The Instagram Illusion & The Elephant in the Room

I am a social media junkie. My 'drug of choice' is twitter, but I dabble in all of the major social media sites. Recently, Instagram has risen to a close second in ranking.

Today in class we talked about whether or not people are fake about what we post on instagram, making up experiences and glorifying our lives to a point where it is vastly different from the lives we actually lead.

This reminded me of one picture in particular that I posted in my past. To this day, it is my most "liked" picture on the gram. Now, I am a zoology major (with a comm studies minor) so I have been blessed to do a lot of work with exotic animals. This makes for some pretty cool pictures, but the coolest was definitely taken when I job shadowed at the Louisville Zoo with the two elephants they had there.

While this sounds amazing, on this particular job shadow I didn't do anything more than stand in a hallway watching the workers do their jobs with a rake in my hand. Exciting? Not really. However, right before I left I asked the keepers if I could get a picture with one of the elephants named Mickey. They agreed, and Mickey and I snapped a glorious pic, me standing next to her leg petting her shoulder. The pic was immediately posted on ALL social media sites. The caption read "What an amazing day working with the elephants at the Louisville Zoo!" Did I actually "work with" the elephants? No. The most exciting part of the "work" was cutting sweet potatoes for their dinner. However, because of Instagram and other social media, I was able to present my day spent there as such an amazing, exciting experience.

Did I fake the experience of working with the elephants? No. Did I embellish? Definitely. I don't personally feel like I lied to my followers.

Ok so maybe I did lie, but it was harmless. I really liked when someone in the class said that social media allowed people to visualize and present their ideal selves: this is what this picture was for me. Maybe I didn't get to physically work with the elephants that day, but one day, I hope I can make that statement without embellishing the truth. This is how I choose to view the presenting self on social media: a visualization of the ideal self.