Failure, Like it
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?
Tags: brand, facebook, image, like, network, social, status, update
December 1st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I also wonder how many takes this girl had to do until she found one that she deemed worthy of, then, altering on photoshop. But maybe we are being to harsh it was the lens bending er whatever hehe
It’s true what you say in regards to facebook social taboos/implications of the stupidest things like a status update or simply clicking the “like” button. I guess this sort of self-conscious awareness manifests into me doing the minimal possible “broadcasting” or, as you said, minimal text when conveying ideas or immediate thoughts. Then again, I bet some people honestly don’t give two shits about any of this and speak their heart out onto facebook
But this question of identity is really confusing to me, especially when I see how others and I deal with it. For example, I just read this loosely related article the other day:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8381874.stm
I’m making a big leap from facebook nuance to self-recognized national identity, but the correlation I’m trying to draw is that people are obsessed with associating (or dissociating) from others in order to gain a higher place in a particular social hierarchy. Perhaps this facebook sociopolitical blah blah reflects a bigger crisis of identity. The idea of self is so complicated and convoluted in this globalized, fast paced, interwebz driven world, that people can’t seem to make sense of it all.
Even though this notion of nationalism doesn’t always deal directly with how peeps self-consciously interact with peers, it ultimately does. I have a friend who is half Scottish and half Irish and he strongly identifies with his “Nordic” roots despite not knowing Gaelic, never living in the UK, never living in a Nordic culture, etc. But he DOES listen to Flogging Molly and soundtracks from The Departed. You know what I mean? He even gets drunk and praises the plight of the Fighting Irish and how hard immigration and discrimination was back in the day. Why doesn’t he identify as American? Is it because the crowds he mingles with ironically bash the shit out of America and reap its benefits in silence? But it’s true, America does blow on so many levels. So how is a citizen and consumer of the world supposed to reconcile the perceived mainstream and the perceived “underground” when both play a large role in their lives?
Maybe people have way more license to self-identify these days? Have big tits always been desirable? Have people historically wanted to be Irish? Hell no, this shit changes with every age and law.
Now on a completely unrelated note: have you seen “The Obama Deception” on YouTube? The documentary is flawed and is ultimately a sales pitch but it forms lots of lines of inquiries if you have two hours to burn.