The rise of Instapolitics

Instagram is giving us a new way to define who we are — left and right.

Source: unsplash.

Ben | ldn | 22 | Rose emoji Eleanor | Exeter | Tory| British flag

Above are Instagram bios I’m sure you’re acquainted with. A quick glance through the emoji library throws up multiple symbols that have become inexorably linked with politics. Flags — Hong Kong, Palestine, the EU — signifying which global team someone is on.

Instagram has meant that it has never been easier to assert particular politics as your social identity. Numerous commentators have moaned that this has caused politics to become performative and shallow. Where they are wrong is in assuming that this is a new phenomenon. Faith in political ideologies has filled the vacuum that religious belief once filled. Instagram is not to blame: our very need to define ourselves through politics is.

“Perhaps, the Insta-version of ourselves is not rooted in wanting to effect change, but in projecting the types of change our ideal version of ourselves wants to enact. ”

Politics is the new religion. Organised Christianity may have run its course when Nietzsche proclaimed it dead in 1882, but the 20th century showed that our psychic need for secular creeds persisted, with the religions of fascism, communism and neoliberalism ascendant. However, our times have not found their dominant belief system. The 2008 crash killed capitalism’s claim to moral superiority. It is no surprise that the 21st century has seen a rise in ritual-based secular religions in its wake, such as self-care, mindfulness, veganism or the Twilight fandom. Instapolitics is just one aspect of that. In the absence of one hegemonic ideology, political groups, ever more insistent of their moral certainty, sprawl all over the internet.

The most popular site for this posturing is, of course, the Gram. As much as 80 per cent of Gen Zs have the Instagram app on their phones – a figure higher than that for Facebook, Snapchat or WhatsApp. The sites to which each generation flocks tells us something about their politics. Older people have fallen for Facebook’s propensity for clickbait, and QAnon has found fertile grounds on the platform. Disaffected 30-somethings, who live on YouTube, fall prey to the site’s algorithms, through which one Jordan Peterson video leads them to a cesspit of redpill meninism. Instagram’s social forces so far seem less malign, but its visual aspect means that people’s politics have become more like a social brand than they have been in the past. 

What effect does this have on our politics? It seems that the issues that are most prominent are the ones that provide the most gratification to the person sharing it. In the same way that the socialist Christopher Hitchens confusingly backed Bush’s Iraq invasion (as it was the opinion he could argue with the most force, thus revivifying his reputation as a ferocious polemicist), our opinions are defined by how we can make them, not by what they are. It has led to a strange perception of what political change we can effect. It is cooler to care about and share the big global injustices — the ivory trade, fast fashion, deforestation — than it is about local matters which would be easier to influence. This isn’t to say that putting these injustices on your story is worthless — they spread awareness — but surely effectuating tangible change on the local level is more rewarding than spreading that awareness. Perhaps, the Insta-version of ourselves is not rooted in wanting to effect change, but in projecting the types of change our ideal version of ourselves wants to enact. In this sense, putting the burning Amazon on our story is the same way as posting a holiday pic where we look good — this is me, the best version of me. Politics is another form of seeking gratification.

This seems to only blame the left, but Instapolitics solidify right-wing identities too. The right responds with things we’ve all heard, “I bet she doesn't even know where Yemen is”, or “so how much have you donated to BLM then?”. This stance, rejecting the Insta consensus, shows that you are an independent thinker who is not swept away by the mainstream hysteria. Putting that you are a Tory in your bio shows that you see a virtue in being so. The left picked the easy side. It shows how transgressive you are. There is nothing new in this. To be transgressive has always been to be edgy, and to be edgy is desirable. In the 1960s, to be edgy was to support racial and LGBT civil rights. Now, to be edgy is to resist them. As Angela Nagle writes in “Kill all Normies”, “the recent rise of the online right is evidence of the co-opting of 60s left styles of transgression and counterculture.” A backlash against liberal morals becomes a thrilling activity, and the left harden their piety in response.

This moral certainty has penetrated the romantic sphere too. The rise of “never kissed a Tory” t-shirts show how we have depressingly equated certain political opinions with moral superiority. The idea that you would have never kissed a Tory shows that you would seek to know whether someone is a Tory before you kiss them. What happened to relationships developing naturally? The right take this attitude and run with it — “own the libs” retorts and worse are flung back. Certainty polarises.

“If you think that your vote comes from matching your policy preferences with a party, you’re wrong. Instead, people vote for the candidate which they think their social group votes for, then post hoc rationalise whether the party’s policies fit with what they think.”

Politics as social identity, writ large, also leads to lazy thinking. A good example is that plenty of people who don’t know the complex history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can guess in advance which side they’re going to take. Self-awareness of your “ideology” leads to a lesser consideration of policies. It’s easier, if you identify as a socialist, to think “what would a socialist think about this policy” than go “what do I think about this policy?” Group mindsets become dominant, and some of these have cemented during the pandemic. Many on the right, the transgressive minority, oppose school closures and back up their opinions with manipulated statistics. However, the left’s response has been to pretend that there are no social costs to school closures at all, and to shout for them with gusto. Considering that school closures exacerbate inequality on a substantial scale, how did we end up with the left cheerleading them?

Describing ourselves as a “Tory” or a “socialist”, a “Brexiteer” or a “Remainer” means that we know what we think without thinking it. In the book “Democracy for Realists”, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels show that people decide who to vote for according to this idea. If you think that your vote comes from matching your policy preferences with a party, you’re wrong. Instead, people vote for the candidate which they think their social group votes for, then post hoc rationalise whether the party’s policies fit with what they think. Having a political identity shows us which group we are part of, defines how we vote and constructs our political identity according to others. Politics becomes a social activity where we showcase the ideal person we want to be.

I realised halfway through writing this that I’ve been doing much of what I’ve complained about in this piece. This piece is an advertisement of me, as a writer, as someone who likes to think that he’s seen through one of society’s illusions. I began to look at my own politics. They’re quite confusing. I believe in a Green New Deal, but I also think we should lower income tax. Have I costed this out and come to an economic conclusion that this works? No. Perhaps I’ve arrived at it by subconsciously trying to show you and myself what an quirky thinker I am. Such relentless navel-gazing, of course, can be exhausting and leaves a nihilistic mess. But if we can interrogate our own thinking and find the reasons for our opinions, independent of others, it may help us hold better ones. We need to remember that, as John Gray has written, politics is “the art of devising temporary remedies for recurring evils”, not the basis of our identity. Music, sport, art, humour and friendship are far better things for that.

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