A new archetype of youth has arisen during the summer of 2019, known by many as VSCO girls. This demographic can be found easily, especially on Instagram.

Visual Supply Company is currently basking in its fifteen minutes of fame and riding on the waves of zoomer jokes, but time will tell if it’ll just be like any other trend that will fade away.

Since the beginning of the school year, whispers of “sksksksk” or jokes about Hydroflasks were abundant.

To put it simply, they are references to VSCO girls, a redefining stereotype that Senior Zak Belkhayat said is “replacing the archetype of a basic teenage girl.”

“It’s an aesthetic that’s become overused and is now annoying, as it makes everyone look so unoriginal and you just don’t want to talk to them as a result.” senior Grace Subu said.

VSCO is a photography app created by two Californians, Joel Flory and Greg Lutze.

It started from a humble beginning in 2011, with only a small user base, charging each download of the app $.99, and offered tool packs for a sum of $120.

Now, the app has more than 200 million downloads in total, and has become one of the quickest growing mobile photography apps.

This enormous number of downloads would explain references to the growing stereotype.

Seniors Crystal Nguyen and Natalie Burch are some of the earlier adopters of the app who have been using it for years already.

“It’s a place for you to put all of your ‘artsy’ photos, because whenever I post on Instagram, it would be pictures of me, not pictures of my food or the sky,” Nguyen said.

Burch also saw the app as an addition to instagram where other, ordinary photos could be posted.

“It just seems like a very aesthetic thing to do, like a platform that you can just post pictures that you didn’t want to post on Instagram, where hundreds of people who follow you can just see… it’s like a minimalist’s Instagram,” Burch said.

She also concluded that most boys are disinterested by the app, while girls are different about how they go about using social media and tend to favor VSCO.

For example, many girls like to post things like relationship photos, travel photos, and selfies, which they may not want on their instagram account.

Nevertheless, one thing is clear: this mobile photography app seems to market primarily from word of mouth, in person or online.