Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Maybe Snapchat? Whichever their favourite app is, there’s a great percentage of people who use this kind of social networks. The reason? We could find an infinite number of reasons, though exposure might be the most general one. Nevertheless, the way of using them is the aspect I’m mostly interested in, and the one I will be developing. The range of social network users goes from expert to novice, from specialist to amateur, including three kinds of people.
Let’s begin with the most dedicated and professional user of social networks, the ‘travelling and being fit makes my life happy and perfect’ kind of person. This human must be very careful at the moment of choosing the life they’re going to show to the common people. Could it be a successful guy who surfs and travels around the world taking beautiful pictures of himself holding wild snakes and using traditional outfits? Or might it be a woman, all fit and tanned, who loves to sing and lives in a white place filled with tiny yellow lights that make it look comfy, and uploads videos of herself singing while drinking a cool cup of coffee, in her cool pajamas? Oh, but they do upload the most amazing graphic images their professional cameras allow them to. Hours, days, weeks is what it takes them to choose, edit and finally upload an image or video to the web. A bad quality image cannot be on their profiles. If the picture isn’t perfect, then they’re not perfect, and then where’s the point? They’re not average people, they don’t show flaws, they are per fect.
Hey, but there is a beautiful special place for people who have flaws! Yes, and they also get to have a nice name: the ‘neither too perfect, nor too ordinary’ ones. The equilibrium masters. These people are experts on knowing the right moment to upload a nice, edited picture. This doesn’t happen everyday, no… From time to time, a casual change of profile pic make the others think ‘Oh, well, look at this one! What a nice picture!’ but also ‘This is a normal person who just happens to be pretty’. This is only possible if they upload routine pictures now and then, showing their pets, family and some hobby. Probably some pictures of piles of papers and highlighters to show how stressed they are while studying… or a photo of the horrible weather they have to face till they get to work, without having slept that much… normal human stuff. But still, always being careful about looking good, yet casual.
However, the person who lacks balance between a nice picture and a bad one is part of the last group of social networks’ users. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the ‘I don’t get this but I use it anyway’ type of people. ‘Oh! This lasagna looks tasty… I’ll show my friends on facebook what I’ve cooked!’ and a blurry, dark picture is viciously uploaded for everyone to see a disgusting mixture of something and something else. Selfies? These are their favourites, specially if they’re taken from a low and too close angle... the uglier the better, that’s the rule. Selection does not exist in their lives: pictures are taken from the app itself, whichever the time, place or circumstance. For the ‘travelling and being fit makes my life happy and perfect’ team, these people are just spam. But before starting to judge them, let’s think it straight. These people are the most authentic and transparent users that the media has. They don’t care what people will think, they just show life the way it is, with flaws, not always nice, without filter.
So, some show this, some show that… all of them have this in common: they show fragments of their lives for people to see them. They want people to know the things they consider nicer, prettier, worthier showing. And there lies the reason for using these networks: people need to know what others think of them, and they need to be able to pick the part of themselves they like the most and make it the only face they show, to secretly believe they are, in a way, what they show, and not what they hide.