The Posthuman Poetics of Instagram Poetry
Jeneen Naji · Electronic workshops in computing · 2018
Technological developments and constraints have always influenced and shaped human cultural artefacts such as poetry, stories and music (Emerson, 2014: ix) and the same is true of the vast variations of the digital apparatus. As a result, the forward momentum of the contemporary explosion of online cultural content has far reaching implications on human subjectivities in cyberspace (Hayles, 1999). The construction and analysis of new digital literary artefacts with regards their impact on literary expression and reception is a timely venture that can help us begin to understand, anticipate, and drive the changing shape of human culture. For example, Instagram poetry, a type of digital poetry is, as the name implies, poetry that is produced for distribution through the social media platform Instagram and most usually incorporates creative typography with bite size verses. Instagram poets such as @atticuspoetry (517k followers) @christopherpoindexter (325k followers) and @rupikaur_ (1.8 million followers) have in fact proven to be so popular that their work also appears as best-selling print books. Instagram poetry can demonstrate the cultural impact of a posthuman cyborgian fluidity of borders and forms in that we essentially find ourselves left with anthropophagic texts - cannibalistic texts that remix, reuse and re-appropriate content. This paper will examine existing and contemporary examples towards the goal of a deeper understanding of Instagram poetry as a posthuman literary artefact.