The 5 weirdest things you can do with your Instagram account

1. Print your Instagrams on to marshmallows

‘Boomf‘ will, if asked, take a selection of your Instagram photos and print them directly onto vanilla flavoured marshmallows, which it’ll then post to you in a giftbox. This is a real thing.

Your family and friends may then watch, helpless, as you roast and consume pictures of them and yourself. They will learn to fear you. At least I presume that’s the point of this.

2. Buy guns

^{Image: Wikimedia Commons}

One thing you may not have known about Instagram is that it’s a real hive of commercial activity. People are using the service to buy and sell stuff more or less constantly, utilising hashtags like ‘#forsale’. It’s so popular that a dedicated website, ‘Hashbag‘, has sprung up to streamline the process.

One of the most weirdly popular items being sold last year? Guns. Thanks to murky and differing state laws throughout the United States, many buyers and sellers turned to Instagram as a means of cutting through some red tape. Apparently it’s even (mostly) legal.

3. Get a free hotel room in Sydney

Sydney’s 1888 Hotel (named for the year Kodak patented its first box camera) is being described as the world’s first ‘Instagram Hotel‘.

Not only is it specifically designed to be Instagram-friendly, equipped with a dedicated selfie-space, if you have more than 10,000 Instagram followers you can claim a free night’s stay. And to think people said you were wasting your time on this thing. Fools.

4. Have your shots turned into real oil paintings

You know that lovingly crafted shot of your foamy cappuccino with the slice of cake placed tantalisingly in the background, the one that only took you three attempts to get right? Ever thought that would look better in oil?

Pixelist is offering just that. For a minimum of $149 a pop, it will turn your Instagram photos into genuine, hand-crafted oil paintings that you can hang up in your front room. You can then look forward to years of explaining to your bewildered future children what a Throwback Thursday was.