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Eames would have been insta-famous
Honestly suburbia sucks, it’s so 1950s that it hurts. It is no surprise we are all flocking back to the cities. Thats not really what I want to talk about however… I want to talk a little about Charles and Ray and how they compare to myself, and countless other social-meida-ites who take themselves WAYY too seriously. The whole ‘selling a lifestyle’ thing has become so commonplace that thousands are basing their careers off of it. The idea, I suppose, is to sell your life, lifestyle, and yourself as not only better than those around you, but as something they should want, something they should spent their hard earned cash to acquire. It is the whole “keeping up with the Joneses” kind of mentality. Charles and Ray were not quite as shameless as the “social media influencers” of today, thank god, but they may have paved the highway to hell that allowed for them to exist. Charles and Ray photographed their beautiful life, they did this for the purpose of indirectly selling themselves, their lifestyle, their designs, and most importantly personifying their brand. This idea has taken off to an entire world of people call themselves “social media influencers”. These are people who are paid with money or merchandise to covertly promote brands. These brands will send them a box full of their products and on their insta-story these influencers will ‘unbox’ these new products, tell us how excited they are to have them, and explain all the benefits of these products… “thanks sephora”. This is a double win, the brand is promoted and these influencers feel more important than the rest of us because they are “cool and hip” enough receive these free products and gain a following along the way. I have a close friend who Jaguar flies all over the world and is given free cars to drive through foreign cities and post pictures of. They put her in hotels, give her a company credit card, buy her clothes…. all to create indirect sales via instagram. This seems nuts right? These individual’s spend hours planning shoots, choosing outfits, scouting locations, for what? a “like”. Their success is measured in likes. Who out there is guilty? I know that I am. I have my very own Instagram where even I shamelessly promote my ‘lifestyle’. Some of you know it, and I'm sure roll your eyes from time to time. I am ‘Mike.on.the.move’ I promote my laid back, preppy hipster, travel oriented lifestyle in a once again shameless pursuit of likes. Im not as bad as some, no one us paying me to do so or sending me free products. But even I spend hours planning photo shoots and scouting locations for that perfect pic. It is truly and epidemic of our generation. Some of us who don't feel cool enough already can even go out and buy likes.. yes you heard me they are spending money so that their like count can increase, for what? To feel cool, to appear cool. Plato said it right, “Our situation is that of men who mistake images for realities”. These images are the posts as well as the likes. That number, the like count, is just as much an image or front as the posted image is. Damn, KJP got 500 likes on that pic, he's really cool right? Its all an image that we believe. Its pretty shocking really how easy we are to convince.. these images are really paper thin. Like that shot from class of the house with the roses and the trees that were literally in pots and brought in just to make suburbia seem a little more enticing. Check out the image from my instagram, “searching for that perfect tree” this picture was taken around Christmas time and I was implying that I was out in the countryside hunting a Christmas tree. Looks like a casual day doesn't it? nope. Do you think that I would really go out to cut down a sappy tree in skinny jeans and a collection sweater? Hell no, I wouldn't touch nature in that ourfit. I even made the wreath and detailed the car for this picture. About 70 pictures were taken to get this one. I hate to divulge secrets here, but anyone with a serious instagram affliction is doing this. Its all a front. The message is that we have these beautiful, geometrically perfect, brightly colored lives. But the reality is endless planning, ridiculously choreographed photoshoots, and stress over like numbers “If I don't get 50 likes in the first 30 minuets after posting I am taking this picture down”. The idea of selling a lifestyle is an interesting one. All I am trying to say here is, don't be fooled. Don't believe everything you see… and ooh yeah, don't forget to go like my last pic.
Honestly suburbia sucks, it’s so 1950s that it hurts. It is no surprise we are all flocking back to the cities. Thats not really what I want to talk about however… I want to talk a little about Charles and Ray and how they compare to myself, and countless other social-meida-ites who take themselves WAYY too seriously. The whole ‘selling a lifestyle’ thing has become so commonplace that thousands are basing their careers off of it. The idea, I suppose, is to sell your life, lifestyle, and yourself as not only better than those around you, but as something they should want, something they should spent their hard earned cash to acquire. It is the whole “keeping up with the Joneses” kind of mentality. Charles and Ray were not quite as shameless as the “social media influencers” of today, thank god, but they may have paved the highway to hell that allowed for them to exist. Charles and Ray photographed their beautiful life, they did this for the purpose of indirectly selling themselves, their lifestyle, their designs, and most importantly personifying their brand. This idea has taken off to an entire world of people call themselves “social media influencers”. These are people who are paid with money or merchandise to covertly promote brands. These brands will send them a box full of their products and on their insta-story these influencers will ‘unbox’ these new products, tell us how excited they are to have them, and explain all the benefits of these products… “thanks sephora”. This is a double win, the brand is promoted and these influencers feel more important than the rest of us because they are “cool and hip” enough receive these free products and gain a following along the way. I have a close friend who Jaguar flies all over the world and is given free cars to drive through foreign cities and post pictures of. They put her in hotels, give her a company credit card, buy her clothes…. all to create indirect sales via instagram. This seems nuts right? These individual’s spend hours planning shoots, choosing outfits, scouting locations, for what? a “like”. Their success is measured in likes. Who out there is guilty? I know that I am. I have my very own Instagram where even I shamelessly promote my ‘lifestyle’. Some of you know it, and I'm sure roll your eyes from time to time. I am ‘Mike.on.the.move’ I promote my laid back, preppy hipster, travel oriented lifestyle in a once again shameless pursuit of likes. Im not as bad as some, no one us paying me to do so or sending me free products. But even I spend hours planning photo shoots and scouting locations for that perfect pic. It is truly and epidemic of our generation. Some of us who don't feel cool enough already can even go out and buy likes.. yes you heard me they are spending money so that their like count can increase, for what? To feel cool, to appear cool. Plato said it right, “Our situation is that of men who mistake images for realities”. These images are the posts as well as the likes. That number, the like count, is just as much an image or front as the posted image is. Damn, KJP got 500 likes on that pic, he's really cool right? Its all an image that we believe. Its pretty shocking really how easy we are to convince.. these images are really paper thin. Like that shot from class of the house with the roses and the trees that were literally in pots and brought in just to make suburbia seem a little more enticing. Check out the image from my instagram, “searching for that perfect tree” this picture was taken around Christmas time and I was implying that I was out in the countryside hunting a Christmas tree. Looks like a casual day doesn't it? nope. Do you think that I would really go out to cut down a sappy tree in skinny jeans and a collection sweater? Hell no, I wouldn't touch nature in that ourfit. I even made the wreath and detailed the car for this picture. About 70 pictures were taken to get this one. I hate to divulge secrets here, but anyone with a serious instagram affliction is doing this. Its all a front. The message is that we have these beautiful, geometrically perfect, brightly colored lives. But the reality is endless planning, ridiculously choreographed photoshoots, and stress over like numbers “If I don't get 50 likes in the first 30 minuets after posting I am taking this picture down”. The idea of selling a lifestyle is an interesting one. All I am trying to say here is, don't be fooled. Don't believe everything you see… and ooh yeah, don't forget to go like my last pic. 
Mike,
ReplyDeleteThis post was especially interesting to me, as I have a friend who is a social media ambassador for several outdoors-oriented companies. In exchange for social media promotion of their project, they send my friend their products with the intention of gathering more "likes" and further exposure to others with similar interests. At first, I thought, "free gear for a few photos! How cool?"
But as I started thinking more about how I was essentially selling a portion of my online self for advertising, I started rethinking that envious attitude. Yes, I love free things, but do I intentionally want to tie my identity to a personal "brand" or promotion of a product?
At what point do the digital versions of ourselves (facebook, instagram, snapchat, twitter, etc.) become an image more resembling who we want to be than the actual person we are in reality? Not saying this exactly ties in to architecture, but we also present our designs/drawings to appear better: a far superior product to what in actuality becomes dirty, stained, and cracked.