All good things must come to an end. The Instagram account, Socality Barbie, called it quits yesterday as the genius behind the satirical photos revealed herself to the world. Darby Cisneros, a Portland wedding photographer, said goodbye with one last post saying she would leave the account active for a while, but felt her job calling out hipsters and poking fun at hashtags was done.
A few months back, Socality Barbie gained a lot of attention for her anti-hipster posing in perfectly crafted #liveauthentic #pnw adventure photography, poking fun at the "real" photos many outdoor adventure photographers post on Instagram. After a profile in WIRED, Socality Barbie saw her followers jump from 7,000 to 1,000,000 with her extreme wit and fresh look at the oversaturated market of adventure photography, even if those following her were the butt of the joke.
But Cisneros felt she has finished what she set out to do. “I had never intended on it being a longterm project,” she says. “I wanted to use it as my own outlet to say things about social media that I’ve always wanted to say. I said all I wanted to say with SB.”
There is cause for speculation as to the timing and abrupt end to Socality Barbie, with the recent news of Essena O'Neill shutting down her account and the scrutiny from Socality, one of the brands Cisneros parodied on her account, which posted a blog entry about possible infringement and damages to their brand. But Cisneros told Buzzfeed she planned to stop posting to the account a month ago.
Social media is not real life, just like Barbie is not a real image of women. But even with the departure of Socality Barbie, she has done her part to help continue conversations on the authenticity of your adventure photos and humble-brags.
I'll miss her.
I miss the speech full of drama and the tears, though...
With this wave of backlash over authenticity of Instagram, now even the PARODY accounts are quitting because their feeds are not portrayals of reality. SMH.
Too bad, I'll miss her too...