Chapter 2 (Filtered Reality):
“Perhaps in this case, social media is not simply the kind
of filter that removes impurities, but also shapes them and flavours people as
the ground coffee beans flavour the water
that passes through
them” So this is to say that social media controls people and not the
other way around? “Shapes [impurities] and flavors people” sounds like the
ruling power is being given to the social media and the users conform to
whatever the digital standard is, as opposed to the users “shaping” the media
that they (and others) see. A later sentence (“Facebook filters our newsfeed,
and it also filters our behavior”) seems to confirm that I am understanding
this correctly.
“Users who saw posts with more positive words used more
positive words in their own posts, and vice versa” this seems like that saying
“you are the company you keep.”
“we know what we are supposed to document from having seen
other baby journals and photo albums” This has never occurred to me before. Even
in this digital age, where we are constantly criticized for “oversharing
everything,” there are still a lot of things we opt not to share (filter out). That
also brings up the point that even when bad things are shared, they’re shared
strategically—there is always an end goal that makes sharing worthwhile. We’ve
all seen a cringe-worthy painful video of someone doing something stupid, but
has nevertheless gone viral because it is funny; or a status/ long story about
how some angry individual was having a meltdown and the person posting the
story gets to be the victim. We see these embarrassing posts again and again,
in every media outlet, and yet people keep sharing. So what does this say about
us and our thought processes when we decide to filter these negative things in,
instead of filtering them out?
“One reason the
filter fascinates us
is that it
gives the image
that strangeness that defamiliarises our lives”
“the skill of photographing people of colour well is often
hard-learned and self-taught” this whole section made me extremely sad and,
like last week’s conversation, has brought to my attention another privilege my
whiteness has afforded me.
This chapter overall was really interesting and surprisingly
enlightening about the science of selfies. It seems so simple, yet I forgot
that “filter” means to eliminate/ reduce something, rather than an editing
element to enhance a picture. Whenever I think of “filtering” content, the
words “blacklist” or “block” usually come to mind, but never filter. I like the
implied flexibility of the word; and I think the section about filtering
“genres” could have been really interesting if it had been expanded more.
Chapter 3 (Serial Selfies):
While reading, I got curious and looked it up the videos “Me”
and “Everyday.” I thought it was kind of messed up how Kalina’s video got more
popular when Lee was the innovator for the genre. However, after watching, I
could understand why Kalina’s video surpassed Lee’s. Lee takes her photos in
the same spot every day with almost no variation in position; Kalina takes his
pictures in different locations, in different lighting, etc. So his video shows
a greater degree of “action” so to speak than Lee’s did. Here are the links for
both:
“Me” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGdc_qcmFF0
“Me” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGdc_qcmFF0
“Everyday” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo
“Karl Baden (2007) has taken daily photos every day since
1987 and has exhibited the photos at several places” Oh my god???? That’s a lot
of pictures, and real dedication. However, his project seems less lively than
both “me” and “everyday.” If the only thing to show progression of time is the
date and (eventual) facial features, what’s the point?
“many of these have become very popular too” one of my
favorites that I have seen is one of a woman photographing her head after chemo
treatment. In this, you can see her hair slowly grow back. Although the
pictures were not taken every day, the message still gets across (similar to Rebecca Brown):