Ending the week of January 2021, after 3 weeks of political major events, we discussed on our Zoom lectures of memories. How memories were saved, looked at, put away, and discussed. It was interesting learning that diaries back then were used to track family events, history, and passed along to share. When today, diaries are private objects that many hide from being found. The way people capture and keep memories are very different today and even differ in generations.
To begin with I want to say a little bit of where I come from. I was born the year 1997, you know those years where some of us don’t know if we are considered Millennials or Gen Z. The years where we weren’t born into the high tech technology but to our parents still taking pictures with actual cameras and not their smartphones. Where it wasn’t normal to see a computer on a desk but just toys and the outside. In a way, the oldest groups of Gen Z kind of were the pioneers of the world of social media. That eventually got to the other generations and conformed it into what it is today.
We also talked about our social obligations to post. When I first heard the question it was a fast no. I never felt like I should post anything, picture, message, video, to my platforms. However, I do post at least once a year on my Instagram just to remind people that I’m still active on that page. So then I thought maybe I do feel that obligation just not as often as others. For years and years I never tweeted something of my own, I got by with retweeting and hearting. On Snapchat, I never dared posting a story, it wasn’t until 2019 that I posted something on my Snapchat. My first time tweet something on Twitter was in 2020. Don’t get me started on Facebook. That platform was one of the first one’s I was on in 2012 and slowly it was taken over by Gen X and it became too much for me. Another reason I avoid it is because my “following” on that platform is so mixed up that I can’t just post anything. I have my parents, grandparents, family from both sides of the family, friends I haven’t seen 10 years, and friends that I haven’t seen in 5. I guess I could say that “social obligation” just vanished when I felt that pressure of everyone on there.
Talking about that social obligation to my parents who are Gen X, my mom agreed that she does feel it, a lot actually. My mom is the mom that posts about the date nights, anniversaries, most holidays, everyone’s birthdays, family traditions, and pets. She wants and likes to share her life with her family and friends. It is her way of communicating that she is okay as well as the one’s around her. Switching it up to how I think about it and I want to say a lot of Gen Z people think is, if these followers of yours are not involved in your life now and show that they care for what is going on, those people just don’t need to know about what is going on. Let me try to explain this better. I don’t want to speak for a whole generation however, going off of how I think about it and those who are of the same generation around me think of things is that way. That what happens in our lives the good and the bad is for the ones that want to be a part of our lives. So that social obligation is carried differently.
Transitioning this topic a little more, in class we also talked about remembrancing and memories. Remembrancing was described in our book, The Qualified Self by Lee Humphreys, as a form of memory which is called memory work. It explains how many of us post on social media to look back them and remember. Now this is what I believe Gen Z can agree and resonate better with. It is actually the reason as to why I started to take more pictures and videos. I realized after I graduated high school that I didn’t have that many pictures and videos and my own memory is not reliable at all. Then I came to the conclusion that I should take those random pictures and videos of my friends and family because in 10 years they’ll just be a faded memory that I can’t quite recall. I was asked if that made me sad, that I decided that I should take these pictures and videos because eventually I wouldn’t remember. It doesn’t make me sad when I’m taking them at all I’m actually very happy and content that I get to take these pictures. However, when I think that in 5 years I will look back at some of these memories and they will bring tears to my eyes then yes I do begin to feel sad. However, this is just how it has always been. Pictures are taken and kept in books, boxes, and frames to look back at and remember. Videos were kept in VHS tapes and played on VCR’s to enjoy together. Today it just much easier to post and share these with a lot more people. To finish of this post, I would like to share a photo that I often look back at because it makes me happy. It is my family and I’s most recent family addition, our Boxer, Lola.
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