The Weird Paradox

There's a peculiar situation going on in social media these days: Instagram Moms. They've taken over the platform with pictures of their kids, their activities, the sweet notes they pack in their lunch boxes every morning. They have this thing going on in which they balance family, fun and fitness in ways that only superheroes (or really skilled yogis) can. My cousin is one of these Instagram Moms:

All images reproduced with permission from her.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with choosing to show your life online. However, these images are only quick snapshots of what is a much greater frame: her busy life. Of course, the picture painted is made to be aesthetically pleasing, and I know she takes great care to show the best parts of her family on social media. Contrary to the public's perception of her feed, she doesn't spend hours brunching with the in-laws, or cooking, or hiking around undiscovered sierras in Germany. Her life is pretty much ordinary... With a couple shots of adventure in it. Overall, by looking only at users' social media profiles, reality is painted to be much different to what everyday life looks like.

This is what Mercer talks about in The Circle: the clear division between the self and the online self.

Mercer has become my favorite character in The Circle. His clear, lucid appraisal of Mae Holland's situation and life as a circler is a welcome read after the rest of the characters' oblivious descent into the madness of the corporation. He notes the "weird paradox" that is "thinking you're at the center of things", whilst at the same time "becoming less vibrant". Mae's socializing is limited to a few "smiles" (online, of course), or "frowns", without any face-to-face interaction, because of her always being hooked to the platforms online.

That is what I think about when I see how many of my Instagram friends follow accounts like these:

Left: @jayalvarrez, below: @alexisren. Both from Instagram. 







They comment and "react" on these pictures of beautiful landscapes, other people doing things they wish they could do... And live these peoples' lives through their own mobile devices, instead of going out and doing it themselves. This is what Mercer tells Mae: how she's become a mere router that receives and re-transmits information in the  forms of "smiles" and "frowns".

It's hard to understand nowadays that a Facebook like or an Instagram heart doesn't automatically transmit to actually experiencing something: it's just an umbrella concept to house the people who like the same activities or ideas. Furthermore, and as with my cousin's feed, these are only quick snapshots of their lives, and don't encompass all of it.

Mae herself notes that it was "strange (...) being reduced to a list of likes and dislikes" in LuvLuv's presentation, and yet she doesn't realize that she has been reduced to that by her own accord. She doesn't experience these things anymore, but merely observes, digests and rates a situation or activity without moving from her desk. This has become increasingly (and scarily) common these days, and The Circle mirrors this common phenomenon perfectly: the swallowing of the self by the online persona, a merging that turns multidimensional beings into an information-spewing colander of fake experiences.

Mercer, Mae and Timberlands

I have never, not once, been exposed to temperatures lower than 50F.

Given that last week, at the end of August, the temperature dropped to a 46-degree low, I thought it was wise to invest in a good pair of boots. After asking a couple of my more winter-savvy friends, I went on the Timberland website, looked around for a bit, and- not satisfied by the options- logged off.


When I opened Facebook yesterday, my feed looked something like this:

Also, how did they know I now live in Pennsylvania?

I want to draw attention at the boots in the sidebar: the same exact boots I was looking at not a week before. It's not only Facebook though:

                                                                       Absolutely no aesthetic.

Tumblr, the secluded, pseudo-indie microblogging platform where I ran away from the pointless stream of useless information that Facebook bombards me with. However, now it seems like I can't open any social media platforms without coming face to face (or, well, screen-to-face) with these advertisements for boots I didn't even like.

For some reason, I feel like this is an enormous breach of privacy.

Of course, I could clear my cookies and browser's cached information, but then all my useful login details (usernames, passwords, general preferences) would be erased. I wish there could be a way to maintain my browsing privacy without hindering my online experience: a way of limiting the availability of my information to every company I visit, while still saving my preferences on the sites that I do wish to have them on.

I feel my point of view is somewhere between Mae Holland's and Mercer's, from The Circle. While Mae Holland aims to be fully connected, or "close the circle" (in Eamon Bailey's words), Mercer isn't fully on board with this idea. Much like Mercer, I don't believe that companies should be able to "scan(...) all of our messages for information they can monetize" (p. 135). It's creepy, the way all websites know I attend Penn State, am concerned about eating disorders and diets, and always display ads about these topics in whatever website I visit:

Mae herself kind of comes into contact with this, at the LuvLuv presentation, where she feels that "having a matrix of preferences presented as your essence, the real you" (p. 126) is distorted. In much the same way, I think the storing of my information reduces me to "an algorithm", and no matter how accurate it is, it will never be able to describe me in totality. It's scary, to imagine being classified as a series of numbers, and reduced to my Google searches, the products I browse, and the places I visit.

However, I do admit that getting targeted ads is useful, as opposed to only getting random ones, and sometimes I'll even click the link to buy what they're selling. I feel like there needs to be some sort of streamlining online in order to have an enjoyable experience and interaction, and this is only achieved by a certain customizing of "private" information that must be made public. In some way, it's not being coded, but being understood. And that, in a sense, is very comforting.

In this way, I'm more like Mae: pragmatic, I know that "the future" includes different definitions of "privacy" and "communication" to what we have now, and don't want to be left behind in the wake of evolution. I see how useful it is for companies to "manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs" (p. 134), and how the storage of personal information helps the internet feel much more personal than a plethora of randomly-generated ads would.

So, in conclusion, I know that a big place like the internet can be made to feel smaller (and more personal) through interaction with the individual users, and this can only be done by storing certain information about everyone. However, it is worrying and kind of annoying to feel "followed" by all these companies and ads, like a  good song stuck in the back of your head for so long it became boring. What do you think? Is a personalized online experience a good price to pay for your private information and habits being dispersed around the internet?

Newbie

There are very few things more nerve-wracking than stepping into a completely new campus on the first day of New Student Orientation, and one of these is stepping into this completely new campus on the first day of class.

Me, saying goodbye to my family the first day of Orientation

It's not just the hordes of people, or the sweltering heat, or the cold sweat running down your back-- a cool reminder that your class must've already started, and you definitely overslept, even if your schedule says you're a half hour early. It's not only the utter lack of company, the vague discomfort of the new food lurking around your belly— it's the absolute certainty that you're not prepared for college at all, and can I go back to El Salvador, por favor? 

Central Pennsylvania, Woody Hibbard, Flickr

El Salvador, Diego Brito, Flickr

(That picture just above this caption is basically the whole country. Central Pennsylvania is just a tiny sliver of land in a state. You can see how moving from a tiny country to a big expanse of countryside was a huge change in itself.)

I can imagine Mae Holland, from a small town in California, feeling the same sense of overwhelmingness as I did when I first got to Penn State. Being surrounded by so many people who knew what they were doing, where they were going, how and why things worked around here. For me, every interaction was just an intricate set of symbols and rituals, interconnected in some mysterious way, without any proper logical order to it.  Everyone seemed to exude an aura of intelligence, coolness and absolute confidence in themselves and their surroundings that I most definitely lacked. Mae definitely felt the same way, overwhelmed and scared.

However, Mae had a friend, Annie. And I didn't. 

I feel like our experiences in a new place differed because of this: Annie provided much-needed support to Mae in the first couple of days. She had both an insider and outsider's point of view on the situation, so she felt more comfortable moving around the company. I feel like having an insider in the "company" (in this case, the university) can be both good and bad. I mean, I had to get friends, stat. So I went out, forced myself to smile and talk, and I've now got a nice squad that I can rely on for support. They're not Annie, but they'll suffice. 

I distinctly remember how it felt getting the key to my dorm room: freeing, exciting. I now had a place to call my own. Similarly, Mae gets a station in a "flower pod" of desks; a space that is hers only. This helped her feel part of the community already, by asserting her being needed and wanted by the company. They wanted her there so much, they gave her her own station. 

My own station isn't as glam as Mae's:

But the same feeling remains-- my own space to customize, alter and make mine as much as possible. 

Finally, the main tradition that separates me from my community is its unwavering love for all things football.

I never had any idea what football was, how it was played, and what the rules and specifications were. I saw everyone get excited over season tickets, and buying university merchandise, and I honestly didn't understand what was going on. Much like Mae, though, I was quickly sucked into the masses cavorting towards the stadium on game day, if only to see what the fuss was about:

And I loved it.

I think it's safe to say, I'm on my way to becoming a really good Circler Penn Stater.

Go blue!