Instagram began in 2010 and since then has amassed over 1 billion monthly active users. To celebrate it's 10th anniversary, and as we head into a new decade, the social media platform has shared the posts it believes defined the decade. Here are the winners:
Captions come courtesy of The Guardian.
1. The first picture (2010)
App co-founder Kevin Systrom took a picture of a stray dog lying near a taco stand in Mexico and uploaded it with the caption “test”.
2. The most influential picture (2013)
“Wall crawls” are an incredibly popular tourist activity, as murals and street art have long been considered the best backdrop for interesting #holiday pics. It started in 2013, when artist Colette Miller posted the first Instagram picture of her Global Angel Wings project.
3. The most romantic picture (2014)
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West win the award for “the world’s most romantic Instagram photo” after their first kiss as a married couple became the most-liked picture of 2014 (knocking Justin Bieber from the throne).
4. The fakest picture (2015)
After gaining more than 600,000 followers on the site, Australian, Essena O’Neill deleted 2,000 images and recaptioned the remaining 96. “I just want younger girls to know this isn’t candid life, or cool or inspirational. It’s contrived perfection made to get attention,” she wrote on an image of herself wearing a bikini, confessing to sucking in her stomach and pushing up her boobs. In being one of the first people to expose the fakery inherent in Instagramming, O’Neill paved the way for conversations – and academic studies – about how the social network affects mental health.
5. The most-copied picture (2015)
Kendall Jenner amassed 3.5m likes for this image in 2015 making it the most popular that year. The pose thereafter became incredibly popular among copycats.
6. The most-fumbled picture (2016)
In May 2016, Kourtney Kardashian’s ex, Scott Disick, accidentally left the instructions from an advertiser in his Instagram caption about a protein shake. “Here you go, at 4 pm est, write the below. Caption: ‘Keeping up with the summer workout routine with my morning @booteauk protein shake!.”
7. The most controversial picture (2016)
Launched in 2016, the @genderless_nipple account sought to expose Instagram’s double standards when it comes to female nudity. Since its launch, the social network has been criticised for censoring breasts by removing nude pictures of women, while topless pictures of men remain acceptable fodder for Likes. Three advertising students from New York created this account, which posts zoomed-in pictures of nipples, meaning the identity (and gender) of the owner remains hidden.
8. The most-political picture (2017)
Former White House photographer Pete Souza posted a picture of former president Barack Obama kneeling at the school desk of a young refugee who was painting a picture. This wasn’t your regular #ThrowbackThursday; Souza was using the image to subtly condemn new president Donald Trump. Two days earlier, Trump had signed an executive order lowering the number of refugees who could be admitted into the United States.
9. The most-liked picture (2019)
On 4 January 2019, an account named @world_record_egg posted a picture of an egg with the rallying cry: “Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner”. By March, the picture had over 53m likes, and today remains the most-liked on the platform.
10. The most-commented picture (2018)
On 18 June 2018, 20-year-old American rapper XXXTentacion was fatally shot during a robbery in Florida. The controversial artist was mourned at a memorial in a South Florida arena – his coffin lay open onstage as thousands of young fans sang his songs in grief – as well as on Instagram, where the final picture he uploaded before his death is believed to be the site’s most commented-on post.
