I do not have a television. I do not have a Netflix or Hulu account. I don't binge watch shows nor spend a lot of time at the movies. Thus, my iPhone is a window into the world of media - and it comes fully loaded with Instagram, Facebook, Tinder, SnapChat, Bumble, BCC, The AP, Map My Run, Spotify, Period Tracker and many more, all of which I use with the tap of my thumb to assemble my world. These apps provide me with - not so much knowledge – but, access to limitless information: politics, friends, family, people I don't know, men I might date, what bills are due, what I did four years ago, if venus is in retrograde, and what this super-tiny sports model ate for breakfast. And in response to this conglomerate of information? I do what is logical – I create my own weird cyber identity for others to access and consume.
Create and Consume - that is what we do with this unbound information. We take in glimpses of it, and we make more of it. I believe media, and lets limit this discussion to solely social media, in many ways is a form of creative expression. As an artist paints with a brush, or a writer uses words and letters to sculpt sentences, many of us use social media as a means to express, and develop a unique creative narrative. Now – I am not saying that us Social Media savvy millennials, are necessarily the next Rembrandts, however, there is something artistically genius and ground breaking about those who can craft social media to represent pieces of themselves, as well as reflect culture.
Issues arise when others take this information to represent the person who created it. As a writer, I have learned quickly that I will, no matter how talented I become, never be able to write my entire self, because that self is constantly three sentences ahead of the last word I typed. Yes, when developing character I can take aspects of myself to create a complex, truthful, and real human, but there is whole lot of ME that makes up ME - and the character will never actually capture all of it. This is one of the greatest struggles faced by artists – discovering an ultimate truth – discovering the wholeness of themselves, with all the lumps, and bumps, and issues, and emotions, within their works.
Social media works similarly – however we do not treat it that way. We we view it as transparent - an ultimate truth. We draw conclusions and pass judgments on a person’s identity and worth, almost always more harshly than we would ever judge an artist's character for her creation. On social media, we are creating characters and attempting to engage with something real and truthful about whom we are and where we stand within a culture, which BY THE WAY, is fueled by everyone telling us how we should be. We share little tidbits about our daily lives because it feels good to share pieces of our identity and yes – be validated for it.
Over the summer, I ran into a mother of a girl I used to teach. She joyfully rambled-off the semi-standard laundry list of questions to ask a female in her early 20s. I began to tell her about some of the projects I was working on – however, before I could finish, she interrupted - "I know. I follow your Instagram. It’s so great. You have such a cool life." Straight up – I love Instagram and did I take a little flattery in that? Hell yeah. And at the end of the day, yes I am very satisfied with many aspects of with my life. However, there are clear judgement being made about me based on images I decide to post, which - YES - is obvious and accepted as the norm, but equally as unfair.
Instagram allows me to curate photos - articulating interests, projects, and events relevant to me, all with a brief captions that reflect my mood or a thought. I’m not posting about political issues or injustice or advocating for a cause, nor am I posting about the nightmares of carrying four bags of groceries solo in zero degree weather, or rush-hour delays, or anxiety over work and relationships and the future – all of which are equally as integral to who I am. Instead, I am posting images about the parts of my weeks I enjoy and appreciate the most - like shooting the shit with friends, or having a few extra minutes in the morning to sit and have a cup coffee, or being blessed enough to relax into a long run along the East River around sunset. What I have crafted through images is solely one version of me. It is a character in a novel being read on the train, or the painting on the wall hanging above my bed. It is undeniably complex and true, however there is a perspective and it is not at all complete. It is a singular truth bound to the intimate relationships we have with our world today.