Jamie Lee Curtis is claiming she invented Instagram again… I disagree, but she did help pioneer smartphone photography

Shock horror, Jamie Lee Curits is once again claiming she invented Instagram… She’s been banging on about this for years and, if you search the web, you’ll find plenty of interviews where she’s made this controversial statement.

Curtis is so convinced that Instagram, or at least the concept of sharing photos online for the world to see, was her idea, that she’s been more than happy to say it on camera and in front of huge audiences, and only a few days ago, she brought up the Instagram debacle again at the South By SouthWest (SXSW) Keynotes sessions in Austin, Texas.

I hate to break it to Curits, but I think she’s barking mad. This isn’t a Paul Allen and Bill Gates situation where we all know that the real visionary genius behind Microsoft was the former, but the latter took all the plaudits.

But while I couldn't agree more with Curtis’ claims, I do think her creation helped promote smartphone photography at a time when people were questioning whether photos were even worth taking on a phone.

What Curtis created was a simple website for sharing iPhone photography back in 2008 called Iphoneys and she gave it the slogan: “Iphone photographers sharing their vision. The website is still online and, although it’s been dead for years, there is a decent backlog of uploads from a host of different people.

Anyway, it turns out that Instagram used a similar slogan back when it launched in 2010: “Capture and share the world's moments”. And that’s it, that’s the basis of Curtis’ “claim” to inventing Instagram.

Perhaps Instagram’s creators took a little inspiration from Curtis’ website – after all, Instagram was founded in San Francisco, just a few hours up the coast from Los Angeles, where Curtis lives – and Iphoneys was live for two years beforehand, but it’s hardly a connection.

Obviously, no one believes Jamie Lee Curits and it’s a bit like when your drunk Aunt at the family reunion starts coming out with corkers after a few too many glasses of chardonnay – you just nod along and let her have her moment.

But it would be wrong to say that Iphoneys didn’t at least help smartphone photography mature beyond infancy. In 2008 the best smartphone on the market was the iPhone 3G, only the second iPhone ever. This now retro device boasted, wait for it, a whopping 2MP rear camera with fixed focus and no flash. It didn’t even have a front-facing camera or native video recording!

While these were high-end specs back in their day, early iPhone cameras were never a match for DSLR and film cameras, and later mirrorless cameras, so props to Curtis for making the Iphoneys site and encouraging people to use their phones as creative tools.

Curtis claims to be a Leica user too and, while I certainly believe this, although there isn’t much of her work floating around online among the sea of portraits of her. What a shame, because I’d actually like to see photos she’s taken.

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