FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Entertainment

If Instagram Ran on Windows 95...

"Instagram.exe" shows how far design has come.
Images courtesy the artist

People love to complain about Instagram, whether it's changes to their feed algorithm, or their nudity or comment policies, but can you imagine trying to use the app on Windows 95? Russian creative Misha Petrick's tongue-in-cheek new project, Instagram for Win95 puts all our complaints about the platform into perspective. "I made these GIFs because I wanted to make modern kids look at Instagram the way I saw things at that age," Petrick tells The Creators Project. "We are all kids of the 90s and Windows 95 was really cool for us, just like Instagram is cool for children today. The humor comes from the mismatch of these two things."

Advertisement

The wonderfully clunky GIFs show how filters, notifications, and uploads would work in the antiquated operating system. "Instagram.exe" is grainy and pixelated, uses obnoxious dialogue boxes, an awkward scroll bar, and its filters change your pictures to look like the displays of Windows 95 contemporaries like the Apple II and the Commodore VIC-20. It's a mess of an interface that web designers, artists, and anyone who's used to Instagram's sleek modern build will cringe at.

See more of Misha Petrick's work on Behance.

Related:

This Is What Happens When You Repost an InstagramPhoto 90 Times

Is This Photo-Sharing App Better Than Instagram?

Robots Reveal the Most Popular Art on Instagram