The AP. No article yet. Google search...
Ah - there we go.
Notification - 'Anna just ran 6 miles in 50 minutes' - I should -
A text.
Train. I hear the train, stop.
Tune out. Take out a book. Read - go.
I do not have a television. I do not have Netflix or Hulu account. I don't bing watch shows and don't spend a lot of time at the movies. Thus, my iPhone is a media blackhole - and comes fully loaded with Instagram, Facebook, Tinder, Bumble, BCC, The AP, Map My Run, Spotify, Period Tracker and many more, all of which I used to assemble my world. These apps provide me with - not so much knowledge - but access to limitless information to just about everything: politics, friends, family, people I don't know, men I might date, when I'm supposed to get my period, if venus is in retrograde, and what my 4th grade teacher ate for breakfast. And in response to all of this information? I create my own weird cyber identity for others to consume.
Create and Consume - that is what we do with this unbound information. We take it in, and we make more of it. I believe media, and lets limit this discussion to solely social media, is a form of creative expression. As an artist paints with a brush, or a writer uses words and letters to craft sentences, many of us use social media as a means to express, develop, and creative a narrative. Issues arise when others take this information as a complete representation of the person who created it. I'm a writer - I like writing plays and creating characters - and as this type of writer I learned quickly that I will never, no matter how talented I become, be able to write my "real" self, because that self is ever malleable. There is a lot of ME that makes up ME. Yes, I can take aspects of myself to create this complex completely real human, but it will never actually be me. Social media works similarly - we create these piece of us because it feels good to share parts of ourselves.
Now delving into the world of Instagram - Recently I went home to visit some family and I was speaking with my younger cousin and her friend. They were asking me how I liked living in the city and I was telling them about some of the projects I was working. As soon as I finished on of them blurted out - "I know. I follow your Instagram. Its so cool. I wanna go college in there. You have such a cool life." Straight up - I love Instagram as a media tool and did I take some flattery in that? Hell yeah. Instagram allows me to curate photos - articulating my interests, location, and events that I find relevant to me, all with a brief caption which reflects a mood or thought. No - I’m not posting about political issues or in justice or advocacy, nor am I posting about mundane everyday things like homework, or tests, or brushing my teeth, or work or anxiety, all of which are also what makes up me. I am posting images about the parts of my weeks I enjoy and appreciate most - like seeing friends, or sitting and having coffee, or seeing a show. Yes, the medium is egocentric, however, its undoubtably in some form a new artistic medium allowing me to craft some of me - a form of expression.
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