Memory Or Merch

 

By Akshata Kalyanikar, SYBA

The Camera in the age of Performative Consumerism

If you went to a social event, a concert, or a good restaurant and did not post about it, did you even go? Between ‘smile for the camera!’ and ‘Wait don’t eat yet I need a picture’, the concept of a photo has been warped into something else entirely. 

WHEN DID PHOTOGRAPHS STOP BEING JUST FOR US?

Earlier, the camera and the photo symbolised something special. They used to be a repository for our memories. Memories in the form of smiles that would later be put up on our walls or pasted into scrapbooks. Something to stumble upon years later and have the same emotions flood through us as we relived that time once again. Today, each click of the camera has various different undercurrents. It clicks to perform, it clicks to validate and most importantly, it clicks to market. Coined by American sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, the term Conspicuous Consumption (1899)  can be explained as the act of spending money specifically as an act of showcasing economic power of the buyer. On a deeper level, it serves as a means of acquiring or maintaining a certain social status. When something becomes performative, it is a carefully curated behaviour for others to see, and not necessarily authentic. This journey of performative consumerism represents how the role of the camera has shifted from capturing life to curating it. When did pictures become tools for public validation? Why did we start actively choosing to unravel our entire lives in front of the camera? And finally, what implications does this shift have for each generation - both in the context of identity and socio-psychological impact.

Today, we live in an attention-based economy. Our time is currency and likes, shares, saves and views strongly impact both the personal and professional aspects of our life. With the rise of influencing as a full-time job, personal experiences are now tailored to what the audiences want - packaged within the shiny wrap of the almighty algorithm and the sparkly bow of relatability and faux authenticity. 

There is one important caveat here - the aim of this analysis is not to demonise the camera and what it has become, but to simply explore its multifaceted nature. The camera and social media have become brilliant forums for people to foster connectivity, creativity and empowerment. Like all things, what we gain from this tool is what we give it. How we choose to use the camera also shapes us in return. What follows here is just one side of the story - the slow shift from memory to merchandise and going from a personal repository to a very public display of our lives.

IS THE PHOTO TODAY JUST A STILL MOMENT, OR A COMPLEX STORY?

We all have fond memories of our old family albums, don’t we? The camera’s resulting image then consisted of awkward lighting, even more awkward poses and genuine smiles. Physical pictures with a few frayed edges and random stains. These photos were for home and memory and not for the validation of people online. Then came the advent of the internet. Connectivity was now at the tips of our fingers. But sadly, so was judgement. Today, the camera (with its numerous filters and multiple editing tools) gives us a resulting image that fits in the best with whatever is rewarded by views and visibility. Each photo taken by this contemporary tool is laden with layers and layers of detail. The perfect lighting, just the right angles and not a single hair out of place. Modern smartphone cameras are meticulously designed to provide first rate photographs effortlessly. What supplemented this innovation are the huge investments in technology and development made by companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, etc. We can also study this from a consumerist perspective. Taking and sharing pictures has become a market now largely because of how simple it is. There is no specialised skill required to create stunning photographs, the phone already does that for you. Moreover, with many cameras incorporating technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality into the mix, we can now generate even the most obscure and random combinations of photos with one prompt. 

We can observe the rise of modern social media sites in the early 2000s. Forums like Facebook, YouTube, and later Instagram launched, vying for the attention of billions of people at the same time. With a sharp increase in visibility and the chance to ‘go viral’, life began to slowly turn into content. What started as innocent posts to share our interests and finding a virtual community of like-minded individuals soon became a career. The ability to monetise our content gave way to the business models of these huge companies and then began the era of influencing as a career. Another tangential dark side of the social media boom that one can explore is the encroachment of privacy. Today, browsing a website is more than just logging onto our devices, it is a systematic way of letting the algorithms know where we live, what our interests are, our personal information and we soon become a part of a much larger network for targeted AD campaigns. 

Technically speaking, a social media algorithm is an AI-driven set of rules used to curate a user’s feed (or as we call it, our FYP). It does so by analyzing several cues we unintentionally give it. Looking for the same type of content, interacting with it by liking and sharing, etc are all methods by which algorithms are trained to give us a very personalized experience. Modern interpretations of social media have turned the algorithm into some devilish instrument used to keep us hooked to our devices. Does this demonisation of the algorithm also influence how we view the camera? Do we still view it as a tool or as an enabler of all the supposed ‘evils’ of social media?

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE,  BUT WHAT IF THE THEATRE IS EMPTY?

We have all now evolved to have an inbuilt instinct in us. An eye for aesthetics and the urge to make everything look ‘Instagrammable’. When we point a camera at anything - our food at a restaurant, random aesthetically arranged leaves on our way to work, the sky (bonus points if it’s a sunset), the act of capturing that image feels more like a performance than a memory to preserve. Once the COVID-19 pandemic confined us to the four walls of our homes, short form content made its way onto our for you pages (FYPs) in all its glory. Short form content such as TikTok, Instagram reels and YouTube Shorts was an immediate hit and enabled people to share their content in videos as short as 30 seconds. This made filming content all the more accessible because people now did not need complex camera equipment to put themselves out there. The simplicity that the modern camera provides is exactly what makes content creation such an attractive job prospect. 

However there is an aspect we cannot ignore. The camera now enforces curation. When daily life becomes a spectacle for viewers, everyday living then becomes performative. All of our decisions are rooted in the camera’s gaze. Its role as an enabler is really cemented in the fact if something is not on camera, it does not feel real. It is now a social tool to stage our lives for an audience. Even people who don’t see themselves as ‘content creators’ necessarily, always maintain a camera-ready persona. An everyday moment between friends, paused by a single dialogue - “Wait! Let me get this on camera.” Suddenly everyone wants their ‘better angle’ and multiple retakes. This adds an undercurrent of anxiety to the mix. There is an unfair expectation on life to feel cinematic and aesthetic all the time. A vicious circle then commences where we cannot possibly keep our lives ‘perfect’ and how it leads to further feelings of inadequacy when compared to all the aesthetic influencers on social media. We can also observe the rise of the ‘Camera Version’ of ourselves. There exists a version of us only for the camera. It might be more enthusiastic, more interesting or, ironically, even more natural. However, people’s performance on camera is not always fake. People cry real tears, broadcast very real life decisions and the mere fact that they choose to broadcast it is no reason to label them as influencers who do ‘anything’ for engagement. It is not inherently wrong to document or even to post one’s vulnerable moments. Visibility and support online can feel very empowering. The only challenge here is that when we are perennially performing, lines between our real self and the camera self can start to blur. 

THE CAMERA MARKET’S BESTSELLERS - NOSTALGIA AND KINDNESS

What happens when nostalgia gets a filter and kindness needs to follow a template? Commodified feelings are a common and currently a very effective method to attain visibility and thereby stronger engagement on social media. Retro filters and references to old music, TV shows, movies and instances very specific to a certain age group are what gain a lot of traction online. An example of using such specific instances would be recreating a piece of content that talks about school days - rainy days, cartoons almost everyone watched and then topping it off with carefully selected music. It is no secret that music has the ability to influence our emotions. Nostalgic music strongly hits the emotion-focused parts of our brain and we are immediately pushed to reminisce about the happy memories we associate with that music and the visuals we are being shown. Memories turn into brands and this extends beyond nostalgia.

Kindness as an emotion also works very well with the algorithm. Filming and posting ‘random acts of kindness that restore your faith in humanity’ leads to kindness being a tool for visibility and the camera being a proof of virtue. On the ethical side it leads viewers to speculate whether the creator would even bother to do this if the camera was off. If they would, why constantly make it public? Further ethical concerns emerge when the identity of the person being helped is not concealed, but rather brought into the spotlight to perpetuate their suffering under the guise of rousing empathy from the viewers. The camera therefore becomes an enabler in broadcasting the suffering of people just so that it gains attention online and stops viewers from scrolling (which is the new yardstick to measure how relevant someone’s content is) by directly appealing to the most vulnerable parts of the human mind. Exploring this role of the camera definitely places it under a negative light. This is juxtaposed with the other huge amount of videos on the internet that actually try to gain attention for the right reasons- whether to raise awareness or funds for a certain cause or simply an attempt to inspire someone else to be kind today, even if it is a small gesture. So, is it the camera that is inherently good or evil? Or is it the context that we use it in?

KID-FLUENCERS AND THE FAR REACHING CONTROL OF THE CAMERA 

There has been another, rather controversial aspect of social media that is on the rise, i.e. the era of kids being influencers. What perhaps starts off as innocent videos of children being children soon morphs into something much more complex and dare I say, much darker. As mentioned earlier, the idea of having ‘content creator’ as a job title is a very tempting career trajectory to pursue. Just cater to the audience and you’ll make a lot of money, right? But who is actually monitoring who constitutes this audience? This leads us down a dark rabbit-hole of how kids being used for views on social media is ethically ambiguous in its perception. Some might see an innocent child enjoying themselves while others might worry about their safety and online presence. Despite the parents’ honest intentions, there is still always a lingering grey area when it comes to kid-fluencing. Important (and many times, personal) milestones of these kids become watched more than remembered. There is no shortage of horrifying cases of kids who were paraded before the camera when they were young, grow up facing constant scrutiny and sometimes even legitimate security threats. There is also another interesting side to the intergenerational adoption of social media - watching the older generations like our grandparents adapt to, and sometimes succeed in making content their job. This works out very well because their content appeals to many emotions in us - one of nostalgia, endearment in ‘watching them figure out the internet’, and even stronger emotions of protectiveness and love in viewers who might not have had the blessing of having their grandparents in their lives. Perhaps the most common age bracket of social media users and creators are teenagers. Hours spent editing a single photo and the constant pressure to look not only flawless but also natural can be exhausting for developing minds to deal with. Before treating validation-centered teenagers as ‘monsters of their own making’ and demonising their relationship with the camera, it is also important to realise that for a lot of kids, this is their only means to fit in. This can lead to increasing rates of mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and in extreme cases, full-blown disorders. Here we can explore the impact of this intergenerational need of perpetual performance. 

WILL ANXIETY ALSO SOON BECOME A TREND TO PARTAKE IN?

The camera is no longer something we pull out occasionally to remember good memories. It is something that lives with us everyday in our portable little mobile devices. It is always ready and it is always watching. This creates anxieties around perpetual performance. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) culture is not just about missing the event, but more about missing the opportunity to post about it. Another issue to be addressed is ‘Authenticity Anxiety.’ The pressure to perform for the camera becomes so intense that we wonder if we are actually enjoying the act of documenting anymore or if it is just another stage for the camera. No one is capable of constantly performing and having their best foot forward. This expectation is not only unrealistic but also damaging. In its final stage, this pressure turns into burnout. Who is really in control here? On one hand, the camera is a tool we use to capture our lives. On the other hand, its integration into platforms designed to monetize attention can make it complicit in the performance economy. The camera in this sense commands attention. And it is not the ideal leader to turn to. 

MEMORY OR MERCHANDISE? 

After all of this, we are left with a question. Will the camera belong to us fully ever again or has it been taken over by the market? Our photos and memories dance on either side of the precarious line between memory and merchandise. While this warrants acknowledging the loss of intimacy of our personal archive, we can try to gently circle back to our first question - who are we performing for? What would it feel like to take a photo just for ourselves for once? We must understand that the camera is just a tool. There are a lot of other societal structures at play that turn this tool into something more. If we take away social media, Fear of Missing Out and the constant need to perform, the camera reverts back to its basic form - merely a tool. To conclude, we can say that the camera is not inherently good or evil. How we use it greatly impacts and decides its role in that particular circumstance. It is merely a medium and not necessarily the sole marketer of our memories.

REFERENCES

Clark, D. R., & Jno-Charles, A. B. (2025). The child labor in social media: Kidfluencers, ethics of care, and exploitation. Journal of Business Ethics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-025-05953-7

Faraz, N. (2024, October 13). The camera: A journey through time and technology. Medium. https://medium.com/@nabeelfaraz/the-camera-a-journey-through-time-and-technology-b247a012eb15

James, O. (n.d.). Consumerism, performativity, and our constant need to prove ourselves. The Golden Report. https://thegoldenreport.org/2726/editorials/consumerism-performativity-and-our-constant-need-to-prove-ourselves