We civilians are insufferable enough when it comes to having our picture taken for Instagram (META): “not that one, my face looks fat”; “try again so I can tilt my left cheekbone about 45 degrees east”; “did you get my shoes? I don’t know why you keep not getting my shoes.”
So imagine the psychological trauma inflicted when a famous person–a person whose pictures actually matter–uses Instagram. It happens, and real people are affected. Phoebe Luckhurst of the Standard has coined a term for the sad person stuck taking famous people’s Instagram pics: the “Instassistant.” Enlighten us, Phoebe:
“The job description is simple. Be on hand with an iPhone in yours to take photos of your celeb boss whenever they do something (they believe is) worth documenting. You won’t find the job posted online — Instassistants tend to be hand-picked from a celebrity’s inner circle.”
Rihanna’s Instassistant is her childhood friend Melissa Forde, Ms. Luckhurst reports. Heidi Klum kept it weird by getting her mom to take a few “skimpy bikini pics” of her over the summer. And Lady Gaga’s former personal assistant, Jennifer O’Neill, must have logged a few hours Instassisting before she sued her employer and former BFF for thousands of hours of unpaid overtime, Ms. Luckhurst speculates.
We applaud the fact that someone has finally taken notice of the plight of the person who’s forced to take other people’s Instagram pics, but we have a few lingering questions:
Who is taking all those annoyingly perfect pictures of Gisele Bundchen and her baby doing yoga together?
If Instagram had existed during the heady days of Peak Jessica Simpson, who would have been her Instassistant–Cacee Cobb or Nick Lachey?
Is 2 Chainz his own Instassistant?
And most importantly, how hard will our roommates slap us if we start referring to them as our Instassistants?