Summary: Rettberg starts out the chapter with her own story at an art gallery. She mentions a girl’s work about a series of selfies that was over the spam of fifteen years. This emphasized quantity and rhythm. Then, Rettberg dives into self-representation on social media. One’s feed, let’s say on Instagram for an example, consists of a continuous string of photos or posts that enables us to express a part of ourselves onto the internet. Moving on, we examine two similar time lapse videos. Though they were alike, one became more popular and successful. It figured that gender and race may had played a role. However, it made time lapse videos popular in society. Rettberg continues about the topic of time lapse by giving another example—Rebecca Brown. Her time lapse was very much different from others. It told her journey of depression. It shows emotion and depth. Next, Rettberg goes into the topic of profile pictures and icons. It can be used as an identity marker. Overall, serial photos help develop self-representation onto the online world.
Main Idea: The series of photos, selfies, or posts helps an individual develop a more deeper self-representation onto media.
Key Terms:
- Serial: consisting of, forming part of, or taking place in a series.
- Icon: a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something
- Time Lapse:denoting the photographic technique of taking a sequence of frames at set intervals to record changes that take place slowly over time. When the frames are shown at normal speed, or in quick succession, the action seems much faster
- Identity: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is
- Self-expression: the expression of one’s feelings, thoughts, or ideas, especially in writing, art, music, or dance
Commentary: In the very beginning of the chapter, Rettberg gives us a definition of serial. She explains that “to really understand social media genres we need to see them as feeds and analyse each post or image as a part of a series.” I totally agree on what she says. You cannot fully understand an individual by just looking at one post that they had recently posted. Yes, it gives a sense for who they are, but it does not show the bigger picture. It’s like a puzzle. You can have a few pieces and try to understand it, but you need to put it together as a whole to get the full understanding. All those little puzzle pieces, much like a series of photos, are needed to make a whole. They are mandatory to understand the final product. Do not assume one’s personality or intentions by looking at one post they had shared. We have to analyze and look at the other pieces.
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