Earlier this year, a photo of the two of them was posted to the social media site and made their relationship look like a lot of fun. Their backs are illuminated by the camera's flash. They look up at the ride that towers before them. The building's many shapes and pinnacles are fuzzy as they bask in the blue and yellow light. The busy facade creates a sense of whimsy and the purple sky in the distance creates a warm backdrop for the evening.
The photo looked bad from an early 2000s disposable camera, but the reality star chose to share it with her 155 million followers. She's made similar hazy shots a regular attraction on her feed, and it wasn't the first blurry photo she posted. She posts blurry views from car windows, blurry shots of her and her husband kissing and laughing, blurry photos of her kids jumping on the bed, and she even took a blurry photo of herself from a Vogue shoot.
It's not clear who popularized sharing blurry photos with followers, but in the year 2021, other celebrities including Ariana Grande and Harry Styles have all followed the trend.
The way people use social media is changing due to the epidemic, and now more than ever people are finding joy in posting flawed content on social media. Somewhere in between learning to wash our hands while singing "Happy Birthday" twice and our newfound Omicron anxiety, we decided to embrace chaotic social media posts. In 2021, teens are showing their true selves with finstas and casually assemble random photo dumps, while users on the photo sharing site find comfort in trauma.
The blurry photos trend is proof that people are abandoning their pre-pandemic posting standards to share imperfect content that more accurately reflects reality. Blurry photos were once thought of as worthless mistakes, but today they're seen as evidence that wild fun was had.
It's nothing new to see blurry photos on social media. Non-tech savvy people who struggle to take good photos have been posting them for years, and they were popular in the early days of the photo sharing site.
People are posting blurry photos to make their personal feeds look better. Rather than serving "poor quality photo" vibes, intentionally posted blurry photos serve "I'm having too much fun and living life so fast that a camera can't even capture me" vibes. Blurry photos remind us to let loose in front of the camera sometimes and to embrace life's candid moments. Whether blurry photos are intentional or accidental, the decision to post them on social media has become deliberate, so I've started calling them "plurries" or "planned".
"I'm having too much fun and living life so fast that a camera can't even capture me" is what was posted on blurry photos.
Why have blurry photos become more popular this year? I think part of their appeal is related to the pop punk revival. Blurry photos are a way for users to rebel against staged content that dominates the platform. I would have needed some convincing if you had told me years ago that aKardashian would be datingTravis Barker and that she would post blurry photos on her social media accounts. Perhaps fellow blurry photo fan and actor Channing Tatum explained their appeal best when he captioned his own blurry shot in August. He wrote, "life is a blur." That it is, sir. That it is.
The Night Mode feature on the phone's camera has made blurry photos more common. Most of the blurry photos I see posted online are taken at night or in a dark setting. Why? The Night Mode on the iPhone 11 is extremely motion-sensitive. Night Mode is designed to increase exposure time on photos, but it's important to keep the camera and subject still in the dark, because it's difficult to capture a photo in the dark. Motion is visible in the photo if you don't. Some of the most organic, accidental blurry photos are likely due to a lack of camera stabilization in Night Mode, and people can change the blur on their Portrait Mode photos and more than a few photo editing apps with blur effects are available for download. If the subject is too close to the camera lens, the iPhone can produce blurry photos.
The spike in blurry photos may eventually die down, but I think they'll become regular visuals on our timelines now that they're no longer seen as inferior and undistinguished.
Marie Kondo would say that I love mess.
