Amalia Ulman has 240 posts and 65,000 followers on Instagram, but the content of every single one of those photos is 100% fake. Not because she's some Russian stripper that always shows up in my Tinder matches, but because for the past six months or so, she created a manufactured life that was, for her, a personal art project. Vulture spoke to Amalia about the lengths she was willing to go to make this a reality. The core component? A perfectly "Internet" character and storyline:
The provincial girl moves to the big city, wants to be a model, wants money, splits up with her high-school boyfriend, wants to change her lifestyle, enjoys singledom, runs out of money because she doesn’t have a job, because she is too self-absorbed in her narcissism, she starts going on seeking-arrangement dates, gets a sugar daddy, gets depressed, starts doing more drugs, gets a boob job because her sugar daddy makes her feel insecure about her body, and also he pays for it, she goes through a breakdown, redemption takes place, the crazy bitch apologizes, the dumb blonde turns brunette and goes back home. Probably goes to rehab, then she is grounded at her family house.
If that's a storyline you're all too familiar with and seen play out on Facebook countless times courtesy of the girls you went to high school with, that's because Amalia researched the types of girls who have become popular on Instagram or Tumblr and combined their personalities with photography to portray it as accurately as possible. For example, posting inspirational quotes or certain makeup and hair styles to maximize impact. She also used trending hashtags to up her follower and like count and even went as far as to get a boob job, though there is some speculation that the plastic surgery was faked. Either way, that's some fucking unbelievable, next level commitment to art. By the end of the campaign, some people had caught on, but the general sham still remained largely unnoticed.
Guys, I am so fucking in on this. Totally support it. Love it. Tell me more, Amalia, please. This only shows how bullshit the most popular Instagram accounts are, as if today's platform-wide humbling wasn't proof of that already. Amalia points out that social media should really be about spontaneity, but so many people manufacture and fabricate details just to get attention. Personally, I also can't stand people posting photos on Instagram that they took on their actual cameras. Shit's just not fair. But that's an argument for another time. For now, just revel in the thirstiness of strangers on the Internet and one girl willing to get a new set of tits for the sake of art.
