Since social media appeared , these new devices' popularity increased . Today, they are part of our everyday life and most of all, they have kind of overcome the real life, meaning they have surpassed the utility of some non-virtual things. An example ?
We have asked an (extremist) pro-social-media young man why he loved the digital world, even more than the real one, and he had this surprising answer : “You don’t need to leave your house or to pay to see an exhibition anymore, you just go on your phone or computer, and can see whatever artists or pieces of art you want, more easily, and way more cheaper. Social media are the most accessible device created and this is why it is so popular.”
The impact of the WWW, is way more important than we might think. In fact, the denominations of this device shows how huge the Internet scope is today. We call it World Wide Web or the Net, which refers to the cobweb and illustrates the fact that this device relates to people all around the world and allows them to share anything they want, no matter the distance.
As the spider makes its web as its own piece of art, the Web has become a stage where people are free to express themselves through social networks. Social media became a real exhibition place, a museum in which artists can drop their work, targeting a new audience. They touch another generation of people, their pieces of art are like freely delivered, more accessible. The time when art was restricted for an elite to which it was difficult to be part of is over. Now artists’ independence was improve: no more needs of talent managers, expensive promotion or marketing actions that could make your art more commercial than creative. In fact, it was unavoidable that art was changed by this new promotion platforms.
This new public and audience are fond of this new way of discovering the world and enriching their culture ; they like surfing on aesthetic websites, watching pleasant videos, seeing beautiful pictures… Therefore, the Web needs to be kind of “pretty”. Everything has a meaning concerning the colors, the words, the fonts… Everything is chosen for a particular use and target. That’s why communication schools, graphic design studies, visual communication has become really popular these recent years : jobs like Web Designer and Digital Manager are now necessary in a company.
But, the more beautiful about all this progress is that aesthetic is now accessible for everyone. Thanks to softwares and special techniques, even an amateur can become a web artist.
Indeed, aestheticism is important nowadays and this is what leads social media actually. We can focus on Instagram which is a great example. Instagram’s aesthetic is refined, the background is white, the typography of “Instagram” is black as well as the menu (home, discover, profile, activities) which gives a very pure look. However the app hasn’t always been like that : the design was more rough before since it had a particular nuance of blue banner that accompanied the white Instagram’s typography. The logo has evolved too ; before it was representing a sort of vintage camera with tern colours such as brown but now, it always represents a camera yet with white lines and a colourful background which brings creative colours and another, more artistic, aspect of the app : it is still about photography, as the logo speak for itself, it calls out for more creativity and originality.
Instagram is like a blank canvas to which we add our Art and make it more personal. It can be photos of all kind of artistic movements such as landscapes, portraits, creations, videos, or just us… our choices are unlimited. More and more users follow an aesthetic format for their profile in order to be satisfied, give satisfaction to others but also to gain more likes and comments - whether they are fake or real because we can now buy our followers thanks to applications dedicated to this. Some accounts are considered as huge influencers, references and models to follow. It even became an addiction for some people frequently using social media. People nowadays try their best to make their Instagram the most visible possible. To do so, they create aestheticism. The word “Aesthetic” became a real matter and is one of the most popular hashtag on the App. It can be everything and nothing at the same time because people give their own definition of it, through their posts. Some people want to post photos that are similar by their colours to keep a track. Some others want to put as much colour as possible to bring a very creative touch to their Instagram. People’s Instagram became real Art pieces and their “cost” vary depending on the likes number. It is now about competition between users, to see which account will have more likes and popularity.
Social media users want always more. They seek to be the most known by posting the most desirable posts but to what extent…
This man looking for recognition through his posts for example, sets himself as a work of art. In fact the photograph takes pictures of a person, does the makeup, chooses the outfit and a kind of light, landscape, in order to pose precisely his artistic look. Thus, does the model become a work of art by being modeled by the artist?
The woman’s and man’s body is nowadays used as a way to make art, to pass messages, and is finally overexposed on the social medias, since forever. Women are exposed as a sensual and sexual fact, posing to expose their physical attributes. It seems like it’s a rule of guarantee on social medias. For exemple, many women and young ladies take pictures in provocation ways, in a swimsuit on the beach, exposing less and less clothes and more and more skin in sensual positions to suggest desire. Even if women’s cliches are to pose and suggest desire, nowadays it’s the same for men. Women are jealous by other women who want to look like them, and by men but in a more sensual way. Men may be used to suggest desire by women, but even more by men as the homosexuality is more and more accepted by the society.
Nowadays the question is about the signification of art: in which goal are used these men, also « works of art » ? What’s the difference between a commercial work and a work of art? How does the human being reduces himself by posing and taking pictures in front of real works of art to get recognition thanks to social medias? Does the meaning of art change to recreate another type of art?
So much questions to finally know what does the human being wants to expose to the society.
As an example, we can focus on the famous youtuber Jay Alvarez, sharing his life on social medias in a sensual way, his sculpted and tanned body, surrounded by incredibly beautiful women, in amazing landscapes and filming crazy activities.
Those videos are worked, realized with professional material and then become professional and rewarded. If a man manages to live thanks to his visual or artistic productions, than we can consider him as an artist.
The question now is how far is the man able to go to make is life a work of art?
First, it is worth mentioning that not only social media have become the number one entertainment source, but they have also become a major leverage for businesses all over the world.
One of the interesting aspects of social platforms is their ability to gather people from the four corners of the world, allowing them to share their opinions, their hobbies or their interests. Nevertheless, if you consider it from a different point of view, you become aware that we are might have underestimated the effects of an intense social media use on our daily lives especially regarding our consumption habits.
Indeed, you feel pressured to comply with the rules of Instagram as in travelling to exotic and must-seen places, living a fancy lifestyle and going out, or having a perfect body and the latest-trendiest-most exclusive piece of clothing to go with it. The embodiment of this particular “Instagram behaviour” is the hashtag #goal. It is the idea that your life revolves around this #goal since you admire- or sometimes envy- people who managed to achieve this Instagramable perfect life like Jay Alvarez mentioned earlier and you want to reach this goal yourself. This is heaven for businesses. As a matter of fact, if brands are able to enter this pattern where people see a new trend coming on social media and their only desire is to follow this trend spending money in a new bag or a new watch that will not even be trendy in few months, they got it all.
A recent report from Deloitte illustrates how Social Media influence consumption habits.
The Deloitte report provided some insight on which product categories work best on social media. According to their data, 56 percent of consumers buying baby products are influenced by social media, compared to 40 percent for home furnishings, 33 percent for health and wellness and 32 percent for automotive. The effects of social media are not something business owners can afford to overlook. The report also noted that consumers who use social media during their shopping process are four times more likely to spend more on purchases than those who don’t. It goes even further. The report states that shoppers are 29 percent more likely to make a purchase the same day when using social media to help shop before or during a trip to the store.
Social media give an enormous extent of opportunities for businesses to extend customer engagement and get people talking about a brand, but most importantly it enable them to play on the recognition factor or the idea that you want to buy certain items to belong to a specific community and thus, you’ll obtain recognition. Most of the time it isn’t cheap to reach these #goals, so you assert yourself as someone who can afford a particular piece of clothing and it makes you feel like you belong to some sort of exclusive social media aristocracy. In fact, social media did modify our culture and became a subculture in itself where a group of people share values and systems based on common life experiences and situations. Regarding both our consumption habits but also the impact on our mental health, we cannot neglect social media’s influence in our life.
It’s no news to anybody that Social Media has an important influence on our lives. The platform has a great power but the content itself is what shapes our addiction to social media. As said previously art is widely spread on social media, with different forms of art. Social networks are only the medium to convey a message.
Art, just like dreams, gives an outlet to our unconscious desires. It as always been a way of expressing our emotions and feelings. For instance theater was one of the first medium to introduce a way to express emotions. This theory was introduce by the philosopher Aristotle in his artwork names Poetics II. Art is the representation of passion and holds a cathartic role, this technic is called the mimesis, it’s a formal, technical imitative representation of the real world in art and literature. For instance Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare is the repression of burning passion, or L’avare by Molière is the personification of greed.
Art has the power to make you express and feel what others are. Let’s take another example for instance music has the power to make you feel happy, to make you sad or even confused. Sam Smith a very famous British artist has written a lot of sad songs related to life in general. People relate to life adventure : tragedy, heartbreaks, and love. His last album called “Thrill of it all” is the hymne for a fresh start in life. Every song on the album has it’s own story and relate to different issues or emotions. My personal favorite “HIM”, on which Sam Smith inhabits the shoes of a gay child in the South struggling to reconcile his religious upbringing and his sexual orientation, is even more intriguing. It’s an explicit coming-out song, and that’s a surprising choice for someone who consciously avoided gender pronouns on In the Lonely Hour,- his previous album- so straight people could find themselves in his songs too. But the song is a beautiful hymn for all the all the LGBT people. We can all find a little bit of ourselves in Art.
We apply the mimesis everyday within our lives because art has the power to influence life and who we are. It builds empathy and relationship between the art, the artist and the people.
Social media has kind of the same power but in the different way, it has a cathartic power. It’s important for people to share and express their emotions. With the uprising of social networks people today share more more their feelings with artwork that are representative of their state of mind. Social Media and Art are intimately inter winded. Those platforms has opened up a new way of expression in the 21st century, and sharing personals stories such as battling cancer can be an act of catharsis. A recent example of this is Stephen Sutton, aged 19 who used his Facebook page to document his story of living with bowel cancer. Stephen posted a photo of what he thought was his final photo, with a send off. This triggered multiple donations to the charity Teenage Cancer Trust. After going viral, the total now stands at over £3 million, and this is yet another superb example of social media influencing the masses. Not all story of sharing story on social media are as amazing as this one, most of the time it’s not. For instance documented rape or murder. It still remains an unsettling concept that people decide to publicly document moments of great tragedy. Some acts of catharsis can help an individual and a great cause also, and Stephen Sutton’s story is a fantastic example of this. It might not be art but the result on people minds might's well be the same.
Today artists feels cramped in art’s rules for instance. Social networks changed the rules of art by democratising every of it’s form. Of course social Media is an important representative but the subject and the content takes more importance than the platform itself. Social Media brings exposure but it mostly created a new way of sharing and publishing art.
Social media bring the idea that there is sense of universality within art. The work of art expresses the subjectivity however if it did not express that this subjectivity, others could not recognise themselves in the work, it thus needs a universal dimension of what is presented.
Art just like social media gives an outlet to our unconscious desires, transform our life, consumption and vision of our body. As the Netflix series « Black Mirror » try to show it, technology and social media change our life to the point where some of us confuse the reality and the virtual world.
Moreover, we actually realize artistic exploit by creating robots which looks like human thanks to the wax and its mechanismes. Thanks to certain new applications and social networks, they can be controlled. To where, the art can mix to the social networks?
Written by Lina B., Pauline G., Marie D., Andrea A. and Clémence S.
Excellent! Great job!