Everything is about the likes these days– Instagram likes, Twitter likes, Facebook likes. Social media has become a competition for the most likes, and only a few have truly found the key.

VSCO, the California based Visual Supply Company, is a company-produced app that can be found on android and IOS devices that lets users edit photos or write ‘journals’ and post them all online without the use of ‘likes.’  VSCO has kicked out the status based on the number idea and replaced it with photos and edits based solely on quality.

How It Works: Much like how Facebook has a ‘Wall’ and Instagram has a profile, VSCO has a ‘Grid,’ a ‘Journal,’ and a ‘Collection.’  The Grid is where users can post photos and GIFS, or moving pictures/small looped videos, that have been edited to their approval. These photos on the users’ Grid can be found by anyone looking for a location or can be found when scrolling through the other users’ Grids. The majority of the time, when a photo is posted it was probably edited with one of VSCO’s unique filters. VSCO comes with preset filters, which often keep users very happy. There are a series of filters that can be bought like the ‘Aesthetic Series’ or the Contemporary Collection. Some favorites of young users are C1, HB2, and F1. When someone is looking through their feed and a picture shows up that they like, the user can save it to their library by double tapping it.  By going to their library and selecting it to be published, it will be on the user’s Collection.  If someone wants to post multiple photos to one ‘album,’  they can post it as a ‘Journal.’ Journals can be titled and have small posts of text to go along with the pictures.

The Success: VSCO, started by CEO Joel Flory and his co-founder Greg Lutze, exploded onto the scene with large growth in 2015, and almost 80% of the users are from out of the United States. Greg Lutze told Tech Insider, “We are interested in redefining what it means to create, to discover content, and to connect with people. We see social fatigue where it’s a lot to take in, the likes and comments, and people play essentially a game. We still want to give people the ability to connect, the ability to interact. That’s part of being human. But we want to do it in a different way.”  Lutze believes VSCO should be a forum where people are themselves, and it is important to his company that there isn’t a kind of self-imposed social pressure. Not only does the company have an amazing app for editing pictures, but it also sells film.

For the VSCO Generation:  Teenagers have been downloading and using VSCO to create ‘themes’ on Instagram, by using only one filter. Not until recently did they start to post photos to their Grids; it wouldn’t be a surprise if VSCO takes over the social media scene. Air Academy sophomore, Jessica Cox, says “I think it compares in many ways…they (VSCO and Instagram) both are a way to express our likes, dislikes, beliefs, and overall lives.  But I think VSCO has a better feel, just because of the ease of having the editing and the social media all wrapped up into one app. I also feel like Instagram has created this anxiety over how many likes people can get on a photo, whereas VSCO is purely for viewing, not liking.”  Ellie Wright, another Air Academy student and avid VSCO user believes, “VSCO is a site looking for people who share a passion for photography and want to come together as a community to support one another and grow together. I think people should feel welcome to share who they are through photography, not pretend that they’re someone they’re not.”
With VSCO, there are no more likes, retweets, or ways to compete for popularity over social media. It’s just about the creativity found amongst the teens of this society, where they come from, and where they will take their ideas.