Instagram has become such a big part of tech culture that’s it’s easy to forget that the social media platform is only a decade old.

Just over 10 years ago, people had to name their children after musicians or celestial bodies if they wanted to stand out, but now they just pick an Instagram filter.

It was very popular in 2015, so next time you meet a five-year-old named Lux or Reyes, you have full permission to judge their parents.

Terrible names for children is a small part of how the photo-sharing app has changed the way we navigate the world. It’s impacted the tourism industry, created ‘influencers’, and exposed us to more pictures of smashed avo on toast and artisanal coffee than is healthy for one person to see in a lifetime.

So where did it all begin? The Guardian reckons that these 10 posts are the most influential of the last decade, laying the foundations for what we have to deal with today.

1. The First-Ever Instagram Picture

The first Instagram post happened on July 16, 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”. Instagram was publicly launched in October that same year.

2. The Most Influential Picture

People love a photo prop, so this was a genius idea.

“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. In essence: she encouraged artists to paint human-sized wings on walls around the world, which in turn encouraged people to pose in front of them. She aimed to “remind humanity that we are the angels of this earth”

The hashtags on those pictures must have been insufferable.

3. Most Romantic Picture

Kim and Kanye, two of the world’s most annoying humans, decided to merge their lives (and eventually their genetic material) and people absolutely loved it. The above was the most-liked picture of 2014.

4. The Original Fake

We now know that almost everything on Instagram, especially if there’s an influencer involved, is probably staged. Back in 2015, we were still figuring that out.

Yet the first person to authoritatively announce this was Australian teenage influencer Essena O’Neill in 2015. After gaining more than 600,000 followers on the site, 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.

O’Neill paved the way for studies on the effect of social media on mental health.

5. Most Imitated Picture

Kendall Jenner’s hair looks like one of those Victorian garden gates, but that didn’t stop tons of people from copying her.

Kendall Jenner’s claim that the most-liked Instagram picture of 2015 was “organic”. The picture showed Jenner lying on the ground in a white lace dress, her hair intricately arranged in the shape of seven hearts. The Macmillan dictionary definition of organic? “Happening or developing in a natural and continuous process.” You can’t get much more contrived than getting three supermodels to arrange your hair on a yacht, but c’est la vie.

That’s life, indeed.

6. The OG Influencer Fail

In 2016, Kourtney Kardashian’s ex, Scott Disick, left the instructions for a sponsored Instagram post in the caption.

Brooklyn Beckham would go on to make the same mistake in June this year.

7. Most Controversial Picture

Yes, that is a giant nipple.

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.

Free the nipple.

8. Most Political Picture

This picture was posted very deliberately.

On 29 January 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.

Like most of the sane world, we miss the Obamas in the White House.

9. The Most-Liked Picture

If you’d like to read about the egg that broke the internet, go here and here.

10. Most Commented On Picture

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. Over five million people have left messages on the upside down picture of the topless rapper, and new comments come in every minute.

And that wraps up the decade for the most part.

Right, you can go back to Instagramming your toast now.

[source:guardian]