The Vogue cover of April 2014 referred to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West as the #WorldsMostTalkedAboutCouple. The #WorldsMostTalkedAboutCouple got married on 24 May in Fort di Belvedere in Florence, Italy in a private ceremony. Whether they are the most talked about or not, they are clearly the most Instagrammed. The couple's wedding picture has gone on to become the most-liked image of all time on Instagram.
Kimye (that's how the press describes them) took the crown from Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez who had until then held the title of most liked Instagram photo. While the Beiber-Gomez picture had close to 1.82 million likes, Kimye managed to get 2 million likes in about 24 hours. The picture currently has 2.3 million likes.
But all these likes didn't come easy. Kanye West revealed to the Billboard magazine that it took four days to work on that picture as Kim wanted the colours to be just right. He said, "Annie Leibovitz pulled out right before the wedding — maybe she was scared about the idea of celebrity… But I still wanted my wedding photos to look like Annie Leibovitz. Now, can you imagine telling someone who just wants to Instagram a photo, the No. 1 person on Instagram, that we need to work on the color of the flowered wall? But the fact that the No. 1 most liked photo has this certain aesthetic on it was a win for what the mission is — of raising the palette." Leibovitz is a world famous photographer, who also shot the iconic Rolling Stones cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
The "four days" remark has managed to grab the headlines. Just Google "Kim wedding Instagram" and the headlines will scream 'four days, four days.' Let's face it Kim and Kanye might be the most talked about couple, but they are certainly not the most popular. Just sample how badly New York Post greeted the announcement of their wedding. "Two jackasses got married in Italy Saturday" was how the story began and described Kardashian as a "sex-tape star" and West as an "egotist."
Now with the Instagram picture, everyone is talking about how the couple spent four days on getting the picture right. Four days kind of defeats the very idea of Insta-gram. For instance, the PerezHilton blog notes, " Wow. Talk about being a perfectionist!" He also sneers at Kanye's comment about the flowers being off-colour and adds, "You couldn’t just use a filter for that?"
The answer would be a resounding no. Both Kim and Kanye aren't your regular couple, but are celebrities who have an image to maintain. Kim is the second most followed person on Instagram with 15 million followers, as this Washington Post blog notes after Justin Bieber who has 17 million followers. The numbers show she's definitely not in this just for fun. It might be easier to diss her as just a "sex-tape star" but the truth is that on major social media platform she does have more followers than Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce. And so, when's she posting on the site, she wants something that will wow the fans. In the US, where digital media has gained so much importance, no celebrity can afford to screw up even slightly on social media when it comes to fans.
The other side of this four-day-editing is that it is a rare admittance from a celebrity who is already mocked as being an "egotist". One rarely hears celebs in the fashion/entertainment industry talk about how their images are photoshopped. The recent example was popstar Lorde who tweeted out two pictures of herself, one photoshopped with perfect skin, the other with her real skin. While Lorde's point was different, the Kim-Kanye saga reveals the kind of time and effort celebrities end up investing in their own image.
And celebs can't be the only ones singled out for trying to make the flowers in their life more perfect. Where Instagram itself is concerned, it is an app that made it perfectly okay for everyone to jazz up their plain, boring smartphone pictures. Want to add the subtle, black and white touch to your photo by the beach? Well just Instagram it. Want to make that picture of the cake you baked look more appealing? Why not go for the Early Bird filter or Sutro? Or if you're really in the mood for scrolling till the end then pick Kelvin. Plus it's not just Instagram that lets us now re-edit, re-colour our pictures. Native apps in Android, iOS phones will let you do the same as well.
It might not be something as elaborate as Photoshop, but the fact of the matter is that all of us want to make sure that when we post that next picture on social media, the 'colours' are right. So why should we expect any less of the person who's followed by 15 million people on Instagram?
