Have you ever been scrolling through Instagram, coming across a photoshoot from your fave celeb, only to look at the tags and only see the handles of whatever gorgeous designer items they’re wearing? The app is now trying to ensure more people get credit where credit is due, from stylists to photographers, with a new tagging option.
For any creator on Instagram, it’s well-known that there is often an army of people behind a single photograph or reel, from a makeup artist to a sound mixer. With this new tagging option, the oft-unsung teams who don’t get recognized for their work will receive their due. The tag will be available for users with professional accounts and influencers, to ensure the proper creators receive credit for their content.
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What are Instagram’s new enhanced tags?
On March 7, Instagram announced: “Proper creative credit and recognition is a starting point for discovery, new opportunities and economic empowerment. For many Black and underrepresented creators, crediting is an entryway to building a sustainable career as a creator, while combating cultural appropriation and ensuring the world knows who is driving culture.”
The idea was the brainchild of two Black women, Alexis Michelle Adjei, a data analyst, and Cameryn Boyd, an engineer, who wanted to ensure Black creators who make a living as creatives on social media are able to have a seat at the table. “We want to ensure that as Black creators’ content is being distributed as it already is, they are getting the proper attribution so that they have the opportunity to get all of those growth and monetization and career-starting opportunities like their contemporaries are,” Boyd told NBC News.
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Lack of credit for minority creators on social media
The lack of credit for minority creators has been an issue across numerous social media platforms, not only Instagram, where certain creators, particularly Black ones, have their content and trends coopted by other users. For example, TikTok stars such as Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio are often called out for popularizing dances on the app, without crediting the Black creators who created the choreography.
With the new tagging feature, users will be able to add contributors to a post by selecting “add tag” to search and select the contributors. Then, users can tap “Show Profile Category” to display the creator category and their profile.
Related: Non-reporter Addison Rae gets canned from correspondent gig.
