Hey there everybody! My name is Jessica Bailey Hudgeons, I prefer to go by Bailey so I am sorry for any confusions, worse case I still respond to Jessica. I am a Junior at Texas Lutheran University studying communications. This is my first post to our class blog, so I figured you deserve a small little introduction.
Today social media is the platform for popularity. You develop your pages and posts and put yourself out there into the world. As you are doing this you are creating your "me."
?What does that mean?
That is probably the question you are asking yourself. You know you do this, but what exactly is this thing that you do?
To keep the suspense to a minimum here is an explanation. There is this American Social Philosopher named George Herbert Mead who developed this theory of the "I" and "Me". Basically, these are two different versions of yourself that you have. The "Me" is how society sees you, and the part of you that is considered socially acceptable, everything is well thought out and not impulsive. The "I" is the response to the "Me" which may be more impulsive and not as accepted by society. With this being said I am now going to dive back into my original comment that social media is a platform for your "me".
To narrow down the entire universe of social media I am going to go in depth about Instagram. The nostalgia of this old logo reminds me of a time when I didn’t over think social media like I do now a days, it was all just whatabugs and very fierce. However, overtime Instagram has become a platform where you have to put your best self forward. Just like this newer logo.
As you sit on your phone debating whether to post that picture or not you are comparing yourself to societies norms. Trembling with fear about what everyone will think and if it matches your aesthetic on your page. As your knees become weak and your arms become heavy you are assembling your “me”. Thinking it over and over to see if this fits societies current norms and all the trending trends. Social Media doesn’t show half of your true self including your “I”. This is a blessing and a curse. If you have something to hide you can just as easy as catfishing someone. Personally, I don’t use social media often due to this standard of posting something that fits what everyone else wants and not really what I want. Personally, I wish that more of our “I” would be presented on social media. But impulse posting is a thing of the old logo.
Another key insight to this theory about the “I” and “me” is that through social media platforms such as Instagram you can profit if your “me” is socially acceptable. Let’s look at an example of this. I would like you to meet Addison Rae.
This Instagram influencer makes about 156,000 dollars per advertisement that she posts to her 40.2 million followers. She averages about 1.6 million likes per post. Her representation of her “me” started her influential career on Tik Tok, acting for Netflix and she even appears on Keeping Up with The Kardashians. Over time she has gained many brand deals that lined up with her persona and she continues to profit today. She keeps her advertisements within her aesthetic and continues to profit over and over again. Despite some recent backlash from other social media users… but she still seems to make it work. By creating a strong front of her “me” she is able to post and profit off of other companies and businesses.
There are many other examples on the Instagram platform that profit off of the way that they present their “me” and the companies that they strategically chose to partner with. I feel like putting Mead’s theory into this perspective is the best way to describe this theory in today’s world. Almost everyone is on social media, and this is one of the most relatable ways to describe it in my opinion. Social media and the way you present yourself to the world creates the image of how other people see you, the “I”. And your actual personality and the way you are represents the “me”. As you are trying to navigate the confusing world of discovering your “I” and “me” and all things Mead, hope this post can help you take things into perspective.
Try and think to yourself what this article makes you think about me. What is my “I” coming off as? We all know that all posts are permanent and with this being my first blog post lets go on this journey together and see how my “I” further develops throughout the course of this semester.
Bailey Hudgeons signing off.
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