Sunday, May 22, 2016

train musings: social media curating

Was suddenly inspired by this thought as i was thinking about certain things to tweet or not tweet, when i realised that for me, twitter is a place where i can (or used to be able to) put my thoughts openly, whether negative or positive. It is an outlet for me especially when i get upset, and it is like a pensieve of sorts, where i dump certain trains of thought for the moment to pick them up and continue mulling over them at a later point. 

This led me to realise how i exert a lot of negative energy on twitter, but it shows who i am, and there is far less of a filter compared to the things i post on facebook. Or, well, this used to be the case anyway. Perhaps it is time to rethink the followers.


Anyway, on the other hand, instagram is a place where only happy memories exist. Only the good things are put on instagram. For me at least. But this is not because of the followers that i have, because i have none. Perhaps it is because pictures are generally associated with good and/or happy memories. As i scroll through my own instagram posts, there is not one that is representative of a negative emotion. On twitter, the opposite is true.


Which then led me to think about the social media characters and personalities people curate for themselves. To put across a certain image, to exhibit certain qualities you possess through the activities you partake in, to have people form a certain impression of you. This scares me very, very much. Which is perhaps why instagram needs to remain private. Absolutely private. And this is also perhaps why it is much better to follow cats on instagram than people.