'Don't Take That Photo Yet': How Instagram Reels Turn Urban Spots into Tourist Stages

Introduction. Social media have changed how people choose and experience tourism. Instagram, particularly through Reels, rapidly circulates visual content that turns ordinary places into sought-after destinations (Sharma & Arora, 2024). This popularization alters dynamics, generating tensions between residents and tourists and raising debates on belonging and the limits of public use (Cohen & Cohen, 2019). Despite studies on tourism and social media (Gretzel et al., 2015; Xiang & Gretzel, 2010), there is still a gap in understanding how viral short videos transform urban territories. This study asks: how do Reels, by promoting ordinary locations as “hidden,” trigger symbolic and practical transformations in perception and appropriation of these spaces? Brief Literature Review. Social media reshape the tourism industry, influencing selection, planning, and experience (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). Urban space is a social product shaped through cultural practices and power relations (Gottdiener et al., 2019). Urry’s tourist gaze (2002) helps explain how images mediate experience, now amplified by influencers and virality (Nixon, 2022). Influencer-generated content builds idealized images that create expectation–experience gaps and lead to discomfort (Huang et al., 2025; Pan et al., 2014; Arefieva et al., 2021; Egger et al., 2022). Soares (2025) identified this contrast across different Reel categories. Methodology. Netnography (Kozinets, 2020) was used to analyze Reels describing hidden spots around the Colosseum. The sample included 169 videos from accounts with more than 10,000 followers and high engagement (Campbell & Farrell, 2020) and over 5,000 comments. Data collection took place in July 2024 and was complemented by in loco observation in January 2025 at the two most featured locations. An immersive journal with 89 entries and photographs supported interpretation of digital representation versus spatial reality. Results. Secret narratives frame ordinary space as exclusive and desirable, but comments reveal resistance and contestation, showing the fragility of symbolic capital in the digital age. Reels transform space into a stage for tourist performance, visible in the offer of professional photography services and accounts of its use as a recurring photo set. Viralization generates overcrowding, obstructions, and tension between tourists and residents, fragmenting urban territory into micro microterritories. Comments also reveal insecurity, theft, environmental degradation, and inappropriate behavior, exposing social complexity. Photographers and tour guides act as agents of symbolic commodification, professionalizing the experience. Emotional ambivalence emerges, with users oscillating between gratitude and fear of overexposure, attempting to control virality by asking to delete videos. Conclusion. Instagram Reels act as cultural agents transforming spaces into performative microterritories and exposing tensions between discovery and saturation. Viralization reconfigures the visual and emotional geography of space, pressuring everyday uses (Urry, 2002; Gottdiener et al., 2019; Gretzel et al., 2015). Netnography revealed hidden social layers such as insecurity, damage, and conflict. The study highlights ethical challenges for content creators and urban managers and calls for future research on emotional governance, influencer roles, and strategies to mitigate viral tourism impacts.