R4: Objectively Cooler Online

To me the concept of postmodernism is how we are removing theories when interpreting reality and instead attempting to interpret reality through objective means. By this I mean that when an individual does something it is for a reason, whether it is because of his own desires or that of someone else, it could even be because it is what society wants that individual to do.

Postmodernism is a valuable theory for understanding social media because today's society revolves around it in that we practically need it in order to maintain social relationships. If maintaining a social life is the objective then participating in social media is the action that the individual will take. On social media we are meant to express ourselves by sharing our lives and interests while liking other posts made by other individuals or companies. We are creating our "self" online so that society can understand who this person is. As Sherry Turkle states "the Internet has become a significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self that characterize postmodern life" (180). While social media sites allow us to freely express ourselves some individuals have taken this freedom that reality does not offer and have gone on to create a sort of split persona, as in someone that acts differently online than they would in reality. Since the Internet has provided society with a number of ways in which they can express themselves it has now become the objective of the individual to do just that, online self expression.

A good example of how the objective of self expression has taken off via the Internet is through the visual based app, Instagram. On Instagram the user is meant to share pictures of various aspects of their lives such as activities, pictures with friends and family, and most importantly pictures of themselves, all of this in order to create their "story." This app lets the user build the truth as to who they are as an individual. However, it seems that in an ever present need to be likable or interesting users have made it their objective to "set up" photos so that they can distort the truth to who they are. There have been a number of people who have attempted to photoshop themselves into another picture so that they will look cooler and more appealing. There is also the trend of female users posting risqué pictures of themselves which can be seen as the users objective to boost their self-esteem and desirability. One wouldn't normally show themselves off in their underwear in a real life social situation, but seem perfectly fine with sharing a risqué picture that could be seen by millions of people. This is the kind of objective reality that social media has created. People can be whoever they want to be online as they choose between altering the truth to who they are or accepting that truth through self expression in an effort to realize the objective of appeal to others.

Works Cited

Turtle, Sherry. “Aspects of the Self” Chapter 7. Life on the Screen, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1997.