Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics)

• Split one issue into a carousel of square or 4:5 portrait slides (up to ten in 2020, twenty since Instagram raised the limit in August 2024), and open on a title card that names it in big type with an arrow or 'swipe' prompt.
• Give each slide one question or point in a few short bullets, with a source line at the foot of the slide, and close the deck with sources, resources and what the reader can do.
• Repeat one template on every slide: the same soft pastel or light ground, heading face and text box, so the deck reads as a single post.
• Borrow the friendly packaging of millennial brands (pastels, soft text boxes, gradients, playful flat figures) so a hard subject feels approachable rather than alarming.
• Design for the reshare: keep text legible at phone size and on a Story, and make the title card work on its own.

Instagram, from late May 2020: after the murder of George Floyd, amid COVID-19, users turned the platform's ten-image carousel into informative slideshows 'akin to a PowerPoint presentation' (Salzano, AoIR 2021), often built with free design software such as Canva and its pre-made templates (The Washington Post, 15 August 2020, as cited by Salzano); Canva later reported more than 330,000 downloads of its Black Lives Matter and Juneteenth templates (Kinfolk). A prominent early example was @soyouwanttotalkabout, whose maker, a New York marketing consultant, took its branding from 'the deluge of inspirational graphics popular among millennial women'; brands such as the streetwear label CHNGE also made and re-posted such guides (Vox). Terry Nguyen called the trend 'PowerPoint activism' in Vox on 12 August 2020 and traced its look to millennial-facing direct-to-consumer brands: 'Design-wise, the brands got there first', naming Casper, Buffy, Tend, Glossier and Kin Euphorics. That is why this entry descends from DTC blanding rather than from Corporate Memphis, whose cartoon illustrations the slideshows only occasionally borrow (Masters of Media, 2021). The format outlived the 2020 protests: in May 2021 the Israel Defense Forces used it during the conflict of that month, and that spring meme accounts and the artist Brad Troemel parodied it

1. Terry Nguyen, 'How social justice slideshows took over Instagram', Vox, 12 August 2020 (https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21359098/social-justice-slideshows-instagram-activism), main source: 'Consider it something like PowerPoint activism'; 'wide chunky typefaces and bold gradient graphics'; 'colorful gradients, large serif fonts, pastel backgrounds, and playful illustrations'; 'Design-wise, the brands got there first: Think of ... Casper (mattresses), Buffy (bedding), Tend (dentistry), Glossier (beauty), and Kin Euphorics (booze)'; Jess of @soyouwanttotalkabout, a marketing consultant (launched in February, about 10,000 followers in early June, a million by August; 'bright colors and bubbly fonts' inspired by 'the deluge of inspirational graphics popular among millennial women'; first 'mustard yellow, olive, and coral', then 'creamy pinks, yellows, and blues'; 'I'm trying to appeal to the apolitical people'; 'I was including sources at the bottom of every slide'); Eric Hu, formerly global design director for Nike Sportswear, spent two weeks in June with two other artists on a carousel on police abolition with 'a clear indication to swipe left on the first graphic', 'merging images of flowers and nature with informative text', and said 'From a design perspective, they're pretty horrible, but it is that type of Instagrammable graphic that the platform favors'; CHNGE, a streetwear brand by Jacob Castaldi; Canva's peach-colored template in 'the oversized serif font Ovo', on Canva since March 2019 and exported nearly 200,000 times (Canva PR manager Mitch Holmes), notably popular for social justice slideshows; Eve Ewing's Canva post; @disintegration.loops: 'commodify tragedy and obfuscate revolutionary messages', and Breonna Taylor's death 'has devolved into a meme'; misinformation in images is harder to detect than in text
2. Matthew Salzano, 'Technoliberal Participation: Black Lives Matter and Instagram Slideshows', AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research (2021), doi:10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12034 (https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/12034): the ten-image carousel 'as an informative slideshow akin to a PowerPoint presentation' after May 2020; slides '[co-opt] popular design aesthetics from brands' (Nguyen, 2020) and are 'easily created with free design software like Canva and its pre-made design templates' (Ables, The Washington Post, 15 August 2020); @sa.liine 'Virtual Protesting 101' (29 May 2020, tie-dye themed); @ghostdumps (30 May 2020, black-and-white theme, more than 400,000 likes); @norajmaxwell (28 October 2020, calendar grid of dots); reference to M. Guerrero, 'Swipe-Through Activist Guides Are the New Zines', The New York Times, 19 August 2020
3. Instagram Slideshow Archive (Omeka, collection 'What are Instagram Slideshows?', contributed by Matthew Salzano), item record for Terry Nguyen, 'How social justice slideshows took over Instagram', Vox, 2020-08-12 (https://instagramslideshows.omeka.net/items/show/7): 'PowerPoint activism is everywhere on Instagram. Why do these posts look so familiar?'
4. GIGAZINE, machine-translated Japanese summary of the Vox article (14 August 2020) (https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20200814-social-justice-slideshows-instagram), used only for its embedded Instagram posts: Slow Factory's Juneteenth post of 19 June 2020 ('Juneteenth' in a 'colorful and powerful font on a black background'); Eric Hu's post of 25 June 2020 (#8toabolition, 'SWIPE →', about 32,000 likes, caption edit 'slide 8 has an inaccuracy'); Eve Ewing's post of 24 July 2020 ('sometimes these slides take whole books that someone (usually Black) put blood sweat and tears and sacrifice into ... without so much as saying their name')
5. Liz Kraisinger, 'Aestheticization of activism', The Cavalier Daily (30 April 2021) (https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2021/04/aestheticization-of-activism): quoting Nguyen in Vox, 'text-based slideshow graphics' with 'colorful gradients, large serif fonts, pastel backgrounds, and playful illustrations', 'deliberately neutral' and similar to the graphics of millennial-oriented brands; the 10-slide carousel limit
6. Erin Corbett, 'The Aesthetics Of Activism: How Instagram Changed Protesting', Refinery29 (May 2021) (https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/05/10335757/instagram-activism-aesthetics-impact): 'so you want to talk about' posts on 'light-colored backgrounds with spaced-out fonts' with sourcing, resources and action items; Ría Thompson-Washington: 'Pastels make people feel comfortable', 'Nobody wants blood red or black messaging'; Shirien Damra's pastel portraits in floral frames
7. Sarah Manavis, 'The trouble with Instagram infographics as political discourse', New Statesman (26 May 2021) (https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2021/05/trouble-instagram-infographics-political-discourse): IDF slideshow of 13 May 2021, over 144,000 likes, with 'two cartoon characters with bubblegum-pink text boxes, having a dialogue about a political issue', 'a rifle strapped to one of the cartoon's waists'; each image displayed a major question about the conflict with a very brief answer; 'hyper-basic bullet points against the backdrop of a pastel background'
8. Sarah Manavis, 'The Infographic Industrial Complex', Kinfolk, Issue 41 (https://www.kinfolk.com/stories/the-infographic-industrial-complex/): Canva 'has had a big hand in defining the appearance' of the infographics and reported over 330,000 Black Lives Matter and Juneteenth template downloads; 'a handful of pastel-hued slides'; slides usually shared to Stories; meme accounts' faux-sincere parody infographics during the European Super League news in spring 2021
9. Marta Ceccarelli, 'Visual vernaculars, Brad Troemel and the Instagram Infographic Industrial Complex', Masters of Media, University of Amsterdam (3 October 2021) (https://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2021/10/03/visual-vernaculars-brad-troemel-and-the-instagram-infographic-industrial-complex/): Troemel's Instagram posts 'visually resemble infographics created by activists'; 'Pastel coloured illustrations of cartoonish people with disproportionate limbs are intertwined with inspirational messages filled with buzzwords, often creating nonsensical text'; such posts 'occasionally referred to as the "Instagram Infographic Industrial Complex"'; activist slideshows 'carefully designed with sleek, minimalist colour schemes, occasionally accompanied by illustrations belonging to the genre often referred to as "Corporate Memphis"'; four slideshows that begin on issues such as climate change and the war on Iraq and end with advertisements for companies, with commenters who 'take these ads at face value'. The four linked posts are dated 18, 19, 20 and 21 May 2021 on Instagram
10. Gretchen Oestreicher, 'Instagram Carousel Limit Increased to 20 Photos or Videos', Metricool (9 August 2024) (https://metricool.com/instagram-increases-carousel-content-limit/): global rollout of carousels of up to 20 photos and videos, up from 10, after tests with up to 15 images
11. Brittanie Dreghorn, 'Instagram Dimensions and Sizes Guide for 2021', Sked Social (updated 26 July 2024) (https://skedsocial.com/blog/instagram-dimensions-and-sizes): carousels 'can use all three post sizes', square, horizontal or vertical, consistent across the carousel; for vertical posts 'the best ratio is 4:5', 1080 by 1350 px
12. Ovo, Google Fonts (https://github.com/google/fonts/tree/main/ofl/ovo): designed by Nicole Fally, Sorkin Type Co, 2011; 'inspired by a set of hand lettered caps seen in a 1930's lettering guide', with a 'soft serif treatment', 'a medium contrast serif font' with 'old style variable letter widths'
13. Delia Dumitrica and Hester Hockin-Boyers, 'Slideshow activism on Instagram: constructing the political activist subject', Information, Communication & Society 26:16 (2023), 3318–3336, doi:10.1080/1369118X.2022.2155487: qualitative content analysis of 50 posts from one popular slideshow account; slideshow activism 'adapts the production and consumption of political information to the logic of the platform'

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