking questions, starting challenges, etc.). For example, a post with a strong emotional story – a donation campaign story or a touching personal confession – will likely get more comments and likes, and thus be shown to more people by the algorithm. Similarly, a very aesthetic, “eye-catching” photo is advantageous in the eyes of the algorithm because it forces users to stop and look (longer screen time = valuable engagement signal). In short, the algorithm, in response to the question “which story is more interesting?,” rewards the one that is interesting.
This dynamic also pushes users to adapt their content to what the algorithm will like. Some content strategies we’ve observed on Instagram in recent years are proof of this: For example, even influencers who used to only share photos are now focusing on Reels (short video) content, because the algorithm favors the video format. Likewise, tactics like asking questions in post captions to encourage comments have become widespread – because the higher the number of comments, the more “interesting” the algorithm considers that content. Similarly, users use hashtags to make their content discoverable, because the algorithm can recommend posts under that tag to those who follow certain popular tags. All this shows that the story is not only written by the narrator and the audience, but also in conjunction with an invisible third actor, the algorithm.
The attention economy motivation of the algorithm also leads to criticism from time to time. The rewarding of emotional or extreme content, in particular, can turn the platform into a competitive stage. For example, a study by the Knight Foundation on X showed that algorithmic ranking disproportionately highlights political content that triggers emotions like anger. Similarly on Instagram, overly perfect images or content that triggers users’ insecurities (e.g., photoshopped model images that raise body standards) may spread more because they attract a lot of attention. This raises ethical questions about the user experience: While the algorithm tries to capture our attention by giving us “what we want,” is it actually giving us what is good for us, or just things we can’t help but stare at?
Narrative Example: Fyre Festival – The Collapse of a Dream Sold on Instagram
The Fyre Festival scandal of 2017 is an instructive event that demonstrates the power and dangers of narrative construction on Instagram. Fyre Festival was a luxury music festival introduced as a joint project of an entrepreneur named Billy McFarland and the famous rapper Ja Rule. The promotional campaign was conducted almost entirely on Instagram: glossy promotional videos shot on an exotic island in the Bahamas featuring world-famous models (Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, etc.), turquoise seas, luxury yachts, gourmet food… In short, a materialized version of the “good life” myth that had been polished on Instagram for years was marketed as an event. Through a method called influencer marketing, high-follower accounts captivated everyone’s curiosity by sharing a post with an orange fist symbol. Fyre’s Instagram account presented fragments of a paradise life. Thousands of people, captivated by this narrative, bought tickets; some paid thousands of dollars, VIP packages sold out. It was at this point that the hyperreal aspect of digital narrative came into play: People believed that the wonderful scenes they saw on Instagram would be real, and that when they went to that island, they would have the same experience as in the Instagram posts.
However, when the festival day arrived, this narrative bubble burst painfully. The participants who went to the island found neither luxury yachts, nor gourmet food, nor comfortable villas. Instead, there were hastily set up disaster tents, simple sandwich-and-bread meals waiting to be distributed, chaos, and disorganization. The glamorous story marketed on Instagram had, in reality, turned into a complete nightmare story. Participants began to share the reality of the situation on social media, especially on X, and call for help. Thus, the whole world witnessed the collision of a simulation (the luxury festival myth) told on Instagram with reality.
Lessons from the Fyre Festival Case
The Fyre Festival incident makes an important narrative analysis possible from several aspects: First, it was one of the peak points of Instagram’s use as a myth-making platform. An experience that didn’t actually exist was sold as real to thousands of people through a short promotional campaign. In line with Barthes’ myth theory, the “luxury tropical festival” image here turned into a signifier without a signified – an idealized holiday story was created in everyone’s mind. Second, the power and responsibility of influencers came to the fore. Famous models and influencers acted as the narrators of this story and convinced their followers by using their credibility. They sold the script on Instagram without having experienced a single concrete reality of the festival. When the result was a disaster, many of them lost credibility and the rules for transparency in “sponsored content” posts were tightened (now, advertising content on Instagram must be clearly marked with the #ad tag). This is also part of the digital narrative: If the narrator hides that they are creating a fiction and leaves the audience in the lurch when the story collapses, the credit of trust is exhausted.
Third, Fyre Festival showed the collective detective power of social media. While and after the festival fiasco, thousands of internet users investigated the incident and prepared documentaries and articles. In other words, the narrative did not just remain in the hands of the festival’s creators; the audience also got involved and announced this modern tragedy to everyone, commented on it, and produced content. Even documentaries were released on Netflix and Hulu, and Fyre reached the status of a cautionary tale in popular culture. Here, although Instagram was the main “stage,” the development and resolution of the story took place across platforms. This also emphasizes the importance of cross-platform flow in digital age storytelling.
The lesson we learn from the Fyre Festival case is this: The narratives created on Instagram can be extremely persuasive, and can move masses to action (here, the action was buying a ticket to an event). But if these narratives are not based on reality, at some point, a confrontation with reality is inevitable, and when that moment comes, the veil of myth is torn. As Baudrillard said, if the map grows so large as to cover the territory and the real land is erased, only the desert of the map remains. In the Fyre example, under that luxury map, there was a desert of organization. People painfully experienced that the images they saw on Instagram were actually empty simulacra.
This example reinforces the importance of reading Instagram as a narrative tool: If we as users do not look critically at the stories that come before us on Instagram, we can easily be swept away by them. We need a skill we can call digital narrative literacy; just as we question the reliability of the narrator when reading a novel, we must also question the intention behind the content in our Instagram feed, its share of reality, and its aesthetic illusions. The young people who spent tens of thousands of dollars on a Fyre festival ticket perhaps set aside the suspicion that “something this good is too good to be true” - they got caught up in the Instagram fairy tale.
Today, similar dynamics are constantly being experienced, perhaps on a smaller scale. For example, a miraculous product promoted by an influencer is marketed with wonderful photos, but those who buy it are disappointed; or a place becomes popular with the posts of phenomena on Instagram, but when people go there, it doesn’t meet their expectations. They all lead to the same point: The apparent story may not overlap with reality. For this reason, approaching Instagram from a narrative perspective helps us both to analyze the platform and to react more consciously as users.
Conclusion: What Does Reading Instagram as a Narrative Stage Change?
As we saw in the Instagram example, digital platforms satisfy individuals’ need to construct narratives, storify their identities, and participate in collective stories in new ways. While each user is the author, director, and protagonist of their own life, they are also the audience of other people’s life plays. As Roland Barthes said, modern myths are reproduced in these media; as Paul Ricoeur emphasized, time and identity are made meaningful through narrative; as Jerome Bruner pointed out, people construct themselves with stories, and Instagram becomes the public exhibition space for this; Judith Butler’s theory of performative identity takes on flesh and blood on the digital stage, and Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra finds life in filtered life images.
Reading Instagram as a narrative stage gives us a few critical awarenesses: Firstly, it allows us to not forget the labor of fiction and the selectivity behind what we see on social media. Every post is a choice, the product of a decision and a point of view – that is, what its narrator wants to show us. With this perspective, we can take a conscious distance from perfectly appearing posts and prevent ourselves from comparing our lives worthlessly with them. Secondly, approaching Instagram with a narrative dimension helps us understand the platform’s power dynamics: Whose stories are heard, whose voices are lost in the middle? What role does the algorithm play in this power balance? For example, for a period, the algorithm’s highlighting of only “perfect body” photos had turned certain body standards into a norm narrative. Realizing this can enable us to use the platform more critically as users - we can consciously follow different bodies, different stories, and increase narrative diversity.
Similarly, seeing that influencers are also storytellers and that they construct these stories with economic and social motivations makes us more conscious viewers. We can better distinguish the advertisements and marketing narratives our favorite phenomena make; we can understand the difference between authentic experience and sponsored fiction. This is a very important skill in the digital age because now even advertisements come in a “story” format - for example, an influencer tells a story by starting with “the other day something like this happened to me” and inserting the product into it, instead of directly promoting the product. If the audience has story analysis intuition, they can take a healthier stance by noticing the technique being used here.
Another benefit of reading Instagram as a narrative stage is to see the platform’s positive potential as well as its negative aspects. Yes, there are illusions, pressures, but there are also stories where we can understand each other from angles we have never seen before. People can now witness the experiences, cultures, successes, and struggles of people from all over the world, not just their immediate circle. This is also valuable in terms of building empathy and awareness. For example, an account that shares the process of someone struggling with an illness day by day can inspire hope and solidarity in thousands of people. An activist who storifies a social problem can mobilize public opinion. In other words, narrative power, when used correctly, also opens the door to positive changes in the real world.
In conclusion, approaching Instagram as a narrative-building tool is an eye-opening attitude. This perspective allows us to better analyze our experiences on the platform and to approach both our own and others’ digital stories more consciously. After all, everyone is writing their own life story, and Instagram is the medium where it is showcased. However, both the author and the reader of the story are us – therefore, we can be both creative and critical, and we can strip our digital narratives of clichés and harmful comparisons to make them more authentic and meaningful. We must not forget that the focus of the narrative is the human being, and even if it is digital, narrative has the power to shape people. In that case, approaching the stories we encounter on Instagram with awareness will make it possible for us to be more sensitive and realistic towards both ourselves and others. Wishing you to write and read happy stories.
References
- Chua, P. E. (2019). Instagram: The Myth Making Platform. (A bachelor’s thesis that examines self-presentation on Instagram through Roland Barthes’ semiotic concept of myth; it identifies the formation of myths such as “professional,” “good life,” and “sophisticated individual” on the platform.) URL: iskomunidad.upd.edu.ph
- Bass, Michael (2019). Identity is Social (Media). (A comprehensive Medium article that interprets the identity theories of theorists like Judith Butler, Erik Erikson, and John Hewitt specifically for social media, examining self-construction on Instagram and Facebook. It particularly touches upon online performativity and digital autobiography.) URL: medium.com
- Affsprung, Daniel (2017). Narrative Identity and the Data Self. (An article that discusses the narrative identity theory developed by thinkers like Paul Ricoeur and Jerome Bruner in the context of social media; it argues that social media, through the example of the Facebook Timeline, offers users an auto-biographical control space and that people now construct their lives “like a story.”) URL: thesocietypages.org
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- Hunt, Elle (2015). Essena O’Neill quits Instagram claiming social media ‘is not real life’. (A Guardian report on the Australian influencer Essena O’Neill, with 612k followers, quitting Instagram and exposing the behind-the-scenes of her posts. It highlights the phenomenon of “curated perfection” on social media and includes O’Neill’s own words.) URL: theguardian.com
- Milmo, Dan (2022). Instagram rolls back some changes to app after user backlash. (A Guardian report on user backlash against Instagram’s attempt to mimic TikTok with full-screen videos and an excessive recommendation algorithm, and Instagram’s decision to roll back. It highlights the tension between the platform’s algorithm strategies and user demands.) URL: theguardian.com
- Fotomuseum Winterthur (2021). The Instagram Egg. (An excerpt from a museum exhibition text; it highlights that the world-record-breaking “egg” post on Instagram reaching 55 million likes signifies that “the value of an image is determined by its circulation rather than its aesthetics.” It explains the digital attention economy with a striking example.) URL: fotomuseum.ch
- Knight First Amendment Institute (2023). X’s Engagement-Based Ranking Amplifies Politically-Partisan Content. (Although a study on the X/Twitter platform, it’s an important report that experimentally shows how algorithmic ranking rewards emotional/angry content. Useful for understanding the impact of social media algorithms on content visibility.) URL: knightcolumbia.org
- Eysenbach, Gillian (2021). Eliciting Emotion and Action Increases Social Media Engagement. (An academic paper analyzing Instagram, which reveals that posts eliciting an emotional response and prompting users to comment/act receive higher engagement. It points to the advantage of emotional content algorithmically.) URL: PubMed Central
- Tweet, Role, Lynch: Digital Dramaturgy on X | ADEM İŞLER (Reference to my own blog post)
- Making Sense of Algorithmic Precarity on Instagram | dl.acm.org
- How Social Media Algorithms Are Making Us All Feel Crazy | cohesivecounselingrva.com
- Let’s ditch the dangerous idea that life is a story | Aeon Essays https://aeon.co/essays/let-s-ditch-the-dangerous-idea-that-life-is-a-story