Research Question

In my research about the use of #blessed Instagram, I have identified that users post their feelings about being “blessed” in a variety of different ways. The most common theme among the posts that I have observed is that most posts involve gratitude, meaning that many of the posts talk about that user being thankful for a variety of different reasons. There is also a common theme of associating #blessed with a selfie, or a picture of oneself. Many times, when a user is posting a selfie they use it to promote themselves looking pretty or to have a chance to post a caption along with the picture. There are also differences that I have observed in my research. First of all, people post such different pictures to represent #blessed that it is hard to identify one underlying common theme of all of the pictures. Second, it is hard to determine that the users mean the same thing when they use the word blessed. While in many cases it can be assumed that the word blessed is related to Christianity, there are certain posts that make me question whether or not the user is identifying with Christianity or something else. Overall, it seems that when a post involves the word blessed, the user is implying that whatever they have posted a picture of or written a caption about is special and meaningful to them as an individual. These posts have also expressed that people feel blessed around special events such as birthdays and anniversaries. The question I pose is this, How do Instagram users post in ways that uniquely express how they feel blessed in their every day life? This study has mainly shown me that there are extremely different ways to present your religion on Instagram. I will further look at how people use #blessed on Sundays, as Sunday is the most holy day in Christianity.