Polaroid’s History Through Two Lenses: One Sanitized, One Playful

The wholesale transition from analog to digital media at the turn of the twentieth century hit the Polaroid company particularly hard, although even after a series of bankruptcies and clumsy corporate restructurings diminished the company, Polaroid remains iconic. Its enduring relevance is reflected in the rise of Instagram, whose very name evokes the development of instant film that is synonymous with Polaroid. The social media platform borrows shamelessly from Polaroid’s aesthetic: the s