Thoughts on Digital Curation
I’ve had social media accounts since I got my first iPod Touch in the 6th grade. At twelve years old, I dove into the social media worlds of Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and probably more that I don’t even remember anymore. Looking back, this was probably too much freedom for anyone that young, but I do recall believing I was being very smart about the way I ran my accounts. My mom did stress to me the importance of being safe online, protecting my identity, and that anything I put online could be found by my future college/employer. Because of these lessons, and the fact that I knew my mom was always carefully watching, I’ve always been cautious and careful about what I choose to post online. Many of my social media accounts were created to begin to market myself as an artist, and although that is no longer the case, for the most part I still follow the same mental rules about what I post. My Twitter (although locked at the moment because I made it too young for twitter’s guidelines – I digress) would easily be considered PG rated, minus the occasional vulgar funny tweet from a comedian I wanted to share or political arguments that were better said than I could put together myself. Twitter, for me, is a platform that is mostly used to repost content that I enjoy or agree with rather than post my own thoughts and ideas. This isn’t for any particular reason besides that I think there are a lot of people much funnier, smarter, and more qualified to make many of the statements I support. My other social medias are less “strict” for no particular reason. My Instagram has some pictures from parties or other similar contexts, but they’re more or less PG rated for the content itself. Primarily, it consists of several pictures of my face on days I thought I looked pretty good and wanted to share. My Facebook is pretty scarce these days besides quarterly photo dumps to let up some of my phone storage. My lack of Facebook content could also be linked to the public nature of the site and my numerous family members who diligently keep an eye on my account. Overall, I do my best to keep my social medias rather clean while also making sure some of my spunky personality and unique tastes shine through. This can sometimes be a challenge when my personality calls for more explicit language or aggression, but I do my best to maintain a balance that says “I’m cool, calm, and collected, but there’s more to the story here”. I like to think that an employer would be perfectly pleased with my social media accounts (because my mom is), but there’s always a concern that I stepped over the line here, one time when I was 16, or there, one time when somebody argued with me about feminism my freshman year – an argument I cannot resist. All in all, the content that I choose and curate for my social media accounts is still thoroughly considered before I post. But it is a goal of mine to possibly loosen up a bit – not because I think my practices aren’t good, but because I want to feel more like I can express my authentic self across the platforms that are designed to represent just that.
1 Comment
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |