Self-Ethnographic Essay
Analysis on the Evolution of my Self Presentation on Instagram Robert Swetlic CAS 841 – Social Media Storytelling – Michigan State University
Introduction To analyze the evolution of my digital simulacrum, I decided to conduct a selfethnographic essay of the content on my Instagram from January 2019 to August 7th, 2020. I was primarily looking to identify patterns in post-type and how my content evolved over time as my own worldview regarding the ethics of social media and digital honesty shifted to become more conservative–both in what I post and how heavily the images are edited. This article addresses discrepancies in reality versus social media portrayal.
Content Summary January. Five images in one gallery; all taken during one vacation at a resort in Las Vegas. Photoshop applied to facial features. Geotag is Las Vegas, Nevada. Caption alludes to the viewer that the trip was a surprise, paid for by a then-significant other, and the occasion was my birthday. People tags identify my companion.
April. Three posts in one gallery; with my cat, best friend and thensignificant other and I with Senator Elizabeth Warren. Photoshop only applied to facial features in the third image. Caption provides no context. People tags identify my companions.
July. Five posts in one gallery; all taken during a trip to Florida with my best friend. No image retouching. Geotag is Estero Island, Florida. Caption references a popular song lyric discussing visiting a beach. People tags identify my companion.
September. Six images in one gallery; all taken during a trip to New York with three friends. No image retouching. Geotag is New York, New York. Caption provides no context but people tags identify the other individuals.
December.
Image of myself on an oversized chair with a caption using language comparable to feudal royal titles, alluding that the chair functions as a throne and I am a monarch. Photoshop used to create lighting effects, but not to alter facial features.
Early February. Eight images in one gallery; the first of myself with three coworkers and the remaining seven of my branding collateral designs. Caption provides context that the designs were for a newly launched office. Geotag references the neighborhood where a press conference was held that day to announce the new office and brand. No image retouching.
Late February. One image of myself with two coworkers at a piano. People tags identify the other individuals.
May. Two images in one gallery of myself resting in the grass wearing a paper crown and gold face paint drawn to resemble circus clown makeup. Caption makes light of a popular internet meme. No image retouching.
July. Image of myself wearing an upcycled coat in my backyard. Caption references my cheap undergarments and unkept hair, as well as
the fact that the image was taken on a low-quality camera. Geotag is Chromatica, a fictional planet.
August. Two images in one gallery; the first of myself and my creative collaborator in 2020 and the second from 2013. Caption references our personal growth over the past seven years. People tags applied.
Reference Images
In chronological order
Analysis Through a macro lens, it may appear that there was no wild variation in content type or quality over the 19-month period that posts were analyzed. However, at the micro level, there are some trends that can be identified that indicate conflicts between my digital behaviors as time passed. For example, a post from Las Vegas in January 2019 was meticulously staged before the vacation had even begun. The goal was to help construct a narrative that I was on a glamorous trip for my 21st birthday that included a sweeping view and concert at a luxury resort. I used the geotag feature to help inform the user of my location and notify them that I was out of state. This is consistent with research that argues the geotag is useful not only to share information but to help promote a narrative for the user that will illicit reaction from the viewer. “Using goal theory, we categorized tourists’ goals of using geotags as task-involved goals [e.g. enjoyment of geotags and altruism] and ego-involved goals [e.g. anticipated reward and privacy unconcern]� (Chung and Lee). In this instance the geotag helped attain an egoinvolved goal of letting the viewer know that I was on a trip while they were likely viewing from winter-stricken Michigan. During the gap in content from January to April I began to develop my undergraduate thesis on social media personas and how they enable us to present images that are not entirely true or reflective of our physical realities. I refrained from posting during this time while I worked to understand the implications of intentionally constructing posts to present a successful, ideal image of myself that was not entirely accurate with the events of my day-to-day life. Despite this, posts continue to use strategies that involved important figures to increase the perception of my social status. In April 2019 I am pictured with thenpresidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and in February 2020 with former national
columnist turned City of Detroit official Rochelle Riley, followed by a gallery of artwork I created for the launch of her new office. I believe this method of content strategy is consistent with narcissistic behavior enabled by social media to help boost the perception of importance by creating links to individuals who have a high social, political or economic status. “Prior theory and research demonstrates that narcissists tend to use social relationships in order to build up and maintain their inflated selfconcepts, including a focus on using relationships as a way to gain popularity and power over others� (Dumas, et. al.). This was exhibited again in September 2019 with a gallery of images showing myself in New York City with three friends. Images of myself with the other individuals interspersed with shots of the landscape help inform the viewer that I not only have the means to travel but the corroborating images reinforce the perception that I may possess connections with my companions that others do not. As Dumas and his fellow researchers noted, Instagram-related behaviors are driven by narcissistic motives encourages users to engage in strategic like-seeking purposes in order to appear more popular to others. Furthermore, by using people tagging features, this directly links the user to the individuals in a post as a way of providing the viewer with the framework to help construct the desired image sought when the information was presented by the user. Contrasting the content of the last two posts with events occurring in my real life; I posted both of these things during times of change and uncertainty. It is possible that this is a type of validation seeking behavior employed by Instagram users who feel insecure with one or more aspects of their current status (Dumas). Instead of posting content that was openly negative, I posted something positive during a turbulent time in order to gain reassurance from my audience. This form of reality exclusion is common not only in my content, but across social networking platforms. In a 2015 study, researchers attempted to identify the type
of content users post on social networking sites. “Similarly, a number of participants attempted to playdown or not disclose problems they were having,” (Kleek, et. al.). They found that users used lying by omission to exclude information from their real lives in order to manage how they will be perceived by their audiences. “This particular use goes beyond the butler lies phenomenon discussed previously, and instead enables control of psychological projection and public perception of self online” (Kleek, et. al.) This is not uncommon on identity-oriented platforms such as Instagram where the user is expected to attribute their profile with their name. Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook allow the audience to create mental associations between the digital simulacrum and the person operating the account–the content posted can be directly attributed to an actual person. Conversely, identity-agnostic sites such as Reddit or Tumblr allow their users to be more honest with audiences as it is likely they do not know each other’s true identities and may never come into physical contact with each other. “The sites that had the most anonymity and invisibility and contained the fewest warrants (i.e., links to offline life) had the lowest rates of reported and expected honesty” (Drouin, et. al.).
Distributed among ego-driven posts on my account was some content that
evidenced I was self-aware of the deceptive behavior and desired to change it. Posts from late February and May 2020 demonstrate normative like-seeking behavior (versus deceptive like-seeking) in which I am sharing information with the viewer as it occurred in real life (Dumas); there is no deception employed to elicit a specific reaction. Posts from these months use no Photoshop or image retouching, geotags are not used and the images capture only single moments. This is in opposition to galleries which allow the user greater storytelling abilities by showing multiple viewpoints from one event or time. More content = a larger narrative. In more simple posts there is no overarching theme or unifying event. The posts from May are even
an attempt to make fun of myself, by wearing makeup reminiscent of a clown. The term “clown” on social media is often used to refer to individuals who make frequent fax-paus or embarrass themselves on the internet. A more recent post from July 2020 has a caption that directly references my disdain for the “personal brand” and social media identity. “This is a poorly shot, unedited photo of me wearing pajamas and a winter coat (that my cousin and I cut up/sewed back together in her basement) from my iPhone 7 front camera taken in my backyard because social media brand and image do not matter” (@robertswet).
Posts such as these reflect a desire to display more honesty on Instagram and
refrain from directing shots in order to create perfect, staged, moments. Additionally, the use of Photoshop on my account to alter facial features and blemishes has dropped off slowly since January 2019, used in only five of 34 posts. For comparison the previous 19-month period had 10 instances of Photoshop across 21 images.
Conclusion Though my views on digital honesty have evolved, as evidenced by the progression of the content on my Instagram over 19 months, it is clear that some attention seeking behaviors are still ingrained into my content decisions. While use of image altering has been reduced, I have still used the platform to maintain my digital simulacrum– the digital version of myself in which only the most positive aspects are displayed. Internet platforms have enabled users to craft stories that are deeply personal and can advance the acceptance of the user’s desired image of themselves. Through social media, the subjective truth becomes the collective reality when the user is able to craft narratives through mild deception and their narratives go unchallenged. When mildly engaged audiences allow falsehoods to go undisturbed they passively accept what they are seeing as reality; and so digital simulacra are able to persist. This was the behavior I anticipated when I crafted my posts to display my life a certain way–as long as the authenticity was not challenged the mirage remained unbroken. Furthermore, perception that deception on social media is widespread encourages users to participate in lying. “Individuals report a great deal of dishonesty across a number of different online venues (i.e., social media sites, online dating, anonymous chat rooms, and sexualized websites), they believe others are less honest than they are within each of these online venues, and they expect different types of lies across different venues” (Drouin, et. al.). Drouin and researchers reported in the same study that users are only 16-32% likely to always be honest on social networking sites. Notwithstanding, users may be quite uncomfortable with the accusation that they are dishonest on social media. “It was clear from responses that being reminded of one’s lies can be upsetting, especially for people who consider themselves honest. On one hand, this might suggest systems might automatically remove, or reduce the visibility of, digital traces that could serve as reminders of one’s past deceit” (MurrayRust, et. al.). This observation is interesting and poses questions for further research:
Does digital media make deception so easy we don’t even perceive it as lying? Or are users simply uncomfortable being accused of lying? Though uncomfortable, does being confronted with how subtle deception can be categorically classified as lying encourage a warranted conversation regarding the need for digital honesty?
Studying my content in relation to digital ethics made me consider how I have
contributed to a culture of deception. It also has prompted me to be more mindful of what I post and how I can create a narrative that is more open and honest. As an individual with a small audience I no longer see the need to employ content strategy for a personal account. Offline you cannot control how people perceive you because chance encounters in person allow others to catch glimpses of yourself that are not curated; you cannot always prepare yourself in a certain way to illicit a desired outcome. Many feel a benefit of social is the ability to curate and prepare content prior to its reveal, but it also allows us to construct simulacra of ourselves that are not always reflective of our offline selves. Social media doesn’t offer frequent opportunities for the constructed image to be threatened, as you only display the content you want to that correlates with the desired image of yourself you are trying to create.
My personal digital ethics have shifted to the belief that normative like-seeking
behavior is the most appropriate type of online behavior. Despite this, I also feel that further research should be conducted to examine societal norms that created a digital environment where action is motivated by validation seeking methods, as opposed the documentation of reality. Moving forward I hope my content continues to progress away from like-seeking behavior so that I can feel empowered to post more things that bring me personal gratification, regardless of audience reception. I also believe in embracing documentation efforts, in an attempt to communicate to my audience how my life truly is–not how I want them to think it is.
Bibliography Baudrillard, Jean. “Simulacra and Simulation.” 1995, doi:10.3998/mpub.9904.
Chung, N., & Lee, H. (2016). Sharing economy in geotag: What are the travelers’ goals sharing their locations by using geotags in social network sites during the tour? International Journal of Tourism Cities, 2(2), 125-136. doi:10.1108/ijtc-08-2015-0022
Drouin, M., Miller, D., Wehle, S. M., & Hernandez, E. (2016). Why do people lie online? “Because everyone lies on the internet”. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 134-142. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.052
Dumas, T. M., Maxwell-Smith, M., Davis, J. P., & Giulietti, P. A. (2017). Lying or longing for likes? Narcissism, peer belonging, loneliness and normative versus deceptive like-seeking on Instagram in emerging adulthood. Computers in Human Behavior, 71, 1-10. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.01.037
Kleek, M. V., Murray-Rust, D., Guy, A., O’hara, K., & Shadbolt, N. (2016). Computationally Mediated Pro-Social Deception. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. doi:10.1145/2858036.2858060
Kleek, M. V., Murray-Rust, D., Guy, A., Smith, D. A., O’hara, K., & Shadbolt, N. R. (2015). Self Curation, Social Partitioning, Escaping from Prejudice and Harassment. Proceedings of the ACM Web Science Conference on ZZZ - WebSci ‘15. doi:10.1145/2786451.2786461
@robertswet. Instagram account. https://www.instagram.com/robertswet/.
Self-Ethnographic Essay
Analysis on the Evolution of my Self Presentation on Instagram
Robert Swetlic Š 2020 Michigan State University