What is a Tweetable Moment?

Reflection #5

Subjectivation is the process of crafting a personality with the influence of one's own thoughts and the thoughts of others, according to Foucault’s theory. It is about how people represent themselves and how that aligns with their own beliefs about the self. What we do and say reveals what we want others to think about ourselves. We follow patterns of speech and behavior that are consistent with the traits we want to express, usually our most attractive, interesting, and unique aspects. When we express ourselves in front of others, we know others can judge us as much as we can judge them. Subjectivation is essentially the feeling of having that audience judging even when it is not present.

How people go about expressing themselves on social media is consistent with with subjectivation. We speak from ourselves, but we also speak from the identity we enjoy cultivating. Tim Rayner, a professor and author studying online social movements, indicates that “to craft a tweet or frame a post with a wry observation, we must step back from our experience and transform it into a story, with ourself as the lead character.” Shaping an online presence across platforms allows us to easily play with various styles and ways of being by uploading carefully chosen words and images to share with others. Soon, every day experiences are processed as opportunities to be entertaining, interesting, and funny to the people we allow into our virtual spaces.

In my own life, there are articles on many topics that I enjoy, although I would feel compelled to share only some of them. For example, I feel fine about sharing updates on Maryland’s medical cannabis progress such as Pot laws under scrutiny in Maryland General Assembly because to me it is interesting news. I also feel that the topic does not get the coverage it deserves on mainstream outlets. I would also share something like Why Universal Health Care Is Essential for a More Equitable Society because I occasionally like to make ideological posts. Even though my views are centrist, I likely felt compelled to mostly post about "liberal issues" as most of my Facebook friends are on the left.

However, I have other interests and beliefs that I would probably not care to share with most people. I likely wouldn't post about how wage gap statistics are often misunderstood in The 'Factual Feminist' debunks stats about sexual assault and the wage gap. It would create a big debate on my wall which I would not want to engage with unless I'm feeling argumentative. I also likely would not think to post How The MBTI Can Help You Build A Stronger Company to all my contacts because only a subset of my connections care about the topic, but I would probably make it available to that specific group.

My social media identity is mostly based around posting memes, updates to topics I'm interested in, and the occasional ideological article. It's hard to pinpoint the exact image I'm constructing over time, because it changes frequently based on what interests I have. During the 2016 election, I posted a lot more politically charged articles and memes. Now, I post more fun content like from ShitpostBot5000, a page existing on Facebook and Twitter that accepts user-submitted images and templates in order to post randomly generated memes for the audience (above). What I post is a reflection of my interests but also mirrors the behavior of the friends I want to relate with, keeping in mind what their reactions might be to what I post.



Airaksinen, Toni. "The 'Factual Feminist' debunks stats about sexual assault and the wage gap." USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 22 Feb. 2017. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/pot-laws-under-scrutiny-in-maryland-general-assembly/2017/03/05/e25d1fe6-fea0-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.12113eec2e9f>

Bajik, Elena. "How The MBTI Can Help You Build A Stronger Company." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2017. <https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Felenabajic%2F2015%2F09%2F28%2Fhow-the-mbti-can-help-you-build-a-stronger-company%2F&refURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F>.

Nirappil, Fenit. "Pot laws under scrutiny in Maryland General Assembly." The Washington Post. WP Company, 05 Mar. 2017. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/pot-laws-under-scrutiny-in-maryland-general-assembly/2017/03/05/e25d1fe6-fea0-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.12113eec2e9f>

Rayner, Tim. "Foucault and social media: life in a virtual panopticon." Web log post. Wordpress. N.p., 21 June 2012. Web. 6 Apr. 2017. <https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/foucault-and-social-media-life-in-a-virtual-panopticon/>.

Rudiger, Anja. "Why Universal Health Care Is Essential for a More Equitable Society." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2017. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anja-rudiger/universal-health-care_b_6973164.html>

Images

https://foucault.info/doc/documents/disciplineandpunish/foucault-disciplineandpunish-panopticism-html