Picture perfect!
Thanks to the newest social media and social networks we can construct a total digital image from ourselves and our lives. Something we all do by sharing content like photo´s, locations, meanings and thoughts on the internet. A perfect way of sharing your life with our friends, family and others.
Not very long ago a news article in the Netherlands showed up with exactly this phenomena of constructing your own digital identity, something that I just couldn´t let pass without mentioning. This was all about a normal girl named Zilla van den Born (25) who lives in Amsterdam as a student graphic designer. As study project she wanted to create a book, named ´Sjezus zeg, Zilla´, that shows us how easy it is to manipulate the truth just in front of your own eyes.
We all love to share pictures of how nice, good perfect or beautiful our live is or pictures that are just a bit more beautiful than it really was. So she did the same for her project but than a bit more extensively….. She went on a ´holiday´ to a tropical resort in Thailand. She said everyone goodbye on Schiphol and kept everyone up to date by sharing pictures online and skyping with her family…. What they didn´t know is that she returned from Schiphol with the first train to her apartment in Amsterdam after saying goodbye to her family. All the pictures that she shared were just pictures that she simply edited. At the end of the project she told it to everyone to show you/us how easy it is to create your own personal digital imago.
A simple project but a lot to think about in the end, we are all users of the social media world that can be so manipulative. We might also do it ourselves without even knowing that we also manipulate our digital story a bit to make it a bit more attractive and exciting. It is so easy and simple that I just was a bit shocked myself to discover indeed the simplicity of creating the, so called, unrealistic perfect digital imago. The question is how far are we willing to go and why do we actually do this? And even better is the social media world with our friends realistic and trustworthy?
Although I think that this can’t be changed and is just a part of this new online world, I really feel that this is something to keep in mind.
Sources:
http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/5595/Digitaal/article/detail/3658459/2014/05/21/Amsterdamse-misleidt-vrienden-met-tropische-schijnreis.dhtml
http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/959/Bizar/article/detail/1893655/2014/05/21/Studente-misleidt-vrienden-met-tropische-schijnreis.dhtml
http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/opmerkelijk/studente-zet-ouders-op-verkeerde-been-met-schijnreis
Apart from the fact that the project you described is a bit ‘over the top’, and an extreme example, I think all of our digital images are better/more beautiful than our real lives. For the following reasons:
– We want to come across interesting for our followers/friends
– We want people to reply to our posts, or simply like our photo’s (people have the natural urge to feel needed and appreciated by others)
For these reasons we only post fun/interesting/exciting stories and photo’s on our social networks. Nobody is interested in a post about your everyday life (for example: what did you have for breakfast, when did you wake up, how long have you been at school today, etc,). We only post the best stories and the nicest pictures, therefore we manipulate (probably without knowing it) our own digital image.
It is a really inspiring post to make people think why we want to manipulate other people and how we can be manipulated by other people, just simply by posing digital images online. Regarding to your question in the end, personally, I would like to go with the flow. I understand that there will be many similar cases just like what Zilla van den Born has done, but on the other hand, I think people who really do those things, must won’t be a trustworthy person in the real life as well. In addition, they must have very peacockish personalities at the same time. However, I would like to take another perspective on this phenomena. Since most of people would like to show their optimistic sides on social media, it is nice for the viewers to get more positive energy when they are viewing those photos. This phenomena doesn’t have to impose totally negative influences on the society, fake but nice pictures do not really harm everyone all the time. Speaking of marketing, it is also about manipulation in the most cases, but without marketing and advertisements in our society at all, our life may become kind of boring and bland as well. 😀