For a million dollars answer this, what is society’s obsession with wanting to look perfect at all times? Couldn’t answer it? Well, neither can I. There are so many platforms like Facebook and Instagram in particular, which can customize your life to look more perfect to outsiders. Now don’t get me wrong, over the years since they have been made, social media platforms have been beneficial in numerous ways, reuniting families, saving lives, and strengthening communication between millions of people around the world. But there is one glaring setback that has infiltrated not only into the millennial generation but the generations before and after it as well. The need to look perfect has really gotten out of hand.
Whether it’s having a high quality selfie that slays or showing off what a want-able life you live on the internet, Instagram has given people the outlet to mask all the imperfections have people wanting what you “have.” And I’m not going to lie, I do it sometimes too. Finding the perfect filter, angle, and caption is all about being as perfect as possible because you want to have the most likes. Likes translate to being wanted and people liking you. Celebrities in particular rack up thousands of likes and follows on Instagram when they’re showing off they’re fabulous famous lifestyle but behind all the endorsements and makeup and high end fashion are regular people who just happen to be in the spotlight.
But it’s the regularity that people seem to shy away from in favor of looking more lavish. And I don’t even blame them for their mindset because that’s what Instagram is for. There are even tons of videos out there that people like YouTube celebrities and other celebrities have made explaining how to get “the perfect Instagram newsfeed”. I realize it’s kind of hard to be thinking about what kind of image you are portraying to people all the time and whether you are giving into that “perfect life” type of feed. In fact, it didn’t come to me as a reality check until I read an article about an artist making his senior thesis about the most imperfect Instagram feed possible.
The studies focused on subjects such as visual communication of an identity through the image, photography as an activity between social practice and artificial craft and the psychological effects of being exposed to visual contents. The result of immersing oneself into the perfect world in a digital space where everyone presents himself the best he or she is able to and so creates a world of pure success, rainbows and everlasting relationships, whether staged or not, is driven by envy and narcissism.
These findings were used as the base for an art project that tries to reveal the exact opposite by creating the identity of an anti-social, unlucky, poor person through images. These images use the same stereotypical props, perspectives and compositional elements as the image categories that resulted from the studies, but showing something actually bad, thus photographic well executed. The final outcome was a series of sarcastic images that played with the behaviors of a society where everyone is a photographer and lives a beautiful life — online.
After reading about his thesis, it really hit me just how obsessed we are with wanting to look and seem perfect at all times. It really comes down to being mindful about what you post online and how you post it. Hopefully in the future, people will become more self aware of themselves and not shy away from posting the real pictures because the real pictures are the ones that are by far more likable then the plastic perfect ones.
