The theories I've been using in my essay mostly all predate social media, but speak of a society in a unified sense that was theoretical in the 20th century, but is commonplace today with the prevalence of Twitter, Instagram and hundreds of conflicting news outlets all contained in our pockets. To reflect this, I've utilised the visual tests in my journal as a way of interpreting the messages of these theories into a modern context.
The obsession with ones virtual self, finding our perfect self by curating ourselves so only the best parts are left, are not new ideals that came with social media, for hundreds of years the upper echelons of society have presented edited versions of themselves to the outside world, the only difference is that now everyone is given that sense of self importance and the ability to be as outlandish or as mysterious as they like.
I've tried to be playfully morbid (if thats a sound thing to do, or even a thing at all) with these images to represent the duality of this element of our society - the flaws are evident and even still it prevails and we all use it willingly anyway, so I suppose it wins. But thats no reason to not make some fun of it.
