“Learning to Shun the Instagram Life” Carol Richards gives his perspective of envy in his article, “Learning to Shun the Instagram Life”, he views envy as a problem and states that living the “Instagram life” is a bad thing. Richards successfully argues his point by utilizing the appeals of logos, pathos, and kairos. Richards argument is directed toward the audience of teenagers and young adults who have grown up in the world of social media. The tone and diction of the article is informal and relaxed with a constant repetition of the word “envy.” Richard argues that the “Instagram Life” is not the way people should live and that envy is a problem when your envy is not yours alone. Your envy is the …show more content…
He first introduces envy by referring to his own life and how he is surrounded by competition. Richards lives in Park City, Utah, where he encounters national champions, Olympians, and athletes. Richards is constantly overwhelmed with the idea of someone being better than him, which leads into his own struggle with the reality of envy. Richards shares advice that his close friend once shared with him, “every time you try to compete, you will always lose. Richards uses this to explain his point that it is nearly impossible to compete without the feeling of envy.” Further in his argument he brings up a man, a former hedge fund trader who worked on Wall Street. The man expressed through The New York Times that his raise of $3.6 million was unsettling to him because it wasn’t enough. Richards says he is an example of someone who is living the Instagram life, for the reason that if he was living a real life he would have the understanding that having more doesn’t lead to happiness. Leaving the man on Wall Street, Richards uses the example of a model, Cameron Russell. Cameron is insecure with herself not because she isn’t comfortable in her own body, but because she is comparing herself to all of the other models around her. Cameron along with other models are living the “Instagram life” and not owning their own envy because they are too busy trying to find everyone else’s. Richards uses these examples to show how the Instagram Life is in different aspects of