VSCO CEO Joel Flory:[1]

“The number one request since we launched VSCO Grid was the ability to follow other photographers,” says Flory. “As humans, we are inherently ‘social’, but VSCO Grid is not, nor will ever be a social network. You’ll notice there are no follower counts, no likes, no comments. We like the metaphor of a physical art museum. You would never walk into a exhibition and scribble comments or smiley faces next to a piece of artwork. It’s photography for the sake of photography, without the pressure to create images for the sake of gaining followers. We see the ability to follow photographers’ work as an ever-changing art gallery, not a social network.”

VSCO Cam has almost completely replaced all photography apps on my iPhone. I never send a photo to Instagram prior to touching up the photo in VSCO Cam. The majority of my photos don’t even make it to Instagram.

When my wife dropped Facebook a few months ago, we actually noticed a health improvement in her life. Social networks like Facebook and Instagram add incredible amounts of stress to life; likes, retweets, followers, and comments can consume the purpose of a social network. Once she experienced lifted spirits and stress-free social networking, my wife vowed to never return to Facebook again.

So, VSCO Cam’s social-network-that-isn’t-a-social-network is a fantastic feature for photographers and their respective audiences. Eliminating follower counts and likes leads to an elimination of click-bait content. Photographers can post their best photos without any sort of criticism or praise[2], and consumers can enjoy pure, great photography. Even amateur photographers like myself don’t have a fear of posting photos to VSCO Grid because there is no social paparazzi out to destroy.[3]

I just want a VSCO Cam iPad version. Photography can be consumed at a whole new level on an iPad.

You can follow me on VSCO Grid if you so choose. I’ll never know.

Now that’s a mouthful. ↩

Which is both good and bad. ↩

But on the flipside, due to this characteristic, discovering your friends who use VSCO Grid is currently difficult. I’m sure VSCO will quickly come up with a great way to fix this.   ↩