We’ve been talking a lot about how to get more Instagram likes, but you know what we haven’t done in our ongoing discussion? Played a game based around it. But we’re in luck, because now we can. Selfie-takers, food porn enthusiasts, and Valencia filter addicts, meet the Game of Likes!
The Bold Italic, which describes itself as “an online magazine, shop, and events hub in San Francisco,” put together this neat-o little image. It may be decidedly less scientific than the Instagram likeability predictor we talked about yesterday, but it does have the added bonus of making the whole thing into a social event you can experience with your friends. As far as I know, the game doesn’t require a pair of dice or anything; players just move along the board one square at a time, tallying up their score based on each square’s instructions as they go.
I’m not exactly sure how the rules for each square were determined; they seem a little arbitrary. Why, for example, does a picture of a pastry, latte, or fancy focal point earn three likes, while the use of borders loses two? If we know that images with people instead of objects in them tend to do better, why does a photo of something you made double your likes? At least the rule for shirtless selfies makes sense; people guilty of that particular Instagram sin might want to take a page out of this guy’s Tinder playbook.
Of course, you could always just go ahead and buy your likes; thanks to a little fancy Googling, I just discovered that there are a wide variety of services that allow you to pay cash for Instagram popularity. This seems a little… um… dumb to me (why would you waste your hard-earned dough on something as pointless as Instagram likes?); but hey, if your goal in life is to attain maximum online popularity, then go for it. Or something.
<img alt="hero" src="http://d15ya7jlc6yy8b.cloudfront.net/paperclip/articles/4777/hero_images/wide/instagram-game_0414.png?1397590202" class="article-body-image" title="Image: http://d15ya7jlc6yy8b.cloudfront.net/paperclip/articles/4777/hero_images/wide/instagram-game_0414.png?1397590202"/>
Image: The Bold Italic
