This past weekend, we [me and the Professor] had an instameet.
Wha? Ma che ci fai con un “instameet”???
An instameet. I.e. a group of people getting together at a decided location to take photos and then post them on Instagram in an excited, obsessive frenzy, with hashtags accompaniment. I know, I know. Neither of us are the first people that come to mind with the words “group” and “organization” [Flashback: insouciant birthday partying, resistant airplane ticket buying, writing habits that often do not include eating or cleaning for days]. But obsessive frenzy? Yeah, I’m that girl. I like passion, I like passionate people and I like how Instagram foments that passion.
Over the past several months, we’ve had six instameets with a few different hashtags: #instameettheromans in Historic Rome, #eurwalk, a walk around the Fascist era architecture of EUR neighborhood, #colosseumfordays, all about the Colosseum (a tag I hope keeps going for centuries) and #walkroma, the consistent and underlying tag of these walks plus our Ostiense and Ostia Antica instameets and this past weekend’s walk at Ponte della Musica in zona Flaminia. And we’ve consistently had a great group of people [artists, photographers, journalists, interior designers, students, rocket scientists, pro athletes, diplomats, government lobbyists, mind readers] who have come from all over (Lazio and then some) to walk around and photograph the Eternal City ~ who wouldn’t want to? And on a side note, I’m also a late night “silent participant” of many others instameets, like Hong Kong, Sidney, Venice Beach and London, when insomnia is fuelled by a steep fall down the hashtag rabbit hole, especially the #WWMI8 (Instagram’s tag for all instameets that happened this weekend).
I’d like to say that our instameets are a non-stop discussion on photography and its techniques, plus showing off a little cultural heritage, but really they are all about making friends, making jokes and confirming that all roads lead to Rome. Inevitably, someone discovers that they are tangentially related to someone else. In my case, someone a) knows one of my cousins b) has dated/could potentially date one of my cousins c) works/worked with one of my cousins d) has never met any of my cousins but somehow randomly knows one of my old and forgotten friends from wherever. Yes, the Rome instameet is a yenta, a matchmaker, a nonna and a nosey neighbor.
If you’d like to be kept up-to-date on our Instameets, enjoy the gallery below (a sampling of this past weekend’s #walkroma at the Ponte della Musica and Stadio dei Marmi), send me an email and/or keep your eye on our Rome Instameets here. For a who’s who of our #WalkRoma participants in Instagram’s 8th Worldwide Instameet, peruse the photo below (and the foot shot above) and click on it. I’ve tagged everybody who came with an Instagram profile. Thank you again, you guys are really great– can’t wait to see you for the next instameet!
