Monthly Archives: November 2015

As we do most weeks in ASTU, we are continuing our line of life narrative work, and blogging about the research we’ve done around it. As we’ve mentioned before in our class discussions around HONY and Facebook, we’ve come to the consensus that some pictures are, in fact, worth a thousand words. Pictures provide life narratives of their own, holding history, secrets, memoires, and life, and portraying emotions that there wouldn’t otherwise be words to describe. They tell the stories of precious moments, providing us with small snapshots into each others lives. However, with all the social media outlets, it’s sometimes hard to find the truth behind the filters.

As I was perusing through Facebook a few days ago, I came across a BuzzFeed video, asking five people to talk about their Instagrams, and share the details behind their perfect picture.

In the video, one of the women mentions how, in her picture, she used the “dorky, totally didn’t know the picture was being taken” candid, saying how that was a more likable look in a picture than one of a woman with confidence. Another mentions how he zoomed in on his photo so he could “look skinnier”. Every one of the 5 interviewees mentioned their self consciousness, either with their debate on how they looked in the picture, or how they thought people would react to the picture, whether it was good enough for the world to see without feeling too judged. These pictures aren’t lies, to put it frankly, but they’re not whole truths. They tell stories, however they’re stories that have a little bit of a twist on them. Everyone tries to conform to social media, tries to look casual but cute. Everyone wants to feel good about themselves, so why not add a filter to cover your insecurities. Yet these half truths are fooling no one. Everyone tries to share their stories, yet they only share what they want to be known. They show what they think the world wants to see, pleasing others, not themselves. It’s a vicious cycle of tormenting yourself for the most likes, while trying to seem casual enough to be cute. To make everyday actions look just on the inside of artificial to pass as acceptable. That’s what people work for though. To just be accepted, even if it’s someone their not, instead of being someone they are. That’s why on Sunday the 22^nd, BuzzFeed challenged social media users to post a picture with the hashtag, #ifsocialmediawerehonest, encouraging people to post an honest picture of themselves. Not hiding behind their insecurities, but sharing their love for themselves with the world.

As part of our fourth instalment of our ASTU 100A blog posts, we are to look even farther into the discussion of life narratives. As in my literary review, I analyzed how media plays a role in life narratives and global events. Everyone nowadays has some form of social media that is just a few taps away. Easy access, easy distraction, easy information. It is no secret that social media takes away from the now, providing easy escape from human interaction, and, of course, from homework. However, it is also the fastest way out there to spread news world wide. For the better or the worse, media provides information from the here and the now.

The earthquake on January 12, 2010 left Haiti destroyed, taking around 300,000 people with it. After that day in 2010, the media swarmed in, insistent on catching the newest pieces of information about the devastation, focusing on the big pictures rather than the individual stories. Dany Laferrière’s book relays his experiences during, and after, the earthquake, providing a different outlook on how to tell the story of such destruction, along with some of his thoughts about the media. He sees the media as trying to spin their own stories, instead of telling the one that is already so blatantly visible, sharing that “[t]he worst thing about is not this succession of misfortunes, but the absence of all nuance in the camera’s cold eye” (Laferrière 79). As he identifies the motives of the media, he is able to identify his own sides of the story. He is able to see himself as a Haitian and an outsider, documenting his experiences through the eyes of both. While the media generally tends to fit their stories to the interests of the Western societies, Laferrière distinctly strays from that aspect, relishing in the fact that he’s not just a Western pleaser, but also a victim in this tragedy. Through his autobiography, he was able to bridge the relationship gaps between the personal and public, and the personal and historic spheres which had held Haiti at arms length from the rest of society for so long. With the interconnectedness of media and life narratives, it is interesting to see how Laferrière uses his story to and knowledge about the ins and outs of media to share his story.