Hear/Say

Today I had a discussion about high school reunions with a neighbor/ g-sale patron. He was telling me how the 20-year was the big “gasp!” of high school reunions, while I suggested that perhaps the gasp has been stifled, now that we’re already on the up-and-up on everyone’s lives via FB statuses, photos, profile pix, etc.. So maybe reunions will be kaput, once everyone already knows the gossip, and doesn’t want to spend the time to talk about what they discovered on Facebook IRL… ?

Yes, this is another FB post. But it’s lolz ish. Promize.

via peterandrewhart.com

Andrew Hart is an old classmate of mine from UW– impressively, he is part of the Seattle Times New Digital Media Dept. Ah, successful youth.

Graceee

I couldn’t get more creative, but I didn’t want to be too much of a creep.

Some dude named Shane didn’t log out of his Facebook…

SHANE: BEWARE

Click on it for a bigger picture.

I’m totally going to Rome in like, 9 hours.

Filthy sik.

I will try very hard not to look like this

To my dear family and roommates: do not fear, for I have tattooed my face into the insides of your eyelids. You will never forget the asymmetry of my face.

To my dear friends and/or co-workers: I will return 100 fold stronger and greater than ever before; but also 100 times as merciful. Be excited. Be wary. But be excited.

To my facebook friends: I will be deleting some of you soon. 2010 calls for a purge.

To Elliott Smith, Michael Cera, endearingly awkward darlings, and Seattle:  I love you–! Marry me!

Love,

Gracious

PS: keep u posted

Using photography as a medium is more diverse than it seems: some use it as a tool to capture a real or artificial moment, while others use photography as a tool to capture imagination and distant possibilities. The authenticity of photography is another layer of a medium; “photo illustrations” take from the photography genre (as a reproduction of a time.place.state) but with the exception of the rules of its developed or digital reality. Using a green screen to facilitate the bending of realities versus building actual giant sets bring radically varied effects to the image and the reality produced by the image.

While photography is generally enjoyable and artistically accessible (because we unconsciously admire and revel in the composition of aesthetic and the private interpretation of a storyline for each photo), amateur photography has grown into a part of our daily lives. From Facebook albums to profile pictures and even avatars, reproducing our personalities and experiences to share with others becomes much to do with personal image-control and self-branding. This social trend has given even the social bimbo-butterfly who isn’t familiar with resizing fonts a way to cleverly manipulate how they’re seen and how they identify; it’s also given the World of Warcrafts obsessed introvert a social outlet to comfortably express themselves.

But I digress;

The point is, that photography is usually thought of in the photojournalism-genre- sort of way; this is because in our increasingly aesthetic culture, we generally rely in pictures to tell us the news (or at least pique our interest) and the text to tell us more. Aside from magazine covers, photos are still assumed as showing the truth, following that sort of “innocent until proven guilty” thread. A different kind of artsy photography, where the images are clearly lying or bending the rules of our reality, is still a relatively under-enjoyed genre of art– the famous photographers tend to be the portraiture/ celebrity photographer, the Annie Leibovitzes and Herb Ritts of the world who started out as documenting the world and people around them (Leibovitz started out photograph for Rolling Stone magazine).

Anyway, here are A FEW GOOD ONES: photographers that take this road less traveled by, and instead dared to create and show a world that a mere camera lens is not able to capture.

Photographs from beautifuldecay.com, booooooooom.com, ivomayr.com

Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin

Dina Goldstein

Dina Goldstein

Dina Goldstein

Ivo Mayr

Ivo Mayr

Gracious

Awesome/great job via veroniquekim.tumblr

I’ve heard about girls who Photoshop their own pictures before publishing them online, but it was … not taken very seriously. It’s LOL-able that this exists. It’s totally ironic how their insecurities become even more transparent.

It also shows how conscious people are of physical image even when engaging in a medium of communication that does not require “physicality”, per se. While people complain in paranoia of Facebook ads targetting them, no one ever talks about how they gear their own images to fit a demographic or image. How the internet enables this meta-self-awareness: what you said/say/will say, what you looked like/look/will look. The LOLlability of a ridiculous Facebook status, for example, draws from specifics such as

1) Is this a quote from a song? Does it reflect *exactly* how I feel? Is the song cool enough to reflect how I feel without embarrassment, but gains me cool points?

2) Is my status update worthy of note? Will people respond to it? Is it outrageous, or an actual status of “what I’m doing”?

3) punctuation and emoticons; how much is enough/too much? Does the design of my text also work to illustrate my point?

4) How will different groups of my FB friends read this? Is it appropriate for a boss, a sibling, a relative? Which group would this status appeal to?

5) Words used: Since it is a status, the tendency to paste large amounts of texts is laughed at. So the amount of words reflect the dexterous quick-ness of what the FB Status does: update your friends on plans, your life, your emotional stability… etc. all at once. The less words, the cooler you are– and because we’re aware of who will read this, we become more keenly aware of how we represent ourselves through a small blurb

On a more specifically interpersonal level, wall posts function the same way, but bewtween a much smaller group of people.

People also politicize their statuses  in order to elicit support for their cause, or at least place their valued issues on their friend’s/family’s agenda.

The “LIKE IT” meme is also surprisingly versatile in terms of contextual meaning. From sarcasm to genuine enthusiasm, as well as general display of support for a friend, “LIKE IT” is a strange internet function that has come to embody the wonderful ambiguous tone that characterizes “internet humor”.

What do you think?