Reboots, Remakes and the Age of Instagram Face

In today’s day and age, it seems like every major Y2K hit is getting a reboot or a remake. From Freaky Friday’s $100 million grossing reboot, Freakier Friday (made with a $45 million budget) to the much-anticipated Devil Wears Prada 2, stars are reprising their highly-successful roles from 20 years ago—and, for the most part, they look the same, thanks to elegant baby face lifts (I’m looking at you, ageless Anne Hathaway and cyborgian- but-flawless Lindsay Lohan). 

If the recreations of these iconic originals feel hollow, it’s because they are. 

Jean Baudrillard’s paper Simulacra and Simulations explores this concept from a philosophical standpoint, discussing the unreality of copies and reproductions. The paper explores how they don’t come from a true or authentic place (in the way that tracing a drawing comes from a desire to produce something “good,” rather than the desire to turn deep feelings into art) and as such lack depth and authenticity. Further, he frames copies (of art, ideas etc) as taking on the identity of being “real,” because they can be mistakenly perceived as such (ie. a very good tracing).

In today’s age, everything feels like a copy of a copy. A prime example of this is the idea of “Instagram Face,” a phrase coined by Jia Tolentino in the eponymous 2019 New Yorker article. Instagram face is a term that refers to “the algorithmic tendency to flatten everything into a composite of greatest hits.” Tolentino explores how this has “resulted in a beauty ideal that favored white women capable of manufacturing a look of rootless exoticism,” referencing Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski among others.  

This face, defined by fillers and subtle medical procedures, exemplifies the age of “everything having already been done before:” ie. the sense that nothing is new and original (in North America, over 5 million people got filler in 2023 alone). There’s a darker truth here, which is that it can feel like, in order to keep up, you have to cosmetically enhance your face to meet this new, increasingly-prevalent standard of beauty. 

There’s a strong through line between the age of Instagram face and the movie industry. Hollywood is no longer the land of the dreamers, it’s a moviemaking machine that pedals algorithmically favoured content to the masses. 

“Studios are more concerned with owning IPs that generate profit over making creative, compelling content,” YouTuber and Substack essayist Mina Le commented in a recent video essay, on the subject of originality. 

When it comes to Hollywood remakes, “the recent glut of revivals is as likely to be motivated by this as it is by financial reward—a much-loved character or premise has a ready-made and reliable fanbase willing to watch.”

 On the topic of the Jurassic Park reboot’s branded Slurpees (sold in theatres for the movie’s premiere), a review in The Guardian noted: 

The director of the new Jurassic Park movie explained his aim for the seventh film in the series. Innovation it was not. Rather, said Gareth Edwards, it was karaoke. To prepare, he binged Steven Spielberg clips on repeat, hoping to accomplish genre cloning.

Relating this back to Simulacrum and Simulacra, Jean Baudrillard argued it was “increasingly difficult to separate representation from reality because we live in a culture of consumerism where the electronic mass media maintains the “illusion of an actuality” to keep us shopping and entertained.” 

A recent example of a replica that generated notable buzz was Sabrina Carpenter’s March 2025 cover of Vogue. Carpenter referenced Madonna’s iconic 1991 Vanity Fair spread, who referenced Marilyn Monroe, who referenced Jean Harlow (in a YouTube essay on the subject of originality, Mina Le said: “so essentially what we have here is a copy, of a copy, of a copy”). 

Madonna (or her team) responded to Carpenter’s Instagram post of the cover, commenting: “is this an early Valentines day gift to me,” which led to a series of articles about how women are supporting women in the pop space (mission accomplished!). 

The Busy Corner Substack articulated how nostalgic references are orchestrated to generate viral moments in a recent essay, saying: 

“That’s not to say that every piece of art that references something that came before it is automatically unremarkable or unoriginal . . . [but if this is how] every pop culture moment . . . gets swallowed as a whole and spit back at us in a never-ending stream of hot takes, live reaction videos, memes, headlines, think pieces . . . and if this is how an average person interacts with pop culture . . . is it really that surprising that everything new feels depressingly recycled?” 

In our oversaturated cultural landscape, and “when every other person on your feed is a fashion influencer, and you can barely walk a block in any major city without spotting the trending item of the season,” it’s hard to remember a time when everything didn’t feel fake. Take “merchtainment” for example (hollow promotional clothing that’s derivative of once-original fashion pieces), like Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS x Nike collab. The collaboration was openly acknowledged as a marketing ploy to drive Nike stock against competitor Lululemon, and as such it didn’t land among consumers. 

“The Met Gala itself might be MerchTainment’s patient zero,” HighSnobiety noted. 

Quality versus profit is at the heart of the matter (profit has long been the reigning champion in that ring). For example, Marvel movies have notoriously declined in quality in recent years, yet they remain box office hits. We’re in a media landscape where studios can produce mediocre products (movies, pop star personas) that still drive profit. Harper’s Bazaar spoke to this: 

“In our streaming age, networks are under pressure to produce a constant stream of content, and no one has the manpower and budget to meet that need with brand-new ideas alone—all of which come with an element of risk. These days audiences have to like it instantly. They will reject it if they don’t like it. It’s become tough for makers to always give something that people will watch. There’s a lot of pressure to make things that audiences have a connection with.”

Given the proliferation of replicas in the current media landscape (influencing beauty standards, pop culture, Hollywood and your Instagram feed), it’s more important than ever to prioritize creating content that cuts through the static noise. 

Content that cuts through the noise, especially in the age of AI when original content is harder and harder to come by, tends to stand out. 

In an effort to work more efficiently and to produce more content, we’re leaning on AI—and resultantly, we’re creating recycled versions of the same content on loop. This content lacks the inherent emotional connection that comes from human-produced creations (think: tracing versus original). 

That being said, AI can be helpful when it comes to generating ideas. However, it’s crucial to flesh those ideas out creatively, in order to produce connective content. 

This reminds me of the season one finale of Mad Men, in which ad exec Don Draper emotionally pitches a Kodak projector as a “time machine,” carouselling through images of his wife and kids. It’s deeply personal and innately human, and even though the pitch was in a fictitious drama it’s one of the most effective examples of marketing I’ve ever seen. 

If you’re looking to create work that feels fresh, engaging and exciting, we can help. Get in touch.