In a move ensuring that no person’s food need ever go unphotographed, Facebook has announced that it will acquire Instagram for a whopping $1 billion in cash and stock.

It’s official: Facebook is going to helm your social media experience forever.

The financial aspect of the acquisition is pretty cut and dry – Instagram is booming, Facebook had the money to spare, and now will have even more money to spare.

But, despite the significant financial gain, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder and CEO, insists that his company will not make regular business of such monster buyouts. A brief rundown of the company’s prior acquisitions confirms that, indeed, Facebook doesn’t have a habit of buying such ubiquitous companies. Instead, Facebook tends to seek out technologies and companies that improve on their own ideas. Companies such as Friendster and Hot Potato were integrated into platforms we know as Friend Finder and Facebook Places. Zuckerberg says that Facebook plans on keeping Instagram a stand-alone company.

So, the question is, why buy Instagram if they aren’t going to Facebook-ify it?

“Facebook is trying to make a fashionable investment,” says senior English major Rose Zaccone. “Good for them, but it seems like another fad.”

Perhaps they are hoping the uber-popular photo app will enjoy another boost in users now that it falls under the Facebook realm? That might be a bit of a gamble.

“I’ve thought about downloading it,” said Marilyn Lorch, graduate student in film and literature. “I like the way that the pictures look. The fact that it will probably be more connected to Facebook will probably have no bearing on my choice, though.”

Instagram, like Facebook, tends to be pretty polarizing. Those who work hard to expand their artistic aptitudes despise the millions who use Instagram to show off their new-found photography “talent” as well as those who are just glad there is a new way for everyone to make things pretty. Facebook’s pricey acquisition of Instagram might not change the app itself, but it’s more than likely that Facebook itself will undergo yet another change that will allow users to add blurred edges and sepia tones to their profile pictures without even touching their smart phones. But, like the mandatory foisting of Timeline onto users, that is going to divide the masses for sure.

“I figure, if I want to take artsy pictures, I’ll take a photography class and do it the old-fashioned way,” Zaccone said. “Things that use technology to make things artsy without any actual artistic effort are silly to me.”