I was watching The Fault in Our Stars with a friend, and a third of the way in I was sitting on the edge of my seat, listening intently to every pretentious sentence. It was a magical film with a story so dear to me that I have read the book nearly a dozen times. During the climax of the film (the eulogy) I saw in the corner of my eye that my friend had her phone up. She was not texting, nor was she calling, she was Snapchatting the scene. Yes, she stopped mid-tears to document the moment.
Let's get to it:
I am a fan of social media. I live in Melbourne whilst my friends are scattered around the world, so Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram gives me the chance to connect with them. I feel the need to be updated about my friends' lives because I grew up with most of them, and I have a familial bond with each one. No matter how distant we were back in high school, or grade school, even, I will treat you like a relative. It is easier for me to receive updates all at once than to individually ask my friends about their daily lives. It's all about convenience, really.
Social media, however, has become a platform for people to share intimate details about themselves that should not be publicly announced. Relationship woes, friendship dramas and even private family moments are all posted for the world to see. For the world to judge, I might add. I know so many things about people I have never even met, and it scares me to think that strangers have the same knowledge about me as my closest friends. So one day, I locked my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I made my Facebook timeline hide every post and pictures tagged by my friends. What is on my timeline are things that I have consciously written and shared. My profile is not peppered with unsolicited pictures of me in clubs or at lunch, but with status updates and videos that I deem necessary enough to be posted. In other words, I made myself limited. If you want to know more about me, I need to tell you personally. I stopped accepting friend requests from complete strangers, and the pictures I do post on Instagram have less to do with my personal life and more to do with the appreciation of the things around me.
Most people haven't adopted this kind of behavior, and why would they? This generation has an unhealthy addiction with their image. People say we are addicted to social media, but are we really? I think the problem is that we are addicted to ourselves. We have become narcissistic, a trait that we all have but is amplified with the creation of social media. We want the world to know who we are and what we do. We want to matter. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we yearn to be known and sprinkled with special fairy dust because we fear oblivion. In a world where everyone has the ability to put themselves out there, no one wants to be left in the dark and disappear from the face of the planet without permanent recognition. Posting things on social media is now akin to peeing all over the ground and proclaiming to the world I wuz heRe. And you were. But in a few decades, nobody will care unless you truly do something worth remembering.
People say that they capture moments they want to remember, but I don't think that's true. People capture moments that they want others to remember. We document breathtaking landscapes and beautiful events because we want others to experience it too. We want to put them in our shoes, even just for a moment. But this selfless act has become so much more than pure altruism. Instead of sharing for the sake of others, we share for the sake of ourselves. We capture images that reflect the person we want to be seen as. We have equated one's personality and social life to the amount of pictures on their Snapchat stories and Instagram photos. So we stuff our social media pages with images that we want to be defined by. Pictures that tell everything, but nothing at all.
Years ago, I hiked to the top of Mt. Sinai with my family; a 6 hour journey from midnight until dusk. It was one of the most difficult climbs I've ever done, and I did so without the help of my phone. I had cameras, sure, but those pictures became my memories. My cherished moments. Mine. Not yours, not his, not anyone else's. When I saw the sun rise over 2,000m above the ground, I stood there to breathe it all in. To this day, I will not have a physical artifact of that moment except for the indefinite memory that I hold so dearly.
Moments are not made to be shared, they are made to be experienced. If you want to remember, then take photographs for yourself, and if you find the need to share, then do. But don't share to build an image of you. Who you are is what you do for your own satisfaction, not what you do for the public. Don't post videos and pictures of parties and a plethora of selfies because who you are is not what you post on the internet. The more beautiful the moment, the more you should revel in it. You shouldn't be so caught up in documenting the hour, because could you still call it a personal life if it's no longer personal? Is it still a life you can call your own when thousands of others know exactly what you're up to?
You shouldn't have to weave your life with photographs for the approval of others. I find that the things I feel the need to document are moments that aren't important. Because moments that I do enjoy, I wouldn't want to share with anyone else. Moments before you die, they say your life flashes before your eyes. I just hope that mine won't just be a collection of Instagram pictures.
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