"I've been on Instagram since 2011, back when the Kelvin filter had us in a chokehold, 11 likes meant you were basically famous, and posting your fro-yo was grid-worthy. Back then, Instagram was for blurry sunsets, fake film grain, and unpolished #OOTDs. Now, it's all professional camera-quality pics, soft launches, and carefully curated photo dumps. But once a year, on Thanksgiving, we collectively drop the act. The filters disappear. The made-up rules we impose upon our Instagram identities drop."
"Sad Beige Plate Pics are the great equalizer. You probably post them. Your best friend's mom with 36 followers posts them. Your Gen Alpha cousin probably posts one too. So does your elder millennial co-worker. It's one of the few things the app's 3 billion users still agree on: When the turkey hits the table, the phones come out. Even celebrities can't resist. Last year, Kelsea Ballerini posted a raw bird straight from the fridge. Martha Stewart showed off the 35 (!!) pies she baked."
Instagram evolved from blurry, casual posts to highly curated, professional feeds, but once a year Thanksgiving prompts a collective return to raw snapshots. Sad Beige Plate Pics appear across demographics, leveling celebrities and everyday users by showcasing unglamorous, carb-heavy plates. These images are typically dimly lit, lukewarm, and compositionally unimpressive, lacking stylized posing or advertising intent. The absence of filters and artifice creates an iconic, egalitarian moment rooted in vibe rather than aesthetics. The photos can be visually indistinct, resembling a mushy, hard-to-parse image that challenges viewers to decipher what is on the plate.
Read at Bustle
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