Life Without Filter Part I

800px-Instagram_Filters_2011-partialLife Without Filter
Part I

On Wednesday October 16th I woke up groggy—not motivated to go to work or put on pants or do anything that involved the concept of motion. I turned the alarm off my phone and unconsciously opened Facebook and began to flip through status updates and pictures. I hated this unchecked instinct that always seemed to be a huge waste of time, but it kept me in the warm sheets covering my body for a few seconds longer so I allowed my mind to glaze over and not think about the evils of such technology. I saw all the usual—political rants, memes, photos of summer trips to Europe, vacations in Cancun, personal updates, selfies, etc. And it was all incredibly exciting looking and at the same time, incredibly strange.

It’s no secret that Facebook exists as a sort of alternative universe where one can present an idealized (or even fictionalized) version of oneself to a broad community of “friends.” We all know that people only really want to post photos of themselves when they are eating the best, looking the best, and living the best.

I have no problem with this. It’s human nature. And we definitely don’t need another article about how Facebook is ruining the world or how it is redefining our concept of community, or the psychological damage done to thousands of kids everywhere by online bullies—though to be fair, all of those things are probably true. It’s a bit dreary and tiresome to hear criticisms of Facebook (I’ve heard enough slam poems criticizing it to last ten lifetimes). But I do have a “beef” if you will, if the kids of F book still use that term, with the social media outlet and technology in general.

Technology in general has allowed the possibility of an alternative universe, not just through social media outlets but through our experience of space and time as presented to us through movies, ad’s, and “invisible” online platforms. A nerdy example please: I love Lord of the Rings. LOTR all the way. I grew up reading the books and watching the movies and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. However, whilst watching movies like this and Braveheart and Gladiator in high school, I began to develop a view of life that was something like unhealthy. I wanted all of my life to be epic like it was in the movies, but alas it was not so I got very depressed. I blamed myself at first and I wasn’t totally off. But eventually I came to realize that all movies, even arty, dark, indie ones, are unrealistic representations of life because they compress days or even years into a two to possibly four hour viewing. They provide a narrative structure (however loose) that ninety percent of the time wraps up life in tidy ways, or at least gives meaning to chaos.

In some ways we as the modern viewer can attempt to translate this to our life. Thus, we want our life to be like a movie and so we take photos and post statuses to complete this image. Thanks to Instagram we can slap a funky filter on any image we take and make a toilet look like something we’d like to eat. We highlight the good and downplay the bad. There are obviously those “friends” who complain a whole lot on Facebook. But it never seems to be true and honest communication, merely commiseration about traffic or the weather or the many daily things that frustrate us.

In essence, we put filters on everything. We filter our life through mediums of social media to present a movie version of ourselves. Once again, it’s not evil, it’s human. But just for a day I wanted to present a picture of real everyday life photos. So I did. I am very obviously not a photographer and care about it more as a sort of writing exercise. So, you can check them out below with featured commentary by yours truly. (or above since this will be an older post).

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2 thoughts on “Life Without Filter Part I

  1. Sam DuRegger says:

    i like this Levi. well said.

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