Sarah Frier: No Filter!
This week we welcomed Sarah Frier, an award-winning technology reporter, as our guest on INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE. Her first book came out recently, “No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram.” The book details the rise of Instagram and all social media apps and why they are so addictive!
Sarah’s ability to humanize Instagram’s history is a credit to her journalism background and experience in the San Francisco tech scene.
In our conversation, Sarah describes the journey from journalist to author, taking that deep dive into a story. She does it incredibly well, managing to build tension and tell a compelling story even when most readers will already know the outcome.
The subjects of “No Filter” could easily be relegated to one-dimensional characters in a story — Mark Zuckerberg is easy enough to portray as a villain, especially when compared to Instagram’s founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. What’s harder, and what Sarah expertly accomplishes, is the complicated portraits of those fellow humans.
This reminds me of my recent interview with Mario Livio, author of “Galileo and the Science Deniers,” a biography of a scientist (written by a scientist) that humanizes Galileo to a degree rarely accomplished. The accessibility of science and scientists is crucial and social media plays a powerful role.
While newer apps like Snapchat and TikTok don’t have the scientific influence that Twitter and Instagram do, it may only be a matter of time. Who’s to say what technological advances they may link up with and whether the next revolution is imminent. As I mentioned on the episode, NASA’s instagram page has staggering follower and content numbers.
Reading “No Filter” and talking with Sarah got me ruminating on the lessons of quality versus quantity that can be gleaned from social media. Even as I strive for more followers for the podcast, I am dubious about social media’s benefit to society as a whole. Having to manage anxiety as part of one’s digital life maintenance seems bizarre and disheartening.
I was horrified, but not surprised, to learn that my nightmare has already come true — that Sarah believes someone has already posted a video of their plastic surgery on Instagram. Undoubtedly undertaken so that they could look better on Instagram…
As Sarah says, “Now that we can see the analytics, we know what kind of content does better on Instagram and we can adjust our behavior…we can tweak until we know our best photo angles, until we know what works. Ultimately what wins out is this drive to grow and appear successful and to measure that success in a way that is more numbers-based as opposed to subjective.”
I was also reminded of Peter Diamandis’ rules for exponential thinking, as relayed during our recent discussion on INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE. He uses the contrasting fates of Kodak and Instagram to illustrate the power of the six Ds — Digitized, Deceptive, Disruptive, Demonetized, Dematerialized, and Democratized.
Sarah and I touched briefly on social media’s role during the pandemic. Like many of us, she’s working from home. There’s many stories about how the coronavirus is affecting tech workers to be researched and written. And as she pointed out, that’s an industry that can flourish in times like these.
“With constraint there is creativity,” says Sarah. “[The Instagram founders] thought with the square photos it would just be like Twitter’s 140 character limit…And what bigger constraints on the way we live than coronavirus?”
Having so many authors on the podcast recently has been fantastic, as I learn from their insights and inspirations. Sadly, this is due to book tours being cancelled by the pandemic. I can’t imagine their disappointment after working tirelessly leading up to the publication date. I hope Sarah enjoyed the interview as much as I did, and I know she’ll continue to knock out well-researched and engaging content.
Read Frier’s articles on Bloomberg.
Find Sarah Frier on Twitter: @sarahfrier and Instagram: @sarahfrier
Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes for a chance to win a copy of Frier’s book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-impossible/id1169885840?mt=2
Sarah Frier is a technology reporter for Bloomberg News and Businessweek. She earned a journalism degree from University of North Carolina. Her articles on social media have won awards from The San Francisco Press Club and other organizations.
