Lily
Hymowitz is like many popular girls among schools across the world, but even with her
online presence through instagram, could it be that things aren't always so perfect
in paradise? She curates her pictures carefully to maintain an online persona
to her 22.8k followers. She struggles with the authenticity of her friendships
and shows stronger bonds (and rekindled relationships) through who she chooses
to pose with or tag. This is no easy task as relationships IRL can get
complicated when you don’t know who you can trust as your "true,
authentic" friends.
What
does it take to be the popular girl at highschool? It's all about that image of
perfection and having everyone like you-- and being effortlessly 'cool', these
social anxieties are the envy of many and the struggles of a few to maintain
popularity.
Even
the number of followers or likes on a picture can indicate her popularity, and
people tend to be intrigued and interested in her because of her privileged and
seemingly ideal life. The flurry of apps
like VSCOCam or Camera360, or even Instagram's own in-app filters mediate how
we see what her life is like, and what we take for her reality. With people
thinking she is "cooler than she is" she needs to maintain that
image, or else face the repercussions of being "un-cool" (which can
be drastic to a 16 year old socialite). What we see should be taken with a grain of salt, but it doesn't change the fact that those are the social expectations of perfect now.
Instagram
is just one platform among a network of many social media that have shaped how
we interact with each other. The anxieties of being inauthentic and the
unrealistic standards we adopt with this technology also reflect our interests
based on where and how we direct our social energy. Each social media platform (twitter,
facebook, tumblr etc.) have their biases and were developed out of a social
need, and widely adopted when they meet this need well. Society and technology
shape each other in turn, and that can be seen in how Lily Hymowitz structures
her social life to incorporate her insta-popularity.
How
do you choose what's appropriate to share? Do you think some platforms are more
suited for certain kinds of messages - and why would you choose one over the
other?
P.S. Wanna perfect your selfie? Maybe you can get some ideas from Kim Kardashians book: http://www.amazon.ca/Kim-Kardashian-West-Selfish/dp/0789329204
Great post Nikki,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see the ways in which popularity is perceived in a digital age.We can really see the way Lili faces social anxiety as she herself believes that she seems cooler online than she is in reality. I really like that you used the term "curates" when talking about the images she posts online. She really does curate the way she wants to be perceived, by managing her online persona through filters, posed photos etc. She can alter and manipulate the way she is perceived by the public, something that was not very common when I was in high-school. Through this article, we can see how technology changes the way we perceive each other as well as how it alters the way in which we interact.
I really like the point you made about Instagram changing our expectations of what "perfection" is.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and I would say that it's proven because when we go onto people's Instagram feeds we have a specific expectation of what we're going to see. We've come to accept that we're only going to see snapshots of people in their best moments, which is why when we see an Instagram feed that shows only average pictures, we consider it divergent or edgy.
An example is this profile. Kristie Muller is a Toronto based artist who displays her photography on Instagram. Part of what makes her photography art is the statement it makes by being pictures of average things on Instagram