#homesofInsta for a #lockdownlife

This project centred a digital exploration of the visualities and aesthetics of mediated domesticity on Instagram in times of Covid-19. We explored four different hashtag clusters, representing different facets of the collectively constructed idea of domesticity and, particularly, the home in the context of a pandemic-induced lockdown. 

Although each hashtag cluster offered particular insights, as will be explored further in this report, the key findings of this project illustrate how the photographic content present in these hashtags can be clearly divided between highly aestheticised content and more quotidian and less aestheticised content. While highly aestheticised content (i.e. content with high production values and following the dominant cultural scripts of Instagram [Abidin, 2016]) was especially noticeable in popular or highly engaged with posts, as well as in well-established thematic hashtags like #homesofinsta, #realhomesofinstagram, or #homesweethome, less aestheticised content was predominant amongst low engagement posts, produced mainly by ‘ordinary’ users, thus showing a less curated vision of the home.

Despite Instagram’s cultural imaginary being commonly associated with photographic, and later video, content (Manovich, 2017; Leaver, Highfield & Abidin, 2020),  it was also noteworthy the amount of graphic content (mainly of commercial nature or in meme-like formats) that was shared and re-shared on these hashtags.

While this project offers only a limited entry point into this research topic, it illustrated the ways in which different types of visualities coalesced within Instagram hashtag cultures to create a multi-layered idea of the home and domesticity. The home on Instagram becomes a floating signifier (Barbour & Heise, 2020), carrying multiple meanings as both a real-life photographable experience, an inspirational goal to be emulated, or even a graphic representation offering an imagined alternative or a satirical escape to our ‘real’ experience of the home during quarantine.