The Photo Dump: A Novelty of Real-ish Moments

A silly face with a friend, a misspelled sign, a spilled coffee, a dog mid-mischief—all in a neat photo carousel on your high school acquaintance's Instagram page.

One evening last year, after a stretch of not posting on my Instagram page for more than one cycle around the sun, I happened to scroll through my recent photos and stopped on a couple in particular."These are some funny bits of life I might actually feel like posting," I thought. Life events happened in those two years that many would find immediately "worthy" of posting, but, for some reason, I just didn't feel the need to or didn't get around to it. I finally landed on an instance of wanting to share something, partially fueled by the growing popularity of this thing called a "photo dump".

If you haven't already seen one on social media (you probably have, even if you didn't realize it), a "photo dump" is exactly what it sounds like. Imagine taking a box of printed photos and dumping them all out onto the floor like a bunch of puzzle pieces. What results is a mish-mosh of snaps that may or may not make a cohesive group altogether.

On Instagram (or other social media sites with image-posting capabilities), this appears as a collection of photos that don't necessarily have any connection to each other. In fact, that's often the hallmark of a photo dump, similar to montage film technique—a series of images distinct and unrelated without context. Clear context for photo dumps, from my observation, is optional. Sometimes an explanation is given for each photo, and sometimes none, causing the only common thread among the images to be the person who posted them. Each creates a unique storyline for the consumer to follow, either by seeing it plainly for what it is or piecing together the possible connections in their mind.

So what's the appeal of a set of photos that may or may not make sense with each other, all posted at once? Why has it become so popular? What's the attraction beyond the everyone-is-doing-it?

Anna Sitar is a content creator who sprang to fame on TikTok, but, like many other content creators, also cultivates a presence on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. About two years ago, she was a guest of Taylor and Tay Lautner on their podcast, The Squeeze, where she touched on her affinity towards TikTok over Instagram, much of the time, because of its stripped-down qualities. "TikTok, to me, feels like one of those apps [where] you can be yourself and it doesn't have to be so cookie-cutter. Instagram feels like so much pressure to have a pretty feed and photos and good photography... TikTok [content is filmed on] an iPhone for the most part, unless I go nuts and film it on a professional camera...It's a nice deal to take that barrier down and show the more organic version of yourself," ("Anna Sitar: Create What You Love", 27:24-27:49).

As Anna mentioned, Instagram has become known as a platform with a level of aesthetic mastery, of which many successful accounts post content with high production quality and engaging audio/visual media. While TikTok does contain some content like this, its unfiltered qualities remain at the forefront of its reputation. One could argue that Instagram Reels tend to lean this way, which is true, though Instagram generally seems to offer a somewhat more "edited" experience. The photo dump, like the silly, out-of-pocket content on TikTok, offers a crack in this curated simulation, opening the door for as-is moments that peek into real life. Some have molded it to fit their aesthetic or brand-consistent content, but the nature of the photo dump inserts a break in routine—an opportunity to shed the staged segments and broadcast the "real you".

More recently, I struggled with a sense of guilt over posting on Instagram (the primary social media platform I engage with). The following list is a series of over-considerations that crossed my mind when simply thinking of posting a few photos:

• Social media is over-saturated with unrealistic highlights—even the ones that claim to be raw are often still artificial somehow. If I contribute to the endless wheel of overstimulating, attention-sucking, not-so-candid visuals that flash before us every day, then I’m just like everyone else. I must boycott any contribution. (But if I don't feel deterred enough to discontinue my consumption, what difference does it make?)

• If I've selected to share one thing but not another, am I showing favoritism to experiences in my life? Is this selective sharing reflective of what I value?

• Am I "living in the moment" enough? Have I captured too much and put more focus on the broadcast of these memories rather than immersing in them?

  
  

While it's important to consider authenticity and balance "experiencing" vs. "sharing", at some point, the over-consideration becomes the danger: yet another consuming detriment of social media. If I continue to let these lord over my thoughts, then I have allowed the beast to exhaust my brain as much as any doom-scroll and erase that authenticity from my spontaneous idea.

So I’m throwing all those out the window. I felt inspired by some things I saw, and I captured them in a freeze-frame. I think I'll show them to you and tell you about them.

It isn't a surefire avenue to reality, but the photo dump presents itself as the whisper of a media-logged generation starving for transparency, and maybe (for people like me), a way to shut down the overthinking and just share some real-life glimpses, whether creative and purposeful or off-the-cuff and unrefined.

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For further exploration:

• The Squeeze, Episode "Anna Sitar: Create What You Love"