human.
Index 3 Manifesto 4-5 How to be perfect 6-7 Bauman 8-9 Tracey Emin/ My bed 10 How do I stop feeling 11 Is it ok to feel? 12-13 You are not made of marble
human. is made to take pressure off your shoulders. It is about feeling free of the constant pressure that is put on every single person who uses social media to be the best version of themselves, there are days that if you get to be the kind-of-ok version of your self that is already too much. It is about informing people how it’s perfectly fine to be sad, angry, jealous, envious and discontented sometimes and how feeling those emotions is better than bottling them up. This zine is not about being editorial perfect. This zine is about being human.
“Members of the society of consumers are themselves consumer commodities, and it is the quality of being a consumer commodity that makes them bonafide members of that society.” Bauman says in 2007; Before bloggers, digital influencers, before the social media boom. Social media has crossed the line between leisure time and working time in various different levels, from people who live off of social media, to people who just feel pressured to be on it posting about their perfet meals, perfect dates, perfect relationships, perfect everything; in a way, it is kind of this constant watch people keep on each other,old tweets and old pictures are brought up everyday as a form of attack. There is always this constant aim at this ideal pattern of consumption that fits people into a certain group.
“The ‘society of consumers’, in other words, stands for the kind of society that promotes, encourages or enforces the choice of a consumerist lifestyle and life strategy and dislikes all alternative cultural options; a society in which adapting to the precepts of consumer culture and following them strictly is, to all practical intents and purposes, the sole unquestionably approved choice; a feasible, and so also a plausible choice – and a condition of membership.”- Bauman But as it’s expected, there are people who don’t conform, people who tried to and failed, people who can’t afford to live this kind of perfect life, people who are shamed for saying things they said 10 years ago and that has been causing numerous mental health issues, specially in young people who were raised in an era of social media and online consumption.
In 2010, Instagram is launched and in 2017 it has changed the way people consume, relate and think; at the same time, what Bauman said 10 years ago, makes more and more sense, people have become a commodity in a way that is so ridiculously weaved in today’s society, that it has become a problem to whoever it is that just can’t conform to these ideals. It’s tyrannical and cruel the way that social media requires constant care and attention; you can’t just stay out of it for a while and then come back, it’s a matter of constantly building, constantly consuming content that shapes lives. It breaks self-esteem, it attacks relationships “how come you read my message and didn’t answer it right away?”, “why didn’t he like my last instagram post?”, are questions that are being asked everyday by a ridiculous amount of people; is that a good way to live? The pressure that is being put in people to keep up with social media and online culture seems in various ways cruel and unfair, people are allowed to be imperfect and have imperfect lives, more than that, people are allowed to be ignorant and learn from their mistakes, change opinions and all of that has been taken away by social media and is creating this close to radical multipolar world that is divided by the content you consume, where there’s no place to learn, listen and be nice to people who are from different backgrounds, different groups, in an age of globalization, in a way, all the information available is killing dialogue and people’s right to be people and make mistakes, of thinking before answering a serious message.
My Bed is an artwork by the british artist Tracey Emin; it consists in a bed, surrounded by objects, the bed is presented in the state that Emin left it after having spent numerous days laying there due to depression and suicidal tendencies caused by a very difficult relationship she had gone through. The piece, when it was first displayed, caused controversy and raised criticism, particularly because of the fact that in the sheets, there were stains of all kinds of body fluids, preservatives, period stained underwear and all other kinds of fragments of a reality that some people thought wasn’t meant to be seen. That is where the essence of this art piece lies, I guess, in this flawed human image it shows. The bad, the dirty, what should not be displayed; Depression is, in the 21st century, something socially acceptable in a way, suicidal tendencies are a known fact, but it’s not something that is comfortable to be around, at least for most people, and that may be the reason why My Bed is so controversial, its link with reality is so strong and so real that maybe people didn’t want to see that. Art, galleries, museums, they all have this immaculate aura to them, of something that is so intangible, but that piece is tangible, and it is ugly, but it is also art, and that
You are not made of marble; nor of oil paint. you have pimples, you have stretch marks, you have scars, and body hair; you sweat, you drool, you cry, and get puffy eyes; you wake up with messy hair, bad breath, swollen face, and a bad mood; everyone does. maybe not all of those, maybe not every day, but everybody does. we are not made of marble; nor of oil paint. we are made of flesh and bone and thunder.