Sebastien Mehegan
Administrative Executive Editor
No one knows the man behind the curtain.
Viral internet sensations are chalked up to be the model for correct societal living. Various social media platforms are often the way people follow fashion trends. Previously, it was magazines that supplied this foundation of our culture. However, now, with more and more people becoming instagram models, there are more people trying to start their own fashion trends. Friends and even sometimes family posting cute photos and beautiful scenery shots would have their followers believe that this is how they live their life. In a world where the wide web has connected people more than ever before there is a disconnect from reality and it has become harder to discern the difference between sensationalization and reality.
According to acsmediakit.org statistics show that between the years 2000 and 2015 magazine sales increase long after their publication. The article said, “At very least, print advertising yields greater increases in brand awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent than online or television advertising.” This proves that even with the ease of access with the internet people still trust the hard copy more even just with advertisements and brand names that they have seen online.
The mistrust in internet content comes from the ambiguity of certain posts, from falsified news sources (opening up the attacks against real ones) and from an increase in the number of people who hire a photographer and pose to make themselves the new instagram sensation.
Things that fall under the category of ambiguous posts would be vacation photos that feature bathing suit photos on sunny days and returning home only to say to ones’ friends that it was a miserable vacation and it was only sunny for a few hours. The trick is to have many bathing suits and take many photos in the sunshine and then go back inside, never actually having enjoyed oneself only making it look that way to others.
An example of falsified news sources would be those that are posted so often on Facebook just to get a rise out of people. Things that friends post without actually reading the content and posted simply because of the headline which might say something like “studies show” and that somehow makes it credible.
For the new Instagram sensations the only thing I have to say is: who cares? It is shallow, superficial clickbait. Flashy bathing suits with airbrushed skin and photo shopped bust to pull in the male attention is so obvious people don’t take this seriously. Posts like this will receive likes or republishes but it will never be trusted. This is not a field that an honest person would ever succeed in. Even travel bloggers or vloggers have created or joined various trusted websites or even created their own because of how unreliable certain social media outlets have become.
To the average student I would say, post who you are not who you wish to be and live how you can within your means. Spending money and new technology to enhance one’s social media presence or post is not a wise decision. If someone wants to be seen as a world traveler, save money and travel. Take photos for yourself, not for other people and let your stories paint the picture of where you’ve been rather than pretend you’ve been and experienced things you haven’t or wish to.
Sebastien Mehegan can be contacted at
smehegan@kscequinox.com
