On March 19, 2016, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, dressed as one of the Blues Brothers, returned to the Vatican to give the welcome to a new user: Pope Francis.
The two they had already met a few weeks earlier, always in the Vatican, to discuss “the power of images to unite people of different cultures and languages”, Systrom himself revealed, obviously posting a photo of the meeting in the apostolic palace on Instagram. He then added that “it was by far one of the most memorable experiences of my life!” It was February 26. Three weeks later the two saw each other again, because the Pope had chosen that day to debut on Instagram.
At 12.25 the first post, a photo of the pontiff kneeling in prayer with the inscription in 9 languages: “Pray for me”. He himself had given the news on Twitter, where he already had 26 million followers (but the debut of a Pope on Twitter is due to his predecessor): “A new journey begins, in Instagram, to spend the path of mercy with you and of God’s tenderness “, the tweet. One of the first to compliment was there Facebook co-founder (and owner of Instagram since 2012) Mark Zuckerberg: “Welcome to Instagram, Pope Francis. No matter what faith you practice, we should all be inspired by the humility and compassion of Pope Francis.”
The news obviously immediately went around the world. Il New York Times: “Get Ready, Internet! The Pope Joined Instagram” (“Get ready for the Internet! The Pope has landed on Instagram”). La Cnn: “Pope Francis gains 1 million Instagram followers in under 12 hours “(The Pope on Instagram gathers one million followers in less than 12 hours”). What was learned only several years later is what happened that morning in the Vatican. Systrom recounted this in an interview in 2019.
During the first meeting, strongly supported by Systrom himself, “I explained to the Pope that it doesn’t matter who you are, but if you have something to say, the place to do it is Instagram. He replied: well, my team will investigate this and they will give me their decision. But it’s not just them who decide, because each of us has a boss, even me. And he pointed a finger towards the sky ”. A couple of weeks later the Pope’s team and his “boss” must have decided it could be done and they called Systrom to ask what exactly one had to do to open a profile; he replied that he was very easy, but then he realized that it was worth going back to Rome to do it personally and enjoy the show.
The second meeting in fact must have been very special, to listen to Systrom’s story: “We had just landed, our eyes were red from sleep. He walked in, turned the corner and exclaimed: Kevin !. It was like seeing an old friend from the basketball team or whatever … We all had an iPad and everything was ready. The name (@franciscus) had already been entered. And so literally all he had to do was click to register ”.
When Pope Francis’ profile turned 5, in 2021, many tried to take stock of this social experience. On the day of the debut, Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, prefect of the Secretariat for Communication, said: “Instagram will help narrating a Pontificate through images to let all the people who want to accompany and get to know Pope Francis enter into gestures of tenderness and mercy. “In reality, the Pope’s profile was not as revolutionary as this pontiff was from the point of view of communication in general. nearly 9 million followersobviously does not follow anyone, has made over 1200 posts (one every two days) but the only reason it really made the news was a mysterious like for a Brazilian model in a bikini, mysterious because the Pope obviously “could not have done it”; it was immediately canceled and the Vatican officially asked Instagram how it could have happened (the answer is not known).
The meaning and the mechanisms of this Pope’s social communication has recently been realized a good documentary, Churchbookavailable on Sky.