What the “LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tinder” Meme tells us about ourselves.
it is obvious that we essentially market ourselves on our social media. it is less obvious how exactly we do it and what these iterations of our identities have to do with our “true selves”. The meme that divides images of ourselves, characters or celebrities into 4 squares depicting how we present on different social media is emblematic of a culture dealing with becoming self aware. It is an assumed but generally unspoken truth that almost everyone with an online presence now does their own PR, making the “content creators” and artists among us not so different from anyone else. But how, as we become increasingly sophisticated image makers, are we dealing with the fragmented way in which we market ourselves for our different purposes?
The meme generally follows a pattern of assumptions about what the different platforms are; Facebook is family friendly, LinkedIn is obviously professional, Instagram is posed and pseudo expressive and Tinder is where we try to look hot.
LinkedIn in particular is a peculiar one in this day and age. We list our qualifications and expertise with a nice professional image of ourselves, as if the employer cannot easily find us many of us being a deranged mess with questionable politics on the rest of the internet. Professionalism, with it’s old fashioned limited scope seems as though it should be redundant, yet people still subscribe to it. The relevance of a professional image is questionable because there are now many other ways to signal credibility; we may show our social status via careful selection of images or our virtuous sense of ethics by public displays of philanthropy - we may even choose to subvert expectations, displaying our understanding of the game and conscious rejection of it.
Facebook is an archaic but enduring platform that most of us will keep because of the amount of connections we have on it. It’s the default one you are expected to have where nothing vital happens but may be extremely useful on occasion. It is also the one where we have the most integrated, though potentially blandest, presentation of personas.We amass “friends” over great lengths of time and enjoy being celebrated every now and then for major life events. It’s also where Generation X to late Baby Boomers seem to now dominate; sharing lengthy posts of political outrage, personal anecdotes and life updates. it is best suited to this age group due to their longer, less visual, attention spans and love of newspaper/water cooler conversation-like taste for current affairs.
Instagram is Facebook for a more visual era. For those who know how to use it, Images are chosen either carefully or deliberately un-carefully and words are more poetry than prose. The captions we use are sometimes merely descriptive, through they are often more witty and indirectly related to the images. The posts themselves seem to be becoming poem like and indirectly sensical, with the multiple picture function being used increasingly to group things together that would have different meanings if they we’re separate. I’d argue that out of all the platforms, its currently the most vital means of self presentation, with a large element of it’s success being in it’s unspoken nature. (oops)
Tinder, in the context of this Meme is more like a symbol of dating apps as a whole, which though they may vary in function are are virtually identical in use of images. Dating apps are where we try to look hot, but they’re also where we must signal they we are not an axe murderer and are capable of being balanced enough to get involved with. Part of this balance is the balance of authenticity and conformity. And because this is a potentially sensitive area where we may be quite insecure, our communication tends to be very basic; people will show a photo of a them with a dog, a pic with friends (to display that we indeed have friends) and bunch of other tropes depending on how we wish to perceived. The basic stuff must be laid out plainly - the only exception being if you take a more niche high risk, high return strategy that only a select type of person will appreciate.
As we can see, the modern person uses each of these mediums for slightly different purposes. None of these platforms are new, so why now has this Meme only just come about? Perhaps it is pure chance, but it may also be that as we continue to practise these forms of citizen Public Relations, that we can no longer ignore the fact that the identifies we construct are exactly that: constructs. What better way then to discuss something new than in the form of a joke and a visual one at that? It is with this in mind that I am hesitant to even discussing this topic in words, but i am too curious not to try.
