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| Nardwuar interviews Lil B |
Recently I have come to conclusion that I feel like a junkie when I am using social media. I want more, I need to use it regularly. I get satisfaction from it, but it does not last long. I notice that a lot of people are "on" it and don't question it enough. It feels like a river, once you're in the water it is hard to go against the flow. Further on I will be raising some questions, bringing up some comparisons and sharing some conclusions.
You always need to scroll it through to the place you left before. You just can’t risk it, what will happen if you will miss something that you might have liked? Internet is so big, there probably will not be a second lucky time for you to spot that one perfect photo. You can’t get lucky twice. The photo you just liked is special. Doesn’t matter that you will not look at it again. Now it is there. It’s a part of your special collection and you feel satisfied.
What is this void that I am trying to fill? Why do I feel like it is important to be updated all the time? Do others feel that they want to “delete themselves” from everywhere as well? And why do I feel this satisfaction from being online?
From the moment when almost everyone had access to the internet the life that we knew before was gone. Nowadays, we all have all the necessary tools to create, whether it is uploading a video in Youtube or writing a comment under a post in Facebook. Each of us have become our own publicity machine. We upload images, we add descriptions, we create stories, we create our own dream self for people to see. It is just a click away.
Social media gives you the feeling of power, you can pretty easily create, reorder, collect, organise, find, explore, travel, so on.
Also it allows, or more accurately, it insists that you create a personality. It is all about expressing oneself, being unique, having a voice, even better - having an opinion. Social media goes hand in hand with that. Customize this, choose this, import that and so on. We have a frame in which we have a freedom. We tend to do everything how we want, how we think we should. Today we can really get to know what humans are like in just a second. More content, more freedom, less time, less long-term.
When it comes to Instagram it gets interesting. I find it easy to analyze, because of the limited options. Section of your posts, timeline to see posts of people you follow, explore section to see posts of people you don't follow, section of notifications about likes that you received & activity section of people you follow.
The idea about Instagram is not completely new in itself. It is a summary, improvement and addition of all the old things. Publicity, photography, self expression.
A lot of people don't look anymore what others have likes. They don't even look at posts that were liked by themselves. If we some accounts, the count of the likes on their post can tell us if it is a trend or not, how much people was moved by the photo, how much people want to be the person in the photo or have the same life.
This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 584,371 accounts (people, companies).
This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 30,186 accounts.
This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 137,458 accounts.
If we don't look or use our special collection of liked posts, why do we keep upgrading it? Is it just a momentary reminder that we are, that we relate? Is it a manifestation of our position?
If we keep being active for ourselves, keeping in mind that nobody really pay attention to what we are thinking, doing, is there a reason to continue? If a photo is posted on Instagram and no one noticed it, does it make a difference?
Supporting. I believe that this worth the attention. I took part. I am worth it. I am significant. Does having your own values, opinion define you or expressing it define you? I pressed “like”, therefore I am. We create evidences of our existence by being on social sites. As Roland Barthes says in his book Camera Lucida: “Photography authenticates the existence of a certain being.”
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Some safety regulations for using Instagram:
Be careful with the count of people you follow.You don’t want to be stuck on your phone 24/7. Of course there has been some days like that, but you have some other things to do too.
If you stalk someone, never like an old photo, because you don’t want them to know that you are more interested in them as you like them to think.
Try not to get depressed if you don’t have a lot of likes on your last amazing, super cool, creative, unique photo.
You know that amount of likes doesn’t mean anything, especially the fact that the boring person from school who is not even funny or smart, there is really nothing interesting about her, got twice as much likes on one photo than you, you don’t care about that at all, because Instagram is a joke actually (50/50 sarcasm).
Don't press “like” to all the memes you find funny.Everyone is shitposting (all their content consists of memes). You think it makes them look unprofessional, the way that all their life is actually one big joke. You don't want others to think about you that. “Like” only really funny jokes, that goes along with the impression you want to make about yourself. Doesn't matter that the joke about drinking was really funny, you don't want others to know that you can relate to it. You joke with your friends about dumb stuff, not in the public space a.k.a. the internet.
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Deleting social media apps from your phone for a certain time and watching “The Ways of Seeing” by John Berger is a good therapy.
This blog post made me question and think about my own social media behavior. I think you were right on point with your analysis. There certainly are (and there have to be) some hidden reasons for people’s social media behavior. I think it’s a really interesting topic to explore, and I loved reading what you had to say about it!
ReplyDelete-Julia