Instafame: Graffiti and Street Art in the Instagram Era

Instafame charts the impact of Instagram-one of the world’s most popular social media platforms-on visual culture in the mere eight years since its launch. MacDowell traces the intuitive connections between graffiti, street art, and Instagram, arguing that social media’s unending battle for a viewer’s attention is closely aligned with eye-catching ethos of unsanctioned public art. Beginning with the observation that the scroll of images on a sideways phone screen resembles nothing so much as graffiti seen through the windows of a moving train, Macdowell moves outward to give us a wide-ranging look at how Instagram has already effected a dramatic shift in the making and viewing of street art.