I’m not a big fan of nostalgia. Today’s nostalgia is a thin, flavorless gruel compared to the hearty and robust nostalgia of my youth. Kids these days don’t even know what real nostalgia is.

I believe that on the whole, things keep improving. Sure, I’ve been known to engage in my share of retro-rehashing, but let me be clear: Super Friends was not a very good show. Pretty much any superhero-themed animated series from 1993 onward kicks assbutt compared to Superfriends. Yes, even Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

So my natural reaction to the “toy camera app” craze is disdain, derision and, oh let’s say hauteur. It’s transparently ridiculous that someone would buy a $600 phone with a 5-megapixel camera and then download an app that makes photos look like their grandma took them with a drugstore-bought camera, got them developed at the drugstore, then left them out in the sun for a week because of all the drugs.

Unfortunately, my brain isn’t as discerning as I am. I tried Instagram — because if I don’t try everything I run out of things to make fun of — and took a photo of a couple of disembodied mannequin arms I saw lying on the street. (San Francisco is a fascinating and diverse city if you like sidewalk detritus.)

Without the twee, self-congratulatory filters, it looked like a photo of garbage. With the twee, self-congratulatory filters it looked — well, twee and self-congratulatory. But it also looked less like a documentary of urban blight and more like — and I hate this word with a passion — art. It looked — and I hate this word even more — good.

My brain apparently loves photography that looks like a dog peed on it in 1968. This is disturbing and embarrassing to me. It’s like getting an erection at the petting zoo.

So, long story short, the people behind Hipstamatic have like eight bucks of my money now. Yes, in-app purchases and all. But it’s not because I like taking pictures in which “creative” is a symlink to “fuzzy, orange and overexposed.” It’s because I’m going to beat this thing. Experts say the only way to cure alcoholism is to drink a whole lot of alcohol continuously. Similarly, I’m going to futz with my fountainhead of fake, funky photography until I merge with it so completely that it has no power over me.

I am going to take orange-ish pictures of bluebells, bluish pictures of oranges and completely unappetizing pictures of everything I eat. I’m going to upload photos so artistic that you can’t tell whether it’s a picture of an old lady with a shopping bag standing next to a streetlight in the rain, or of three hot dogs after they were thrashed with a hammer.

I’m going to capture everything that’s beautiful and authentic in life, and make it look more beautiful and authentic by using a computer program to add scratches and gouges to it. And then, one day, I’ll be able to erase the app and find pleasure in the simple elegance of taking straightforward, unadorned, unmodified photos of my friends taking their clothes off at parties.

Will this work? Can I possibly pass through the tunnel of overwrought retro-photography and emerge from the other side a whole man?

Hey, I’m no longer banned from wearing shorts at petting zoos, am I?

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to bow to the inevitable and join Google+.