We need to talk about no-go zones. Enclaves of extremism are popping up around the world, and they are ruining neighbourhoods. Mobs of lawless social media influencers congregate in these areas, terrorising local people as they strive to capture the perfect picture, no matter what it takes. Sections of Notting Hill in west London, for example, have been overrun with militant Instagrammers using the picturesque streets as their own open-air photography studios. In Paris, influencers throng the pastel-coloured houses on Rue Crémieux, treating private residences like public props. A town in California had to ban tourists after thousands of people thronged poppy fields to capture selfies with the superbloom. Nowhere is safe.

Not all Instagram worshippers are dangerous, of course. Some integrate seamlessly into society. However, there is a perilous faction of well-organised radicals intent on nothing less than the wholesale Instagramification of our lives. Please see, as exhibit one, a new app called Depalo which promises to lead influencers “to the exact latitude and longitude” of the most Instagrammable places in a city. The app, developed by a lifestyle blogger called Rebecca Aneloski, covers 14 US cities, but aims to expand globally.

What exactly makes a place Instaworthy? Well, bright colours help. Cobblestones are always a crowd-pleaser. And influencers love nothing better than an arty wall – there’s even a section of the app called Where’s the Wall? It can be so hard to find the address of those walls, Aneloski told CNN: “Now, they have all of that in one place.”

I may have never admitted it to myself, but I have always yearned for one place where I could find the addresses of walls – so I downloaded the app to find me some partition porn. According to Depalo, the closest aesthetically pleasing wall to me is at Avocado Appetit cafe, which is New York’s first (though not only) avocado cafe. Honestly, I would rather stab myself in the eye with a piece of dry toast than go to an avocado cafe. Happily, there are plenty of other Instagrammable places listed nearby where I can take the same picture as a million other people to assert my individuality and build my personal brand online.

I may be joking about no-go zones, but I am serious about Instagramification. We live in an age of conspicuous consumption: instead of status-signalling with expensive accessories we gain social currency by documenting our carefully curated, highly filtered experiences online, and it is increasingly shaping our physical environment. Instagram has influenced the way architects think about buildings, for example, and how we design spaces. It has led to a boom in pop-up “Instagram museums”, such as the Color Factory, Museum of Ice Cream, and the Museum of Poop. Social media have even changed how we see our own bodies: doctors have noted that increasing numbers of young people are getting cosmetic surgery, so they look like their heavily filtered selfies. And, of course, it has led to a newfound appreciation of walls. Isn’t capitalism beautiful?

• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist