The closest I come to providing a window into my personal world in a social media setting is through my Instagram (@drawoncedrawtwice) where I post my artworks and university exercises to further boost my commitment in consistently making art. I would argue that it does provide more of a persona rather than a frame of authenticity as it only depicts the times in which I partake in artwork creation, which is only a slither of my real life and doesn’t correctly convey my circumstances. It’s my belief that it would be hard, in some cases impossible, to argue a social media platform to show an authentic view into your life as it has become a social media construct to only post the positives in your world, ignoring the negative or unappealing aspects to align with who we want to portray ourselves as, which in the social media sphere is ‘perfect’;

‘Self-awareness implies that we compare who we feel we are (self-concept) to that of who we want to be and in response to any feeling of inadequacy, we seek out opportunities to present ourselves more in-line with that of who we want to be.’ (Strimbu & O’Connell, 2019)

While we may want to make a conscious effort to present ourselves authentically to a digital audience, we may even subconsciously misconstrue this due to this desire of validation from our peers. To view others posting only positive accomplishments to social media leads most to follow suit to prove that they are no different and that their lives are as picture perfect as made out on social media. While I don’t have a lifestyle type approach to my Instagram page, aiming more towards a specified creative audience, I still find myself only portraying artworks that I find to be more technically sound or impressive while leaving more mediocre pieces in the drafts.

Instagram is a platform in which allows for images, videos, and livestreams to be posted to express a sense of self or perhaps an organisational perspective through business pages. I use this platform as I find it to be the most popular of the major photo sharing medias while also being quite simple to navigate and access as it is presented in the form of an app. While I typically gather more toward western artists within the Instagram sphere, I do find there to be an opportunity for accessibility to a wide range of individuals that are interested in visual creative fields. While my post may be written in English, I find this to be easily overlooked as my image content is artworks encompassing visual representations that have the potential to bypass the barriers of language, culture and distance.

The platform consists of a wide variety of creative communities that allow for me to feel included and inspired to the point of feeling comfort in putting forth my own personal contributions in the form of self-representation. While other platforms do have these kinds of communities available, I personally find Instagram to have the most personable and approachable form of community in comparison. While I have mentioned that I do filter the kind of content that I post on my page, I feel that I have been able to construct my own community that I feel safest with sharing my content, as some of my artworks do have more personal morals and content. This relates to the term ‘social capital’ within an online format;

‘Social capital can be considered as a by-product of social relationships that exist among members of society and aids the members in achieving mutual goals through cooperation and support to each other… this relationship not only provides the members with a valuable resource to conduct their day to day social affairs but also empowered them with the credibility of various forms.’ (Rautela & Singhal, 2020)

Reference List:

Rautela, S & Singhal, T.K 2020, Deconstructing the seven Cs of social media: a summative perspective, International journal of interactive mobile technologies, vol. 14, no. 3, viewed 28August 2020, < https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=ec4136b8-5ccf-4373-9fd4-430d5615d68f%40sdc-v-sessmgr03>

Strimbu, N & O’Connell, M 2019, The relationship between self-concept and online self-presentation in adults, Cyberpsychology, behaviour and, and social networking, vol. 22, iss. 12, viewed 28 August 2020, < https://www-liebertpub-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/doi/10.1089/cyber.2019.0328>