I remember Instagram when it was new. It was an actually photography app. Of course it had the edgy filters (which ~15 year old me made full use of). But the pictures people posted actually had a bit of effort behind them.
Then it started becoming another mainstream social media where most pictures were about people’s lunches. I didn’t stick around for it’s final phase of business ads and thots.
I think it lost the cool factor by the time FB bought it but maybe it would’ve taken longer to become as ad-infested as it is today
There is nothing inherently wrong about food pictures but I feel like it is a symptom of the focus shifting from trying to take quality pictures to showing off a nice dinner/vacation/car you had to your “friend” group.
There is a thin line between look at this cool thing and look at how much better my life is then yours. I kinda have a distaste for the second one. (That said I take food pictures all the time but mostly of stuff I made myself, though I don’t post it to social media)