Social Media Culture – we create ourselves and each other

 

Social media has not only become a means to measure one’s worth and significance, but also an instrument that allows its users to create an identity or identities for themselves. Instagram is most notable for this as individuals become weary of the content they post as they are more concerned about how their audience will react. Since its emergence, ordinary people have been able to live the life they desire or at least make it seem as though they are. In a sense, social media has assisted in the making of our identities and self-awareness.

 

Best described as “the repeated assumptions of identities in the course of daily life”, Judith Butler’s theory of performativity accurately scrutinises the behaviour of social media users (Weedon, 2004, p. 6). Particularly the habit of being selective in what they choose

to share on social media in order to portray a certain image or in hopes to meet some ‘goal’. This stems from the idea that people must follow a certain way of life through their dressing and overall lifestyle to achieve the ideal perfect that they are fed online. For instance, the pictures that Instagram models and celebrities post become the set standard that is expected of the youth online which leads to a whole generation dressing or acting a certain way to fit the trends. This in turn becomes how they build their identity. However, Butler ensures that this is not the same as being fake (Henry, 2020).  

 

On the other hand, the social media culture has also allowed for people to become more aware of themselves by first being conscious of others. This theory brought on by Mikhail Bakhtin suggests that in order for one to become aware of themselves, they must have encounters with others – both direct and indirect (Henry, 2020). This, in addition to Butler’s performativity explains how social media users feed off of each other in order to form their own identity. Therefore, one could say that we are all responsible for creating each other and our identities.

 

Furthermore, Louis Althusser presents the theory of ‘interpellation’ as playing a huge role in identity. It is the concept that ideas are not simply our own, instead they are those that are presented to us for us to internalize (Weedon, 2004, p. 6). Social media has allowed for interpellation to take place easily as information is more easily accessible these days. Not only are we accustomed to follow our own dominant ideologies in ordinary society, but also those that are presented to us online by various prominent figures we look up to. 

 

Combining the ideas of all the thinkers presented above, social media has long been a tool of self-construct and creation. Through the content that people share and receive, they become self-aware, their ideologies are shaped by what they see online and their identities are created.

References 

 

Henry, R. (2020). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place; week 4 lecture notes [PowerPoint file]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.edu.au

 

Page, R. (2020, March). How to manage social media during Covid-19, CMOAustralia. [Image] Retrieved from: https://www.cmo.com.au/article/672102/how-manage-social-media-during-covid-19/

Weedon, C. (2004). Subjectivity and identity. In C. Weedon (Ed.), Identity and culture: Narratives of difference and belonging (pp. 5-21). England, Open University Press.