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The Pew Research Center recently defined millennials as anyone born between 1981 and 1996. ("Anyone born from 1997 onward will be part of a new generation," it states. And wow does that new unnamed new generation look bright.)
I was born in 1982 which means I am technically a millennial but my childhood and cultural touchstones look very different from someone who was born in the '90s. I grew up without social media, and the Internet (it was the capital I kind of Internet back then) was dial-up. I used Microsoft Encarta instead of Google. All this is to say that among my co-workers, most of whom are younger millennials, I am constantly showing my age.
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ELLE.com's slack room lit up after Selena Gomez posted (then deleted, then reposted with a new filter) a photo of herself holding what appeared to be a Poloroid of her currently on-again boyfriend Justin Bieber. "March 1, 1994 someone I know that happens to be super cool was born. Boom." read the caption, which referenced Bieber's birthday. That post currently has 9 million likes.
Why is this such a big deal, I asked?
"Instagram official," Madi Feller, ELLE.com's assistant editor, told me. Actually, more accurately (and more millennial-ly), she slacked me that answer. As far as I understood it, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez had been "official" for months. They'd been going on church dates and Gomez had been tagging along to Bieber's hockey games. The paparazzi had captured all of it. They were clearly dating again. But, I learned, Instagram Official, means something else. And it's different from the halcyon days of "In a Relationship With" or "It's Complicated With" on Facebook (before, you know, it became a fake news propagating, democracy-disruption machine), where you would generally just be "complicated with" or "in a relationship with" your best girl friend. I asked a few of ELLE.com's younger millennials (Madi Feller, Alyssa Bailey, Chloe Hall, and Kristina Rodulfo) to explain.
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What does it mean to go "Instagram Official"?
Madi: Going Insta Official is a very public way of saying "Yes, I am in a relationship with this person, and I'm ready for the whole world to know," which is a pretty big deal. It means you're not just dating, you're not just hooking up, you're not just "talking," you're in a full-blown, ready-to-share-with-the-universe relationship. And thus the act of going Instagram Official must be done with care.
Alyssa: Instagram has become bigger than Facebook in the way twentysomethings curate their lives. So if I post a lovey picture of me and whomever I'm dating, boom, I'm telling the world. This is a very big move because everyone (your colleagues, co-workers, strangers, whoever follows you on Insta) is watching everything on social media and, let's just be honest here, judging. You become vulnerable by making a private thing public.
Why is it a big deal?
Kristina: Being "Instagram official" is a modern act of faith in your significant other. I think an equivalent would be the very first time you tell somebody "I love you" in person. That's obviously a private moment. But, so much of our online lives are curated intentionally, so putting somebody on your feed feels like an affirmation. Yes, you fit into my vision of my life. It's big!
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When do you do it?
Madi: My approach to Instagram has changed as I've gotten older and have been in (hopefully?) healthier relationships. Before I felt like I occasionally needed to put my relationship on Instagram to validate it to others and myself (plus the mega likes were always a plus). Now, I do it when I feel comfortable and, to be perfectly honest, when all of my friends already know I'm in a relationship, so there are no surprises. But OF COURSE I still spend a good amount of time picking out the photo and crafting the caption as to appear nonchalant but still clearly smitten. Oh! And I also enjoy doing what I like to call the Instagram Power Move, which is when you simply call someone by their first name instead of tagging them. To me, this says, this person is so important and present in my life that all my followers should know who he is without me having to tag him. Power. Move.
Kristina: I think I went Instagram "official" way too early. I met my current boyfriend of four years, Anthony, on a Friday. We had another date on Sunday. The next Friday I posted one photo with him. By Monday, I did my first (and last ever) #MCM. That's 11 days of him being in my life. BOLD!
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Like everything on Instagram, part of posting that image was performative. I was single all through college. I wanted people (especially one particular guy that didn't work out) to know I was doing really well for myself, thank you very much. I was excited, happy, and high on the first weeks of romance and I wanted to announce to the world that I was worthy, I guess, of being liked. I had a lot of insecurity issues as a 21-year-old.
I also had only a couple hundred followers, all personal real-life friends back then. So, it wasn't as big a deal to share that I was dating somebody as it would be now that my Instagram is more about my work life as a beauty editor.
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Chloe: I did put a good amount of thought into my first Relasti-gram. I started dating my current boyfriend in November of my junior year of college yet waited to announce to my (few) Instagram followers until May. I remember my cousin Andre asking who that guy was in the comments and I felt mortified. My thought process behind waiting to post was that I wanted to make sure it wouldn't just be a one-time game appearance of this random; this was going to be my dude for a good amount of time.
What happens if or when you break up?
Chloe: I honestly don't know. It's like a divorce or signing a prenup while you're still married and madly in love, I can't answer straight. I imagine I would be very dramatic and purge in a ceremony with my closest friends, but for the purposes of this exercise, I'm going to say I would leave them all up. As Rihanna says, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty.
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