The Truth Behind the Filters and Likes
The social media platform that I use the most is Instagram. I want to start off by saying that I do not have a huge online presence; I’ve only posted twice in the last 7 months. This is my normal – I only post when I feel like sharing. It applies to every social media platform I use: Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. I’ve taken a very structured approach to my pages and while I’ll only be using Instagram for this analysis, it applies to my other platforms just as well.
My History
I have been on Instagram for six years. I’ve deleted a lot of my posts from my early years because they don’t reflect who I am now. I used to post weird, random things that never got many likes – mostly because they had no appeals. I don’t remember why I created my account; probably because I was a desperate 8th grader who needed to feel cool. The platform has changed a lot since I first started. The biggest changes that have affected my use are mostly design aspects and more interactive features like tagging and the ability to like/reply to comments. I think that the progress of the platform drove a lot of users to step up their game and make their posts a higher quality. For me, I am presenting myself to be simple, fun, and a little mysterious.
At First Glance
The first thing you see when looking at my page is my username, profile picture, and biography. Actually, if you don’t follow me, that’s all you can see. I have enabled the private account feature so that I can have better control on who can see my pictures. While I realize this isn’t a fool-proof way of keeping my life private, I feel more comfortable using the platform knowing that my pictures are somewhat protected.
I am fortunate enough to have a unique-enough name where I can have it as my handle. I’ve never had a fun or witty handle; it’s just what it is. When I was a kid and my dad made my first email account, he used my full name and that was that. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to be consistent across all platforms. This is because I want to ensure accessibility for the many people I have had the pleasure of meeting during my life. One of my biggest insecurities is people forgetting my name so I want to make it as simple as possible.
My profile picture is from high school graduation with my younger sisters. This shows that I have graduated and done so with honors, which can be seen by the cords I’m wearing. I’m proud of my achievements and I love my family so this picture allows me to showcase that.
The last public information that I provide is my biography which is simply “TCU ‘20”. This gives context to many of my pictures. If someone looking at my page didn’t know that I was in college, they would be confused by some of my captions and comments. This also shows my credibility and privilege that I am a scholar and financially able to pursue an education at TCU.
Overall, my page is very simple and clean. There aren't any overarching themes; the pictures are mostly random and colorful. If you look closely, there is a periodic pattern to my posting habits. I post more often during the warmer months like April, May, and August. This is because most of my milestone events like graduation, prom, and coming to TCU happened during these months. I tend to post less during the months of December and January because there aren't major things happening for me to justify posting.
Going Deeper
Like I said before, my last two posts span seven months so that must be taken into consideration while analyzing my persona. My most recent post was December 4, 2017. Get ready pathos, I’m coming for you with this one. My family’s beloved yellow Labrador Retriever, Jackson, passed away that day. I wanted my friends and followers to know because he meant so much to me.
I used the gallery feature that Instagram released in the past year that allows you to put more than one picture in a post. I picked the first photo, one of me and him together, strategically. It’s one of my favorite pictures but never had a reason to post it before this. He’s finally looking at the camera and my hair looks great – what more could I ask for? The next three pictures are solo shots of him. I especially like the second one with the tractor and the field in the background. Not many of my followers know where I am from so I added my location to this post – which I don’t do very often. The location plus the tractor/field adds context to what I mean when I say I’m from a small town. I wanted to do this to make it even more personal and vulnerable. The last picture is of Jackson, my sisters, and I when we dressed up as the characters from Wizard of Oz for a dress-up contest at my town’s annual BBQ. While that photo is old and not of very good quality, it helped support my caption, “every game of dress up”. I wanted to keep my caption short but still capture everything that he was to us.
My History
I have been on Instagram for six years. I’ve deleted a lot of my posts from my early years because they don’t reflect who I am now. I used to post weird, random things that never got many likes – mostly because they had no appeals. I don’t remember why I created my account; probably because I was a desperate 8th grader who needed to feel cool. The platform has changed a lot since I first started. The biggest changes that have affected my use are mostly design aspects and more interactive features like tagging and the ability to like/reply to comments. I think that the progress of the platform drove a lot of users to step up their game and make their posts a higher quality. For me, I am presenting myself to be simple, fun, and a little mysterious.
At First Glance
The first thing you see when looking at my page is my username, profile picture, and biography. Actually, if you don’t follow me, that’s all you can see. I have enabled the private account feature so that I can have better control on who can see my pictures. While I realize this isn’t a fool-proof way of keeping my life private, I feel more comfortable using the platform knowing that my pictures are somewhat protected.
I am fortunate enough to have a unique-enough name where I can have it as my handle. I’ve never had a fun or witty handle; it’s just what it is. When I was a kid and my dad made my first email account, he used my full name and that was that. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to be consistent across all platforms. This is because I want to ensure accessibility for the many people I have had the pleasure of meeting during my life. One of my biggest insecurities is people forgetting my name so I want to make it as simple as possible.
My profile picture is from high school graduation with my younger sisters. This shows that I have graduated and done so with honors, which can be seen by the cords I’m wearing. I’m proud of my achievements and I love my family so this picture allows me to showcase that.
The last public information that I provide is my biography which is simply “TCU ‘20”. This gives context to many of my pictures. If someone looking at my page didn’t know that I was in college, they would be confused by some of my captions and comments. This also shows my credibility and privilege that I am a scholar and financially able to pursue an education at TCU.
Overall, my page is very simple and clean. There aren't any overarching themes; the pictures are mostly random and colorful. If you look closely, there is a periodic pattern to my posting habits. I post more often during the warmer months like April, May, and August. This is because most of my milestone events like graduation, prom, and coming to TCU happened during these months. I tend to post less during the months of December and January because there aren't major things happening for me to justify posting.
Going Deeper
Like I said before, my last two posts span seven months so that must be taken into consideration while analyzing my persona. My most recent post was December 4, 2017. Get ready pathos, I’m coming for you with this one. My family’s beloved yellow Labrador Retriever, Jackson, passed away that day. I wanted my friends and followers to know because he meant so much to me.
I used the gallery feature that Instagram released in the past year that allows you to put more than one picture in a post. I picked the first photo, one of me and him together, strategically. It’s one of my favorite pictures but never had a reason to post it before this. He’s finally looking at the camera and my hair looks great – what more could I ask for? The next three pictures are solo shots of him. I especially like the second one with the tractor and the field in the background. Not many of my followers know where I am from so I added my location to this post – which I don’t do very often. The location plus the tractor/field adds context to what I mean when I say I’m from a small town. I wanted to do this to make it even more personal and vulnerable. The last picture is of Jackson, my sisters, and I when we dressed up as the characters from Wizard of Oz for a dress-up contest at my town’s annual BBQ. While that photo is old and not of very good quality, it helped support my caption, “every game of dress up”. I wanted to keep my caption short but still capture everything that he was to us.
Before this post, I had never posted anything very emotional or revealing. I like to keep things to myself and I was very anxious about posting this. I struggled with the question, “Will people think I’m posting this to remember my dog or to get likes?” To this day I still don’t know the answer. I wanted to share my feelings but I can’t control how other people receive that. My follower interaction with this post was the most I have had to date: 351 likes and 18 comments. Overall, my intent for this post was strong but how it was received by my followers remains unknown to me.
Fun, fun, fun!
My second most recent post was on August 20, 2017. It was bid day for my sorority and the day was full of pictures to capture the fun and excitement of welcoming our new members. I knew I wanted to post something since it had been about a month since my last post. I also wanted to share this because it is something that is very prevalent in my day-to-day life but not on social media. I have been fortunate enough to hold various leadership positions at TCU but this means that I have to disaffiliate from my sorority. This is my only sorority picture on my entire Instagram page so I put a lot of thought into it. There were also a ton of pictures that I could choose from, which is totally new for me since I don’t like taking pictures that much.
I posted two pictures: one full body with my heart sister and one close-up where she’s on my back. While I like the second picture more, I put the full body first because I wanted my followers to see our shirts. This helps with the context of my caption. I thought that my caption was clever (a goal of every college girl on Instagram) but now looking at it, it’s a little confusing. I mention orientation which was a big part of my summer but I never posted any pictures from that experience so most people wouldn’t know that I was an orientation leader. Kiana, my heart sister, was one of my orientees and I refer to that in my caption.
Fun, fun, fun!
My second most recent post was on August 20, 2017. It was bid day for my sorority and the day was full of pictures to capture the fun and excitement of welcoming our new members. I knew I wanted to post something since it had been about a month since my last post. I also wanted to share this because it is something that is very prevalent in my day-to-day life but not on social media. I have been fortunate enough to hold various leadership positions at TCU but this means that I have to disaffiliate from my sorority. This is my only sorority picture on my entire Instagram page so I put a lot of thought into it. There were also a ton of pictures that I could choose from, which is totally new for me since I don’t like taking pictures that much.
I posted two pictures: one full body with my heart sister and one close-up where she’s on my back. While I like the second picture more, I put the full body first because I wanted my followers to see our shirts. This helps with the context of my caption. I thought that my caption was clever (a goal of every college girl on Instagram) but now looking at it, it’s a little confusing. I mention orientation which was a big part of my summer but I never posted any pictures from that experience so most people wouldn’t know that I was an orientation leader. Kiana, my heart sister, was one of my orientees and I refer to that in my caption.
One of my favorite things about this post is the color: the green background, pink and orange beads, and tan skin. I don’t have an overall Instagram aesthetic because I try to make every post look the best that picture can look. This means that I don’t use the same filters just for the sake of unity. This works fine for me since I don’t post very often and my pictures can stand out for themselves.
What Instagram Is For Me
I present myself as authentically as I can. Every post is a true reflection of who I am and what I believe. For example, my captions aren’t long and wordy because I’m an introverted, quiet person. I don’t post very often because I’m a private person who keeps most things to myself. I make the individual posts look good without regard for my account as a whole because I focus mainly on short-term projects and rarely think about the long term. All of my posts are intentional and I enjoy thinking critically about every aspect of my online persona. Through this analysis, I have learned that I do put a lot of thought into rhetorical appeals when posting, even though I didn’t realize it. So what? What am I going to do with this new insight about Instagram and myself? I can put more thought into how I construct captions. Since I don’t share much, I need to be clearer and more concise. I have a lot of follower interaction on my posts so maybe I should post more and keep people updated. I have a lot of people who care about me but I forget that truth so often.
What Instagram Is For Me
I present myself as authentically as I can. Every post is a true reflection of who I am and what I believe. For example, my captions aren’t long and wordy because I’m an introverted, quiet person. I don’t post very often because I’m a private person who keeps most things to myself. I make the individual posts look good without regard for my account as a whole because I focus mainly on short-term projects and rarely think about the long term. All of my posts are intentional and I enjoy thinking critically about every aspect of my online persona. Through this analysis, I have learned that I do put a lot of thought into rhetorical appeals when posting, even though I didn’t realize it. So what? What am I going to do with this new insight about Instagram and myself? I can put more thought into how I construct captions. Since I don’t share much, I need to be clearer and more concise. I have a lot of follower interaction on my posts so maybe I should post more and keep people updated. I have a lot of people who care about me but I forget that truth so often.