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Is there anything wrong with these archetypes that social media are placed under? No, there's not. There's nothing wrong with social media having niche markets. On the contrary, I think a lot of society is too focused on the stereotypes they put the platforms under than accepting them for what they really are. People are too busy saying "Instagram is for rich kids taking selfies" "Twitter is only for people who need to share everything about their life to make it look interesting" and "Tumblr is only for the hipster snobs". After falling victim to believing all these stereotypes, I'd always join with some skepticism.
Once you join the different medias and do some digging beyond the surface, you find the stereotypes aren't as prominent as you thought. If you want a feed filled with selfies or life updates, you can get that no problem. However, you can find amazing photographers on Instagram, world travelers on Twitter, and scientific articles and political movement information on Tumblr. It's not as one dimensional and flat as people think. There are
communities within the platforms, there's something for everybody, but you never hear about that. All that's reported on is the "selfie generation" or oversharing of our lives.
I think if we want to overcome these stereotypes society just needs to dive in head first and sift through the pictures, updates, and tweets until they find a sub-community they can feel comfortable in. If you like who you're following or what you're seeing the stereotype fades away.
Hi Alison,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post, especially your quirky humor that poked fun at the correlation between high school stereotypes and different forms of social media. There are many different types of social media, and like you mentioned, they are all very different. I liked how you mentioned that each person can customize their social media experience based on who they follow, friend, or search. On my own Instagram account photos with phrases like "Man Crush Monday", "Transformation Tuesday", "Woman Crush Wednesday", "Throw Back Thursday","Flash Back Friday", and "Selfie Sunday" flood my newsfeed week after week. It has come to the point that I avoid logging on certain days of the week to avoid the steady stream of unimportant mundane posts. But you brought up a good point. Maybe its not the day of the week thats the issue, perhaps its the people and accounts I chose to follow. Social media allows us to completely customize who we interact with or keep tabs on. So maybe its time to unfollow some accounts or people that are becoming uninteresting and irrelevant and find ones that branch out beyond "selfies" :)
I like how you described social media into different stereotypes that can relate to some of the stereotypes in a high school. I thought this was a creative way in order to get your point across!
ReplyDeleteVery funny and clever post! I liked that you pointed out the common stereotypes but made a point to say that if we all did some digging of our own we might be able to see that the "self-absorbed" selfie-taker is actually just someone learning to love themselves, perhaps.
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