THE TRASHBOOK DIGITAL HARAKIRI BY CHELSEA, EZGI, LANI & MATTHIEU
SEVEN DAYS OF FACEBOOK HONESTY
The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result from his own unconscious activity, works like this: The more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. (Debord 30)
This project started out as a vaguely formed group brought together in the virtual alleyways of Facebook messaging. In the real world, we met at a cafe on the university and discussed over beers, coffee and cupcakes this idea of Facebook and how we use it. We all come from different backgrounds and countries -America, Korea, France, and Turkey -- and we all use Facebook in different ways, with a very global “friend set”. What we wanted to accomplish was to turn Facebook on its head, explore what would happen if we didn’t simply self-promote, but went against the grain of what was comfortable and post things that were embarrassing, banal, vulgar, human.
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METHOD 1.
We all agreed unanimously to use our own personal Facebook profiles to post one week of our lives uncensored, honest, out of the usual Facebook box. The idea was not to self promote.
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After a week of posting, and not telling anyone our underlying motives, we would release a survey asking people how they felt about these candid Facebook posts.
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The day after we release our survey, we would release a manifesto we creating outlining the ideas of what we called Digital Harakiri.
4. After we released the manifesto, we created a Facebook group and asked others to join in posting their own embarrassing, disgusting, boring, pictures and thoughts.
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UPLOADED PHOTOS As part of the Trashbook project, we shared rather unusual but unfiltered and honest photos which can be for some disgusting, uncomfortable, and awkward. Photos of an armpit, dirty dishes, a drain clogged with hair were uploaded on the project members’ walls. The photos successfully drew attention from our friends and families.
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THE TRASHBOOK MANIFESTO On the 17th of October, 2013, we released The Trashbook Manifesto in order to inform our Facebook friends of the philosophy of this project.
Facebook has become the perfect tool for self promotion for many, but have you ever wondered why this causes us to feel even more lonely and unhappy? Let’s face it: we all tend to filter, exaggerate, or over-think when uploading a post on Facebook. Not to mention we all check Facebook far too often than we care to admit. Privacy issues set themselves aside when we post already wellgroomed, normative and conformist self images in the first place: we wear a facade that masks our honest, embarrassing human selves and replace it with a happy fairytale of self promotion. But why? Why aren’t we more honest? Why do we feel the need to pose? Is it possible that we have been compelled to pose as ‘socially appropriate’ and ‘amicable’ persons on Facebook, by Facebook? Reasons might vary. You are concerned about what others might think of you, or you want to look glamorous and cool regardless of the reality. You probably also don’t want to offend others or you just think it is stupid to be honest on Facebook. With all this in mind, we decided to commit to one week of Facebook honesty or self-demotion. DOs : -Go through friends list to see if you should remove or limit anyone from this project (older family members, work connections). -Think about what you usually share on Facebook and try to reverse it. -Think about what you wouldn’t say, what would embarrass you, or what would make your friends uncomfortable. -Start with easy challenges and then dig into more personal, challenging ones. -Analyze what the experience means to you. -Observe your contacts’ reactions. DON’Ts : -Don’t mention that this is an experiment. -Don’t post anything cool or self-promoting for one week. -Don’t be mean to others, it’s not the point.
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INTROSPECTION In order to document the process of the project and to examine members’ respective feelings and thoughts with regard to the project, we set up a blog. Even though we are skeptical that other people might follow our tracks, this project was from our own perspective a real opportunity for selfintrospection. What mostly came to our mind is that embarrassing oneself on purpose can be liberating. If we sometimes felt a bit nervous before posting something on Facebook, we also realize that most of that tension vanishes once we pressed the “post” button. This can be compared to secrets, or the feeling of shame: once spoken out loud, a secret loses most of its power.
BLOG LINK: http:// thetrashbook.wordpress .com/
While reflecting on ourselves, we realized we each had different feelings toward Facebook. While one felt tired of seeing “pathetic posts everywhere” and admits loving “raw words and raw feelings”, others wanted to push ”the bounds of Facebook norms, show how ugly and banal life is and gauge people’s reactions” or just see what it felt like to “behave antisocially and transgress some taboos”. We saw this as an opportunity for self-introspection regarding our relationship with social media, our self-image, our boundaries or weaknesses. 5
SURVEY RESULTS SURVEY LINK: https:// docs.google.com/ forms/d/ 135yO_TvcAEycHfTSBz 7dSVJbarml_VcIXzmar31hK0/ viewform
A survey was released on Facebook in order to get an insight on our Facebook friends’ perception of the Trashbook Project, as well as their own stand on Facebook usage. The questions include: ‘How often do you use Facebook?’, ‘do you think other Facebook users are honest about themselves?’, ‘do you wish you were more honest about yourself on Facebook?’, ‘do you think others try to look cooler than they really are on Facebook?’ among others. 67 people participated in the survey, 57% among which were male, and 43% female. 94% of the participants answered that they noticed something unusual about our member’s Facebook posts. However, only 39% of the participants liked or commented on the ‘unusual’ posts, whereas 61% did not. From these results, we can say that although the Trashbook project was highly noticeable to our Facebook friends, they did not personally engage themselves with the posts.
50 We discovered that majority of the words that describe the Trashbook posts were negative rather than positive. Chart 1 on the right shows that the word ‘weird’ was most chosen with 45 followed by ‘awkward’ with 34, and ‘uncomfortable’ 28. The top 5 words that was chosen were all negative words.
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Drawing from this and other responses that we received personally via Facebook messages, comments, and e-mails, the reactions were either very positive or very negative. For example, on one of the member Chelsea’s post, ‘My pyjama pants have monkey faces and bananas on them’, one commented ‘Keep em comin’ Chelsea, I’m lovin it :)’ On the contrary, in response to Matthieu’s post ‘Recently I was told my grandfather has cancer and is going through chimo. I also realized I didn’t care that much. -feeling meh’, one of his friend messaged him saying ‘you are unhappy and bitter. You make me nauseous.’
Weird Awkward Uncomfortable Shocking Confusing Honest Embarrassing Pathetic Truthful Others:
Chart 1. What did you think about our ‘unusual’ Facebook
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Another interesting finding was how participants Interestingly, participants perceived that most of perceived others’ Facebook use and theirs the others are trying to make their lives look differently. Asking a set of questions about how cooler on Facebook, however, they do not conhonesty and transparence on Facebook, we man- sider themselves doing the same. (See Chart 3.) aged to confront people’ perception of them30 selves versus others. 24 The results to these questions were quite insight- 18 ful: predictably, people tend to be more critical 12 about others behaviors than toward their own. 6 0 40 1. Never 2 3 4 5. Always 32 Others Myself 24 Chart 4. Do you think our Facebook posts are bor16 ing? 8 0 Chart 4 above shows that the participants also 1. Never 2 3 4 5. Always show different perceptions with regard to the question “Are our Facebook posts boring”. 45% Others Myself of the participants consider what others post on Chart 2. Do you think we are honest on FaceFacebook to be often or always boring, whereas book? 51% view their own Facebook posts as seldom Chart 2 shows that more than half of the particior never boring. pants consider others to be “sometimes honest”, while half of them consider themselves as “most of the time honest”. 16% 22% 40 Yes 32 No Maybe 24 16 62% 8 0 1. Never 2 3 4 5. Always Others
Myself
Chart 3. Do you think we try to look cooler on Facebook than we really are?
Chart 5. Would you join the Trashbook?
We found it rather surprising that 22% of the participants would want to join the Trashbook movement. 7
<Is there anything that you would never want to share on Facebook?> 8
Further thoughts
The aim of the Trashbook project was to create food for thought regarding the use of Facebook. We tried to question what Facebook meant for each of us based on the assumption that there are certain contents that we would not share on Facebook. Our project explores different themes directly linked to the network itself, such as self-promotion or auto censorship, but even wider topics such as social control, taboos, the power of secrets and words, and even shame. This project allowed us to introspect our feelings of shame, and made us question its usefulness. Is shame destructive or protective? Could ones attempt to become shameless be considered as a step toward better self-acceptance? In a wider perspective, we can also ask ourselves more serious questions: If Facebook is a space to express the most private of our lives, what pushes people to filter their content so much? Can Facebook, with its likes and comments, be considered as a new tool for social control? What does being deviant on Facebook mean?
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