Rushkoff (2019) talks about the sense of inauthenticity that we encounter
in the real world, when we see poorly simulated objects or roles. And when we take
on a persona that is not authentic to who we are, we get the sense of
alienation from ourselves. I often experience this alienating sensation whenever
I see people’s Instagram stories that are very well-curated to consecutively capture
all moments of an event that are exciting and appealing, with a perfect caption
and visual effects for each of them.
A typical example would be
stories from a surprise birthday party, where they post a video after another from
getting together, decorating the room, and setting up the cake, to finally
bringing the birthday girl/boy into the room who then makes a happy scream when
everyone in the room shouts out “Happy Birthday!”. The climax is when everyone
captured in the frame is staring at their own smartphone screen to record while
the birthday person blows the candles on the cake. It is then usually followed
by a boomerang video of their
cheers, where you again see everyone holding a glass on one hand and their
phone on the other. And if you have ever been a part of this Instagram stories
spree, you have probably also seen someone asking to repeat the cheers because
they missed a boomerang shot of it to be added to their stories. It is
almost as if insisting that a moment did not count if not captured and recorded
in their Instagram stories.
The irony of Instagram stories
emerges from this obsession with authenticity. People want to capture
authentic snapshots of the important events in their lives, where events are
prepared and performed in a way that facilitates the best recording of each
step and moment in video clips and are sometimes even rearranged and redone for
a better visual representation. And it almost feels to me as if the events are
being produced and performed for the purpose of sharing on Instagram, which is
the opposite of authenticity and thus gives me the bizarre sense of alienation.
Are people recording them to remember them? Or are they performing them to
record them?
Georgakopoulou (2019)
points out immediacy as one of the salient themes in the corpus, which is
associated with “sharing and capturing instants of one’s day and doing
things/living/being ‘in the moment’” (p. 5). In the fast-paced contemporary society, our
everyday life is filled with moments that cannot be remembered one by one. The
fleeting, brief nature of everyday instants may be driving people to resort to the
stories as a display of those instants, which validifies and reassures them that
those instants did actually take place.
I am curious to know your
thoughts on these questions that I am left with:
1.
How would you explain people’s obsession with “sharing moments” on their
social media and the visual/narrative perfection they demand for it? Has something
similar existed before the advent of smartphones and social media? What makes
the social media story-designing spree unique?
2.
Does story-designing allow us to appreciate the fleeting moments better or
does it rather hinder our being present in the moment?
3.
Can the story feature in different platforms (e.g. Instagram, Facebook,
Snapchat) be seen as rituals of self-exposure (Rymes, 2019)? Does it serve as a
venue for both posters and commenters to engage in co-construction of social
meaning in any ways?
References:
Georgakopoulou, A. (2019). Designing stories on social media: A corpus-assisted
critical perspective on the mismatches of story-curation. Linguistics and Education.
Rushkoff, D. (2019). Team Human. New York: Norton.
Rymes, B. (ms). How We Talk About Language. Chapter 5: Narrative.
Thank you for this post Eunsun! I have an uncle who was obsessed with his vhs camcorder and whenever we visited we had to sit through a year's worth of tapes so he could update us on all that had happened in his family's life. Now I can go on Facebook and see almost up to the minute what family members are up to. I think people have always been sharing moments and stories, but social media has made distribution much easier.
ReplyDeleteI remember being very confused when stories came to Instagram. Snapchat just about missed my age group and I still have no idea how to use it. I'm used to Insta stories but was mortified when they were added to Facebook. I still haven't figured out what I'm supposed to do with them there. I'm not sure if Instagram stories can be a venue for posters and commenters to engage in co-constructing social meaning. Maybe they can be if we consider additional story features such as the Q&A sticker?
I really like your thoughts about sharing moments and "authenticity." I'm wondering if "authenticity" and "scalablility" are really that compatible. I agree with Alex's point that calling these Instagram tallies of event-photos "stories" seems to upend our everyday understanding of conversational storytelling--the fact that it requires some back and forth with intimates, who, in the process, help shape our story. I'm curious about how much these stories can invite real commentary--or it they just solicit "likes" and comments that are (fake) compliments, themselves being posted to build fame for that comment-poster. Is there any hope for a medium that is built deliberately to fish for information and then profit off of it? On the other hand, how can we answer that question without looking more carefully at the more idiosyncratic ways that people use Instagram Stories and other similar media.
ReplyDeleteHi Eunsun! Thank you for your post!
ReplyDeleteTo answer your first question, I have to agree with Sarah-Lee in that people have been doing this in various ways throughout the years… Remember people who use to carry around actual photos in their wallets or on a locket of some sort? I feel like people now use the front photo space on their phone as like a “locket” showing off their most important people or photo.
Fast-forwarding to today though, I agree with you that the obsession of the “story spree” is that it happens to show their followers that they are doing something fun that they want to ‘show off’ what they are doing. I notice that my friends and I do it as well (me not as much). However, I have realized in thinking about the readings this week, that the story-writing occurs as an ‘all or nothing’ ritual. For example, if one person takes out their phone to do a boomerang of a “cheers” then it is almost certain others will record the same moment too (or re-do it like you said!!) thus re-scripting the moment several times (Georgeakopoulou, 2019). Interestingly, if someone does not take out their phone do share anything on social media, it is the same for the others who refrain even if it is something fun.
Relating to Rushkoff (2019)’s paradox 63, the artificial component comes in when the act (such as a cheers) needs to be repeated several times to get it “right” on either Instagram or Snapchat Stories. I have several friends that even say “ok now everyone look like you’re having fun” or, “ok I’m going to do a video, everyone be ready” and when she turns to you in the recording, you have to make a face like your loving life at that moment. If it is bad, she makes us re-do it! I don’t like when she does that like Rushkoff (2019) states, there is something eerie or uncomfortable about being artificial. I have often asked my friend, “Why do we have to ‘pretend’ we are having fun, can’t we just be ourselves and it be a candid video already having fun doing what we were doing?” That makes me think about why do we need to create these scenes for our “followers” anyway? What are we trying to prove, that these artificial selves we have online have more fun?
Great points, Gab! I love your questions! Who are these "followers" anyway? I always wonder this about mini "newsletters" circulated on e-mail or Slack too. Why do people put these together, when the people who read them already know everything being reported? Who are we really making them for? In the same way, Instagram stories can seem like corporatized versions of ourselves, trying to show some imaginary "boss" how awesome our lives are, in the polished, closure-oriented, prefect way. This all makes me think now that not only has the word "Story" been coopted, but "Sharing" has too! How is it really sharing, when what we put out there is so carefully curated?
DeleteThank you for your post, Eunsun! I think the scenarios that you describe in your post as well as the scenario in Gab’s post speak to the tension between Rushkoff’s (2019) optimism and Georgakopoulou’s (2019) deeply critical concerns. Both author’s arguments are catalyzed by paradox: The paradox of the “uncanny”, or the encounter between the real life and only real-like life made possible by technology, in Rushkoff, and the paradox of what is promised and what is possible life on social media platforms. Your blog reflects a sense of the “uncanny” in that you participate in the creation of social media stories and yet experience discomfort with the not-quite-realness of it. As you probably know by now, I agree with Georgakopoulou that critical awareness of not only the surface affordances of social media is necessary but also a deeper understanding of the entanglement between the social and business (and governments!) that forces the “collapse of the social with the quantifiable and traceable” (p. 9). Rushkoff failed to convince me to turn the alienation experienced in the encounter with the “uncanny” (a Freudian concept from psychoanalysis) into “our friend” (p. 145).
ReplyDeleteCuriously when I view the homepage of this blog only the posts with pictures are visible. So if relevancy/visibility is of concern, that might be a way to mini-hack the algorithm of this blog.
ReplyDeleteI think people share moments to connect with more friends (probably under the assumption that more is better). They might also just do it to keep their friends updated. I am sure that there are people who use social media for several other purposes, but the “common” user probably just wants to share what’s going on with them, or voice their opinion about something they find funny, love or hate. For example, my wife posts on Facebook what she calls “israelisms,” which is, basically, me saying something that I am translating from Spanish into English and doesn’t really carry over, or me just making a mistake and saying “asteroids” when I meant to say “steroids” or “gunshot” when I mean to say “shotgun.” To my surprise there are always about 100/150 people who engage with those posts and have something to say about English not making sense, or how similar, and yet different words can be. As a result, we temporarily “connect” with a lot of people. Does that get in the way of being present? I am not sure… it almost makes me think that it gives the person posting more presence (offline + online). For example, back home there have been a lot of riots for the last three days, and many people have been marching against our government. While doing so they have been recording the events, and most importantly what the police/military has done. Though, I agree that maybe in a different context streaming might be “distracting,” I almost find myself wanting more people to stream what’s really happening in the streets, and I want to “see” what the police/military is doing because often that is not covered by the press. In fact, it is because of the strong online presence that many people have that today we can question the procedures implemented by the police/military and debate whether they abused their power or operated within reasonable limits. Maybe, that’s also a way of engaging in co-construction meaning?
ReplyDelete…
One last thought... these platforms that sometimes are presented as ego-driven can actually provide a space for the collective to challenge the status quo and for citizens to be critical.
Eunsun,
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting such a thought-provoking post with reflective questions. As I was reading question 2, this image came to mind:
https://twitter.com/vizworld/status/690919044506075137
This is a conversation that brings some tension with my family. Because our extended family is far away, to make them feel connected, some of my family members who live in the US are obsessed with reporting events. This often times means that there a small self-imposed barrier that they are looking through to capture a moment. Sure one can go back and relive it later, and share these experiences with others, but without the help of the technology, are we able to recall the depth of the moment ourselves?
I do wonder though if it is a generational thing. Although I agree with Gaby and Sarah-Lee that wanting to capture moments is not new, I wonder with the frequency and ease thanks to technology, we are more obsessed with doing so to legitimize a moment as you described in your post. As an example, I use Strava to track my workouts, and the platform is so popular, that you if you don't post it, it "doesn't count". There are even shirts that say this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33018507395.html?src=google&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=494-037-6276&isdl=y&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&aff_platform=google&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&&albagn=888888&albcp=1582410664&albag=59754279756&trgt=743612851114&crea=en33018507395&netw=u&device=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0brtBRDOARIsANMDykYfucm_ou7ZARXxfz-eqQ_qNBtxRAbMFS5kOk1hCOe_9lY1dSpNBokaApeoEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
I see this happening less with older generations though. Is it do the learning curve of the technology used though? In other words, some struggle with learning about how to use new devices. If they had this knowledge, would they be more open to posting? Or is it a mindset?
Hi Eunsun,
ReplyDeleteThank you for mentioning the "authenticity" of posts. Actually, I have a friend obsessed by the boomerang effect of Instagram story. She always asked us to clink glasses and say "cheers" every time we got together for dinner. Then, she shoot a gif of holding glassses back and forth, and posted it to Insta story. I think a critical reason why Boomerang became so popular is its weirdly mesmerizing quality. Every time I see a Boomerang on an Instagram story I always end up watching it for at least 30 seconds, which is a pretty long time to be staring at a gif.
As for the authenticity, since we all know the friend likes making Boomerang effect gifs, most of them are made deliberately. So I am not surprised by my friend's Insta story because I know they all are "carefullly captured" moments, though they are beautiful or astounding. The surface affordances of social media sometimes are not authentic moments of life.
Beyond the parts of your post that others have already drawn attention to, a couple of things you said really struck me:
ReplyDelete-"It is almost as if insisting that a moment did not count if not captured and recorded in their Instagram stories."
-"Are people recording them [events, cf. surprise party] to remember them? Or are they performing them to record them?"
I'm not quite sure how to class where I fall along the millenial/Gen-Z age continuum -- but I can say that technology and social media feel like they've been pretty ubiquitous features of social gatherings I've been to/been aware of since I was in high school. This has consistently felt weird to me, and I've definitely had similar thoughts to the ones you articulated so well, Eunsun -- mainly, if I don't have the pictures, or am not tagged/included in a social media post/story about whatever activity/event I just participated in with my friends, did the fact that I was there actually *count* for anything? (I frequently had this thought when I was in high school and early in college, because I wasn't on any social media then). And then came the follow-up questions, basically: what *should* my socializing have to count for? What does "count for" even mean? Who is doing the counting, the tabulating, the scorekeeping of my presences or absences at non-mandatory, ostensibly "fun" and non-stressful events?
This notion of "counting for" relates to the performative aspect of storytelling, as described by Georgakopoulou (2019) and as captured in the second excerpt I listed from your quote. I think it's also directly related to the "qualitative/quantitative" paradox that featured in Georgakopoulou (2019) -- and that could be read into the paradox discussed by Rushkoff, of seamless simulations vs. messy realities. I think that this paradox -- of striving to capture authenticity in highly curated, seamless fashions -- can be linked to the function of much social media communication: accumulating social capital. As I don't have the further expertise or credentials to support this idea, do note that it's purely a "citizen's take" on the dynamic at hand. Yet it feels to me that as more 20th century ways of accumulating/developing social capital -- e.g. having a job, owning property/vehicles -- have become obsolete, people now tend to develop their capital via digital holdings & platforms. In certain ways, this could seem to make the act of gaining social capital more equitable -- you don't need to pay to make a profile on most/if not all social media sites (I think?!)! -- but in reality, it seems like "digitized holdings and assets" are just exacerbating, and making visible in other ways, the disparities between social "haves" and "have nots".
Do others agree with these ideas? If not, why not? And ultimately -- do others have thoughts about how "digital storytelling" can be made into a more democratic, just practice?