Pyroshi

Maheen. Art person / pizza addict / Lahori. 🇵🇰 www.instagram.com/Pyroshi

[misguideds0ul]

The Eternal Couple 🖤🧡

Saaya and Cleopatra have been courting for 4 years now and whenever they are together it’s a sight to behold. They live in India’s Kabini forest.

They are so beautiful.

& they have children together too!

Also, fun fact: Saaya means the ‘Shadow’

Photographs taken by Mithun H.

[missmentelle]

Let’s talk about Instagram “influencer” culture. 

My younger brother and his girlfriend are Instagram influencers. They aren’t household names with a million fans apiece, but they each have a decent following. They’ve been featured in various lists and roundups of people whose lives and relationships are #goals, and they both earn a steady income from Instagram. Not enough to make a full-time living, but enough to make pouring hundreds of hours into their Instagram careers worth their while. 

Despite being so close to an Instagram influencer - several of the most popular photos on my brother’s account were taken by me - I have some serious qualms about Instragram “influencer” culture as a whole. I studied the impact of platforms like Instagram in graduate school - I have a master’s degree in clinical psychology, and I spent part of my time in grad school working with a professor who studies the impact of social media on mental health. A recent study found that out of all social media platforms, Instagram is the worst for your mental health. I’ve also had the chance to see firsthand what a life lived on Instagram has meant for my brother, and the toll it continues to take on him. 

So what makes Instagram influencer culture so toxic for both the people who create it and the people influenced by it? For starters: It’s faker than you think. Instagram stars intentionally market themselves as “authentic” and “real” - you are led to believe that you are getting an unfiltered glimpse into someone’s daily life as you follow along with their pictures and their daily stories. In reality, however, a huge amount of time, effort and money goes into the images you see. My brother and his girlfriend take hundreds of photos in order to get one or two shots worthy of posting. Outings are often little more than photoshoots; a “hike” is often just a short walk to a scenic location, followed by hours of photos. Ditto for ice skating, beach days and photos from music festivals. They don’t get to enjoy many of the activities they are depicted doing with big smiles on Instagram, because the focus is on capturing the perfect photo. Photos are often planned weeks in advance, vacations are booked based on which locations will make the best backdrops, and the fancy food in their pictures often goes cold while they get the perfect shot. The fact that they want to create beautiful images is not an issue - after all, the pictures in many mainstream ads are stunning. The issue is that they’re specifically pretending not to be models or advertisers; they are intentionally leading you to believe that what you’re seeing is candid daily life. Which leads me to…

It presents unattainable ideals as everyday life. Instagram influencers roll out of bed in perfect and tastefully-decorated apartments, eat nutritious and visually stunning meals, and lead full, active lives of glamour and adventure. Their skin is never flawed, their hair never out of place, and their outfits never tacky. Again, this isn’t a problem if you are creating an advertisement or a TV show - something that your viewers know is manufactured to look perfect - but Instagram stars hinge their success on pretending that that level of non-stop perfect is their average, daily life. In reality, my brother’s girlfriend piles dirty laundry and books in her bathtub so that her bedroom looks “minimalist” in her photos, and the two of them post weeks-old starry-eyed couple photos with gushy captions even when they are on the verge of breaking up. Influencers themselves tend to be young, attractive, white, thin, able-bodied, middle-class cis people - an ideal that is already unattainable for most people - and yet they present themselves as totally average people. When flaws and problems are revealed, it’s often in a very controlled way, and generally tied in with some kind of pithy advice or mantra. Which brings us to…

It encourages people with no credentials to hand out “expert” advice. This is probably one of the most damaging aspects of influencer culture. 22-year-olds with absolutely no formal training in nutrition, mental health, medicine, dermatology or fitness are handing out “expert” wellness advice - or even designing diets, skincare routines, and workout regimens for others - and feeling increasingly comfortable doing it. Vulnerable people who may have very serious issues lap this advice up, regardless of how unsound or untested it may be; after all, these influencers appear to have perfect lives, and it’s easy to assume that they must know the secrets of health, happiness and clear skin. There are a couple of huge problems with this. For one, many people aren’t actually aware of why they are successful - if a conventionally attractive cis white woman whose parents financially support her tells you that the secret to avoiding stress is meditation and mud masks, you should be skeptical of that advice. People in positions of relative privilege are often blind to the many advantages they have, and will attribute their success to their “wellness routines” or “positive thinking”, rather than the social advantages that are not available to many of their followers. Also, influencers are often peddling advice that they themselves do not follow. My brother’s girlfriend makes money by selling advice on how to make a full-time living while travelling the world, despite the fact that she isn’t actually able to do that. Many influencers who promote extremely restrictive diets and health regimes have admitted that they themselves do not follow these diets. People who are feeling deeply insecure about their bodies, relationships, careers, lifestyles and productivity are turning to advice from people who aren’t qualified to help. And why does every Instagram star suddenly seem to be offering themselves up as a “wellness” expert? It’s because…

It exists to sell you things, while pretending otherwise. As much as the influencer community presents itself as being all about “authenticity”, “expression”, “empowerment”, or “wellness”, at the end of the day, it is all about trying to sell you things, even if that means exploiting your deepest insecurities. A company that employs plus-sized models to represent their $90 leggings is still a company that, at the end of the day, is trying to sell you $90 leggings, and if they have to pay someone to convince you that these leggings are the only thing standing between you and finally loving your body and having the courage to chase your dreams, then that’s exactly what they are going to do. It is an advertisement, dressed up as self-help and inspiration from an ordinary person who just wants you to succeed. If you find that you feel bad about yourself after a couple of minutes of scrolling through your instagram feed, that’s the impact that the app is meant to have on you. People who are completely satisfied with themselves and their lives don’t buy things they don’t need - making you feel like your life should be better is the key to selling you a wide variety of products. 

Does all this mean that Instagram is evil, or that influencers are bad people? Of course not. They are people trying to make money through self-expression, and many produce interesting and engaging content. Many of them are very young, and may not think about the impact that they might be having on their followers. I certainly don’t think that any of them set out to deceive people. But it is important to think critically about the media we consume, the purpose of that media, and the message it carries. I have known many people, both personally and professionally, who find that they feel worse about themselves after spending an afternoon scrolling through social media, and I think it’s important for all of us to examine why that may be, and take steps to protect our own mental health.

[upjohn55]

“Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction. Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says is that shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment. […] We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.”

— Johann Hari, Does Capitalism Drive Drug Addiction? (via beemill)

[alisonzai]

bee real, my senior thesis

[alisonzai]

[pyroshi]

The Wait. 💌✨ Which version do you like most; afternoon, sunset, or nighttime? . (2/50 of my background study goal for 2019 lmao). . I'll be posting the references I used on my stories! 🖤 (at Lahore, Pakistan) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0v9txWntpU/?igshid=f18a1lgvh3qh

[pyroshi]

かたわれ時。 (Swipe for the full version). This is my cat phase, hi. 🐈 Started with @usmanoriaz's recent Aristocats drawing, tbh. Go check it out! Also, I always avoid drawing backgrounds because I'm not good at them so I've set myself the challenge of completing at least 50 background studies before 2019 is over. This is number 1 lmao send help. . ALSO thank you, Comrade @saadhsnain, for letting me use your story photo as reference! 🍕🖤 (at Lahore, Pakistan) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0gnXO6nUtk/?igshid=o6jyg4fjy9z2

[pyroshi]

Can you tell I was really craving some #bobatea? uwu Swipe 👉 for close-ups. ✨ This is @jacquelindeleon 's rollergirl for #jacquelindtiys700k. :3 🖤 https://www.instagram.com/p/B0BwsWOHh6I/?igshid=1ecpob915qm8m

[pyroshi]

Girls' day out. 🍭✨ #strangerthings3 (at Hawkins, Indiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzoAa1VHExi/?igshid=vjenadpxvom7

[pyroshi]

Taking doodle requests in my IG story. ✨ Leave a request and I'll try and draw it. 🖤 #deletelater . . . . . . #nickwilde #nickwildezootopia #zootopia #doodle #artrequest #pakistaniart #pakistaniartist #manodailydrawing #fanart #zootopiafanart #nickwildefanart #doodlerequest #quicksketches (at Lahore, Pakistan) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzTwNwRgiKr/?igshid=1oqmd59flacfz

[pyroshi]

No Church in the Wild - Kanye 🎶 Tbh she looks like Dany and Jon's daughter who decided to go the Mad Queen route. #howgameofthronesshouldhaveended 👀 Feel free to tag someone who was disappointed asf with the finale. 🤭 - Thanks @ranadaimx for sending me this song as inspiration. 🤭 - Swipe 👉 to see the sketch I made while listening to the song for the first time. 🤭 Bonus: an alternate color palette at the end that I almost went with. 🖤 . . . . . . . #pyroshi #myocs #madqueen #evilqueen #gameofthrones #pakistaniartist #daenerysfanart #daenerys #artistsofpakistan #badassgirls #fantasyartwork #illo #characterillustration #characterart #artdroplet #riseofthecreatives #manodailydrawing #girlswithscars https://www.instagram.com/p/By8AhF7nBe4/?igshid=1drxsclfd2xge

[pyroshi]

Doing a quick #photostudy before bed. ✨ I want to do more of these to get better at tones and color palettes as well as to improve at drawing faces. . . . . . . #pyroshi #drawingpractice #pakistaniart #pakistancreates #artistsofpakistan #digitalportrait #procreate #wip #illo #illust #illustragram #illustratrice #artpractice https://www.instagram.com/p/Btgpz7tnPZD/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=l0drtavb9c2k

[pyroshi]

Part three of my #harrypotter prints for #comicconlahore. ^^ Can you tell who's calling him? 🤭 Also, thank you a whole bunch to everyone who visited my booth yesterday and all the love and kind words I received. 🖤 Even if you couldn't buy anything, just showing your interest in my work and being supportive still means the world to me. 🖤 I didn't get many photos because I'm still without a phone (1.5 months and counting, haha) but I'll share some of the ones I got from other people. 🤭 (You can see them on my story as well! ✨) . . . . . . #pyroshi #ccl19 #artistalley #ronweasley #harrypotter #hpfanart #ronweasleyfanart #weasleyisourking #gryffindor #gryffindorpride #dontletthemugglesgetyoudown #harrypotterart #fanart https://www.instagram.com/p/Btd_OJOHeKM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ik8up6qnonmn

[pyroshi]

Only a week left until #comicconlahore and my stress level is 5000 and rising. 🤯 Also, fun fact, my classmates used to call me Hermione because of how much I loved participating in class and knew all the answers, haha. . . . . . . #pyroshi #hermione #hermionegranger #harrypotterfanart #hpfanart #harrypotterart #hermionegrangerfanart #brainsoverbeauty #bookworms #jkrowling #whenindoubtgotothelibrary #fanart #harrypotterbooks #harrypotterworld #gryffindorpride #gryffindoraesthetic https://www.instagram.com/p/BtEJVTDHbvm/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=165yq6lfkrh9q

[pyroshi]

I'm going to be at #comicconlahore next Sunday (the 3rd)! I'll hopefully have a bunch of cool merch for you guys. ^^ Be sure to come say hi! ^^ 🖤 Tbh this isn't quite done yet but I'm posting it anyway. 🤷🏻‍♂️ . . . . . . #pyroshi #harrypotter #hpfanart #hpfandom #harrypotterbooks #harrypotterfans #harrypotterfanart #harrypotterart #jkrowling #comicconlahore2019 #danielradcliffe #fanart #characterart #isolemnlyswearthatiamuptonogood #maraudersmap #artoftheday https://www.instagram.com/p/BtBrsmxnGmY/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=6sh9imysyc97

[pyroshi]

About time I learned how to draw guys. 🙈 Can you guess who this is? 🤔 . . . . . . . . . #pyroshi #harrypotter #ronweasley #ronweasleyfanart #pakistaniart #pakistaniartist #harrypotterfandom #harrypotterart #harrypotterfanart #hp #hpfanart #hpfan #rupertgrint #illo #fanart #gryffindor #gryffindorpride https://www.instagram.com/p/Bso5F47nz62/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1lqnfbmzfpcg8

[pyroshi]

Trying to make some fandom merch for #comicconlahore. I'll have #harrypotter and Ghibli, for sure. Maybe some Avatar and comic gals if I have time. ✨ WISH ME LUCK AND COME SAY HI AT THE CON. 🖤✨ . . . . . . #pyroshi #merch #hp #hermione #hermionegranger #bookworm #harrypotterfanart #harrypotterart #hpfanart #hpfandom #illo #illustragram #jkrowling #pakistaniartist #artistsofpakistan #gryffindor #gryffindorpride https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsn7LRnnVyr/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1xgfirh7u845r