Last Saturday at the Big House, I saw
a sea of Maize-and-Blue — as it is often
described whenever we convene at the
stadium — complete with bodies packed
and bleachers stacked in undulating
exaltation. Hours later, a similar sea
moving in a much faster fashion rushed
ashore on the surface of my phone as one
by one, post after post flooded my feed all
in service to gameday.
But let’s be clear. Gameday photos are
never a monolith. They exist in multitudes.
There’s the tailgate pic at the pregame, the
pic in front of the stadium, the pic inside
the stadium whilst standing in the crowd,
the stadium selfie, and the enduring
pic exemplifying the view of the vast
amalgamation of fans, players, stadium
decorations,
lights
and
iconography.
Nonetheless, the feed dries. The game day
hype (temporarily) dies, but I know with
great certainty the wave will return, not
just offline, but online too.
Aquatic allegories aside, it’s no secret
that social media and our use of it play
serious roles in our lives. Many of us
now recognize it as having a pathological
character
to
it,
as
exemplified
in
documentaries like “The Social Dilemma”
(2020) and psychological thrillers like
“Black Mirror.” We can see a common
critique of digital connection daily as we
witness more and more the rejection of the
online coupled with the glorification of the
offline, leading us to demonize the former
through our veneration of the latter. Yet
this precipitous perspective, rooted in
what social theorist Nathan Jurgenson
describes in his book “The Social Photo:
On Photography and Social Media” as
digital dualism, creates a false separation
of the online and offline world. This false
separation fails to take into consideration
the vastness and variety social media and
online platforms offer to us as human
beings and spiritual entities. Indeed, our
preoccupation with social media suggests
that there is something profound to be
found in the digital mediation of our lives.
Our soul’s desire for life in documented
form manifests itself in a myriad of means.
Journals, letters, diaries, scrapbooks
and social media platforms all mediate
our
memory
and
lived
experience
into a materialized entity. French film
critic André Bazin, in his text “The
Ontology of the Photographic Image,”
likens the documentation technology
of photography to the embalming of
the dead. In taking a photo, a formerly
transient reality earns an eternal quality.
The moment is not mourned. Instead,
death is transgressed and the instance is
immortalized. The past is preserved in the
present, and what’s fleeting is now fodder
for the future, forever. Photos freeze a
place and time into eternity. Evidently,
our souls crave to make that which is
transient transcend time and space.
Yet with our near-omniscient power of
preservation, this documentary impulse is
easily exploited, leaving us to ponder what
is and what is not worth documenting.
Jurgenson maintains that our everyday
participation
in
social
photography
restructures our minds so that our life
is “experienced in the service of its
documentation.” With an audience always
at our disposal, we see the world through
the lens of others. This compulsion for
documentation and the making of media
has heavy implications for our memory. As
José van Dijik, distinguished new media
professor, discusses in her book “Mediated
Memories in the Digital Age,” media and
memory are not separate from each other,
but constantly intertwining, as the former
intensifies, contaminates and even usurps
the latter. When what we remember from
the past is primarily based on the curated
collection of content created for the sake of
others, we’re left to wonder what that does
to our sense of self.
As
American
sociologist
Charles
Horton Cooley’s theory of the looking-
glass self espouses, we have a tendency to
base our sense of self on the perception of
others. Critics of social media claim that its
performative nature erodes the expression
of our authentic selves. Success theater and
status posturing, as Jurgenson describes
it, do play a role in the cultivation of our
Internet personas. Yet Jurgenson argues
that these conflicts between the authentic
and performative selves transcend social
media. He believes the assumption that
the performative self is based on non-truth
often implies that the authentic self, or the
act of being true to oneself, assumes there
is truth in the self to begin with.
Everyday life, with its persistent
perception on behalf of others, ensures
that the self is largely a performance. In
this vein, it makes sense that social media
is also performative fiction. Beyond our
souls’ desire for documentation is the
desire for performance as well. This does
not necessarily mean performance in a
theatrical sense, but much of the soul of
social media can be found in its theatrics.
We see evidence of this in the aesthetics
cultivated in each application, the need
for evoking imagery that is pleasing to
the eye, as well as the employment of the
body as a site for exhibition. As French
literary theorist Roland Barthes states in
his text “Camera Lucinda,” “Once I feel
myself observed by the lens, everything
changes: I constitute myself in the process
of posing, I instantaneously make another
body for myself, I transform in advance
into an image.” The particularities of
posing, the postures and the physicality
involved in creating social media content
convince me to believe that there is,
indeed, a performing artist inside of each
one of us, awaiting its opportunity to take
the stage.
Turning the lights up on this stage
allows us to see that there’s always more
than meets the eye in every social media
photo, video or post. All content invites us
into a world of imagination and mystery
— hallmarks of the soul, according to
Jungian psychotherapist Thomas Moore.
Social media carries with it an infinity
of imaginative elements. As French
philosopher Georges Bataille believed,
any accumulation of knowledge is also
an accumulation of non-knowledge. A
single post contains as much ignorance
as it does insight, if not more. Jurgenson
notes that there is an obscenity to our
online personas in the desire to reveal and
expose details of our everyday lives, but
also a seduction in which we “strategically
withhold knowledge to create magical and
enchanted interests.” One photo, tweet
or status update can raise a continuum of
questions — who we’re with, what we’re
doing, how we’re doing and where we
are — all centered around the object of
interest. We become intrigued and seek
to intrigue others in the details of our day-
to-day lives. Anyone who has ever had a
crush on somebody knows the feeling of
going to the profile page of their newfound
interests and marveling at the mystery
inherent in the media. Our souls have
strong desires for attachment to people,
places and objects; social media allows
us to preserve our attachments with very
little effort.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, September 15, 2021 — 7
YOUR WEEKLY
ARIES
Your ruler Mars shifts into your
love zone – expect more passion,
but potentially plenty of anger
too.
AQUARIUS
GEMINI
You’ll enjoy the edgy feel to this
week, and you’ll love taking
chances – but your recklessness
may be cause for concern.
SAGITTARIUS
CAPRICORN
SCORPIO
CANCER
Mars’ arrival in your family zone
drives you to seek solutions to
lingering issues, but be careful to
do so tactfully, not aggressively.
TAURUS
A new drive for health and fitness
this week is likely to succeed as
your willpower is exceptionally
strong now.
VIRGO
PISCES
LIBRA
LEO
It’s an extremely busy week, but
there are optimistic signs
regarding job interviews,
promotions or other success at
work.
Read your weekly horoscopes from astrology.tv
The arrival of Mars in your money
zone is very motivational, so this
is a fantastic week for business or
for side hustles of any kind.
Mars’ arrival in your sign brings a
boost to your assertiveness and
confidence, and an all-round
feel-good factor – but be careful
with the chances you take.
Don’t be surprised if you feel less
sociable than normal as Mars
begins to transit your privacy zone.
Enjoy your own company.
You have lofty humanitarian
goals this week, but it’s important
not to overlook your existing
commitments to work and family.
Mars’ arrival in your career zone
stirs up your ambitions, but you
may be questioning the
authenticity or value of what you
do.
Mars drives you to increase your
knowledge, but actually, you
already have more skills than you
realize, if only you look within.
Don’t let vague fears and worries
hold you back this week. Mars
creates possibly too much
self-analysis in your life.
WHISPER
“Ugh.”
“I’ve never heard of that
brand...”
“Christmas but make it Fall.”
Second-guessing my future
I haven’t sat in a class like
this in almost a year. One of
my professors is talking in the
front of the classroom about
something — I’m listening to
his voice but he’s talking too
fast for me to follow. The lights
in the room are dull but loud,
nurturing a slight whining noise
in my ears.
I actually like this setting:
the familiar musty smell of an
old building, the act of sitting
next to strangers and the faint
noise of the fluorescents. Even
though none of these things
are enjoyable by themselves, I
like it because it makes me feel
normal, as if school is finally
becoming what I expect and
remember it to be.
As much as I enjoy the
normalcy of it all, I can’t help but
feel a little uneasy spending all
of my effort trying to understand
what people are saying. We
started syllabus week in some
of my classes by going around
and introducing ourselves: year,
major, hobbies. Most people are
sure of themselves — they’ve
decided on what they will focus
on, a decision that will tell them
how to navigate the rest of their
years here as well as help them
make plans about their post-
university future.
I’m still a little confused,
though. Not about college in
general — I feel like I’ve been
here long enough to be able
to outline what is going on
socially and academically —
but about my future. Last year,
when I entered the University
as an undeclared freshman,
my advisor encouraged me to
think about what I wanted to
do in the future and reflect on
what I enjoyed in the present. I
listened to her advice and even
followed it, but I struggled to
engage when I asked myself
about my future and even my
likes and dislikes.
It seems a little pathetic to
admit I hardly know what I
enjoy and what I don’t. Do I
like this because I am actually
interested in it, or is it just easy?
Is this actually easy or did they
just grade easily? Am I actually
good at this at all? What if I get
to the higher levels and start to
hate it? But do I even have to
like it at all as long as it pays my
bills?
I’m
paying
tuition
and
striving toward a degree, but so
far I have no idea what I’d like
that degree to say. I’ve always
been indecisive — sometimes I
close UberEats because I’m too
overwhelmed by the number of
choices I have — and a part of
me feels like my time is starting
to run out. I have to declare by
the end of next semester, but I
am as lost as I was in freshman
year.
My major and my future
plans come up often at my
family dinner table or during
family FaceTimes. When I click
on the group call notification,
I prepare myself to hear the
question: So did you decide what
you’re going to do? I’ve never
been able to form a concrete
response to this; the questions
of the future still seem so far
even as they draw nearer. I am
the type of person who takes
things as they come, someone
who doesn’t necessarily plan
ahead. Even writing follows
that process for me — I never
know what my endpoint is, but
my words figure themselves out
along the way and everything
eventually turns out to be
passable. I am waiting for the
pieces of my life to fit together
in the way that these sentences
do so that I can eventually reach
some epiphany, some sort of
push towards figuring out what
I want for myself. “I’ll figure
it out eventually,” has always
been my motto, because things
usually do align properly for
me eventually. But the truth
is that I want too many things
and sometimes see too many
possibilities, obfuscating the
goals
that
I
am
searching
for
until
I
am
completely
overwhelmed by them.
It’s not just the possibilities
that are so unnerving to me, but
also the uncertainties that they
all carry. I wish I could watch all
of my possible futures and then
choose which one suits me best,
like reading the walkthrough
for a video game. Should I
follow my love of writing?
Biology? Academia? I can’t ask
Google what choices I should
make to create the best ending
of my life. We’re all oblivious
to the future, but sometimes I
feel like I’m unaware of my own
thoughts.
Worrying
about
the
future
and
its
ambiguities
obviously won’t go away once
I decide what I want to pursue
academically.
My
indecision
won’t, either. And yet, that task
of narrowing things down feels
so integral to my ideas of the
future. I know, technically, that
I can always change my mind
and that I can choose so many
different things for myself after
my years here are over. I know
that I’m still young and that I
have time to explore the world,
myself and my interests. But the
things that I know to be true
can’t change the way that I feel
right now. My logic is betraying
me. In the long run, time isn’t
running out but in the present,
time is slipping away. Though I
have a whole life ahead of me, I
only have two years of college
left. I can’t exactly imagine a
life outside of the structure of
academia, so it feels like there
are only two years left to figure
my life out.
My anxiety about timing
should push me to try to
discover what I want from
myself, but every time I look
inward I get stuck in the same
positive
feedback
loop
of
knowing I need to think about
my options, worrying about the
consequences of making the
wrong choice and then shutting
down out of sheer worry and
frustration. I’ll enter my normal
and
easy-going
state
until
something flips the switch on
the anxiety again: a question
from one of my family members,
my friends talking about their
research, mentions of LinkedIn
connections. I feel so utterly
behind from the rest of my
peers mostly because many of
them seem to have everything
planned out.
I’m told by my family that I
need to take a more active role
and start to push outwards
instead of reflecting inwards
towards myself, which is what
I usually do when I’m confused.
But even that leaves me at a loss.
Push out towards what exactly?
If I knew, I wonder if I would
second-guess myself out of the
answer.
Design by Megan Young
SAFURA SYED
MiC Columnist
Social media[ting] the soul
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
KARIS CLARK
MiC Columnist
Design by Janice Lin