Social Media Or Self Promotion?

Photo by Christopher Mongeau.

Yesterday I ate mashed up acai berries, and covered them with fresh fruit. I immortalised the moment: one Instagram account, two. A déjà vu of another Monday; I’m on a health kick, and I want people to know.

I follow Brisbane’s latest sweet young thing. She’s all hair extensions and doe-eyed lashes, but I follow her anyway. It makes me feel relevant, even though I haven’t the faintest relation to her. I watch people love her and I watch people hate her, but it doesn’t make her any more real to me.

I scroll through my Tumblr feed, and a blogger I (virtually) know is pregnant. I’ve followed her for years, she was my adolescent aesthetic deity. She’s wearing Jeffrey Campbell pumps with half a baby bump.

I saw that my friend Christopher is listening to King Krule on Spotify. Maybe I should listen to his new stuff, too? Fuck, how long has it been out?

All of these people and all of these things matter, because digital narcissism exists, because everyone cares what I’m doing, right? The reason you, me or any of our friends log onto Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, is to see what other people are doing. We follow their movements and their locations and their trials and triumphs. As the internet has expanded, it has morphed socialising into a completely new experience, with completely new accompanying effects. Myself? I’ve been through many phases of internet behaviour, all wavering around one point of narcissism or another. Long ago, for example, I said I’d never take a selfie. And here I am now.

I’ve been the emotionally turbulent teenager who posts Taking Back Sunday lyrics beside a picture of the sky, I’ve been the Myspace HTML editor, pasting photos of Ozzie Wright all over my gif-graffitied profile. I’ve emulated the cyber punk princess who loves dyed hair and coloured oceans, and I’ve tried being the au naturale gypsy who galavants the social scene, smartphone in hand. I’ve been all these things, but they’ve never made me happy. No moment is captured perfectly enough, no amount of praise ever matches my thirst for recognition. Just like Hazel Cills wrote for Oyster: “Digital narcissistic behaviour isn’t like normal narcissistic behaviour, because it relies solely upon the existence of social media.” An online presence relies solely on a following, which relies solely on what you can give to the public. Cue the rise of the scantily clad and the scarcely canny.

Then it dawned on me; maybe I’m looking for fulfilment in all the wrong places. A life worth documenting is a life worth living; what’s the document worth if the life is fictional? My parents routinely took baby photos and birthday photos and graduation photos and christmas photos. Somewhere in the mess of over-documentation, we’ve misinterpreted that ‘time is slipping away’. Time is of the essence, so should I take more photos? Should I write more memoirs and prove my relevance? No. Time is of the essence, so take your time.

I must admit, being prone to internal battles whilst on the pursuit for perfection, I am probably more susceptible to digital narcissism than the next person. Just this morning, a dear friend told me, “We need to send you to a rehabilitation facility for Tumblr.” In the midst of trying to stand out and throw the towel in, I’ve accidentally conformed and been sucked in. Now that’s some fucking irony. I used to like antique cameras, because they transformed a moment. Now, iPhone in hand, the romance of film collects dust in my cupboard.

Is social media just self promotion? Your appearance, education, interests, hobbies and daily activities are pasted all over websites to be liked and commented on. Would you walk around your street handing selfies out to your neighbours? It probably wouldn’t have the same appeal, would it? But if you didn’t post those selfies, no one would possibly remember what you looked like, right!? A point of contention, I’m sure.

To be honest, I think my adolescent hunger for approval is weakening. I hope so, anyway; it’s exhausting mashing up all these acai berries that I don’t even eat.
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Written by Grace Bullen, who is the ex-Creative Director of Your Friend’s House. She’s a socially and culturally aware human who has done thang’s for brands like Everland Clothing and The Arcade Creative. Read her past articles here.