You’ve heard of “pictures or it never happened,” but what if it never actually happened and you could still get pictures? A new service has hit the market, providing a one-stop solution for curing FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) for life.
Instagram pages are coming up with creative ways to earn money, feeding off people’s Instagram addiction and FOMO. A page, “Get your flex” tags users in “cool stories”, all for a price ranging only between Rs 59 to Rs 100.
Instagram user Anushka (handle “anushcache”) shared her experience of purchasing her “flex” for a Maroon 5 concert while commenting on the dystopian nature of the service.
She explained how the service offers a wide range of experiences, from a quiet café date to videos of the most sought-after concerts in the country. They even ensure a sense of authenticity by sticking to the city you live in and not accepting follow requests from your followers. All you need to do is select the experience you’d like to “flex” about, and you’ll be tagged in stories from what they claim are “real accounts,” which you can then repost on your own story.
Anushka talks about “the luxury of the real,” where only the wealthy can experience real moments, while the less affluent are left with digital representations or a “simulacrum.” A simulacrum is a representation or distortion of the original to the point where the real no longer exists. Social media, she argues, is an example of a simulacrum, where a representation of your life exists in complete disconnect from reality.
