This week, Danah Boyd’s “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens” discusses issues stemming from the online personas of today’s youth on social media. One issue she tackles which resonated with me was the issue of “audience” and how teens curate their online identity to fit a certain audience’s expectations. In the text, Boyd argues that “teens often imagine their audience to be those that they’ve chosen to “friend” or “follow,” regardless of who might actually see their profile,” and therefore, curate their social media’s content accordingly, restricting certain content to certain audiences.
Although this is slightly embarrassing that I’m writing my blog on this, this week, the reading reminded me of my own habit of filtering content in order to build an online persona separate from my own. I stumbled across an old Facebook post from one of my friends, where he makes fun of my Instagram account.
My Instagram tells the truth—my life really is dull. With school and work and dance being the only things dominating my schedule, there really isn’t much time for me to go out and socialize as much as I would like; but as he puts it, I curated my social media content to show “pictures of hella friends and adventures.”
The reasoning for this, however, is well put by Boyd; “the intended audience matters, regardless of the actual audience.” I used to have a large follower base on Tumblr and Instagram back in my freshman and sophomore year of college, to the point where people began to recognize me in public from time to time. It was weird, considering all I did was post photos of myself (and my friends, because I’m not a narcissist) and recount my days of schoolwork, dance, and the occasional traveling. Over time, I let pseudo-internet popularity consume me and I began to change my habits online, resulting in the disconnection between my social media activity and my reality. My Instagram account now (because I deleted my Tumblr this past summer) caters to an audience—my Tumblr followers who initially followed me for my “adventures”—as opposed to my friends and family, and as a result, when taken out of context, my life looks a lot more interesting on my Instagram account than it really is.
Aside from problems arising from my friends never knowing my true whereabouts at certain times due to my Instagram’s misleading geotags and occasional #latergram sans the hashtag, Boyd further discusses challenges from how searchable social media accounts can be, acting as a trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak. “Social media introduces additional challenges, particularly because of the persistent and searchable nature of most of these technical systems. Tweets and status updates aren’t just accessible to the audience who happens to be following the thread as it unfolds; they quickly become archived traces, accessible to viewers at a later time.” From this, I fear that one day my Instagram will get me in trouble with my professional life if taken out of context.
It’s a somewhat lame connection, I know, but the reading reminded me of my own social media habits, and I’m glad I’m not alone, to be honest.
I don’t think anything you’ve mentioned is a lame connection at all. It’s all very relevant to what we’ve discussed in class! First off, I have to say you’re definitely not alone in the whole “catering your content” to your audience thing. Sometimes I find myself spending way too much time on just deciding whether or not to post something because I’m thinking about what my followers would want to see. And I’m sure that’s the mentality a lot of social media users think about nowadays. It goes back to this idea that we like being accepted and we like reassurance that we fit in. Social media has just made it easier for us to get access to that gratification. It’s much more instant than ever before. For that reason, I’m sure it’s why we all want to present our best selves on the internet. It helps make us feel like we’re more interesting.
I’m not sure if you do this, but I’m definitely guilty of flipping through my account and imagining what different people would think about me or infer about me from my posts. Depending on my attributed audience-lens of the moment, it sometimes influences my next posts as I wish to fulfill the imagined image of who I am to my audience. Sort of like the “Looking Glass Self” idea by Charles Horton Cooley, if you are familiar with that concept. If its any reassurance for you, a “normal,” non-internet famous social media user like myself is still very much influenced by their perceived audience.
And kudos on your Tumblr fame; I think that is a really neat experience to have had!
I totally relate to your post because I also tailor some of my social media profiles, especially my Instagram, in a way that aims to show that I live a exciting life (even though it really isn’t that exciting). It’s interesting to note that these platforms are supposed to be outlets that are a window to someone’s life/perspective, what their interests are, who they hang out with, etc., yet we only pick and choose certain parts of our lives to publicize. For example, I don’t Instagram my set-up when I binge on Netflix instead of doing homework or other seemingly mundane things, because I feel like it’s not something my friends/followers would care about and I know it wouldn’t get a lot of likes. However, a good number of my friends/followers are also college students who probably do the same type of mundane things during their downtime.
I also think that, maybe, the specific type of social media outlet affects the content that’s being presented. No, I wouldn’t Instagram a picture of my computer when I’m watching Gilmore Girls, but I might put it on my Snapchat story with a dumb caption and not care so much about it because I know it will be off people’s feeds after 24 hours. I wouldn’t complain about stressing over all the work I need to do over a Facebook status, but I might do so in a tweet. I guess it is because I have a different type of audience depending on the social media platform, thus affecting the type of content I put out there, which (I think) is the point you and Boyd are trying to make.