Project Brief 2: Nostalgia in the Social Media Age – Post 3

Social media is the catalyst of nostalgia for the recent past.

 

There are only a few functions that a user can do while looking through an Instagram feed. They can like, save or comment on every photo as they continue to scroll through an endless stream of pictures. The inherent nature of online, social media is that is it constantly changing to keep up-to-date with all its contributors. Each person’s social media feed is personalised to them alone, they choose who they want to see and follow. Because of the connected nature of online socialising and the amount of content that is generated, most users do not spend a great amount of time absorbing a single item. This has led to websites, especially Facebook, embracing the nostalgia for recent events. ‘Friendaversary’ is a concept created for Facebook users to share with others that they are celebrating the day they became friends with someone on the website.

In his article for Photography and Culture, Mike Chopra-Gant examines “the claims of both academic and journalistic commentators that this practice can easily be explained as an instance of the “nostalgia for the present”’ (2016, pg. 121). This announcement is prompted by a private message from Facebook when a user first logs in on the given day, informing the user of the importance of the day. Accompanying this message is a short video, comprising of shared photos posted to Facebook featuring the two friends within a ready-made montage. The person then can simply press the share button to post it to their feed, embracing the nostalgia of a recent past.

Because these social media applications are a click of a button away on every smart-phone, not much time is spent on appreciating a post, the most being a like or a quick pause in the absent minded scrolling. What makes the embracing of a past post or picture attractive to social media users is that is reminds them of a small happy moment that they forgot about quickly after it happened. It is a small jolt of positive remembrance to their online experience while also confirming its part in their lives as it continues to connect people through nostalgia. “Nostalgia is a positive and longing disposition towards the past. The nostalgic past is not the ‘mere past’; it is imbued with feeling and qualities” (Mortensen & Madsen, 2014, pg. 252).

To slightly remix this quick fix of sentimentality, I went back to my Instagram feed and chose two of my first posted photos and two recently posted photos. I printed them off and physically annotated them to further remember the events around the picture aside from the usual shallow form of nostalgia. What made this activity interesting is that “photography as a medium always contains some element of loss, because the moment photographed is lost to time” (Bull, 2012, pg. 25). Social media heightens this inherent nature because the picture will inevitably become lost amongst the unending stream of pictures. The need to add to this stream forces users to create more photos, so they never really spend time focusing on past pictures. When they are reminded, nostalgia for a recent history by strikes again. Until another distraction comes along.

 

Bibliography

Bull, Stephen (2012) ‘‘Digital Photography Never Looked So Analogue’: Retro Camera Apps, Nostalgia and the Hauntological Photograph’ Photoworks: Issue 18, pp.24-25

Chopra-Gant (2016) ‘Pictures or It Didn’t Happen: Photo-nostalgia, iPhoneography and the Representation of Everyday Life’ Photography and Culture, vol. 9(2), pp. 121-133

Mortensen, Christian & Madson, Westergaard (2014) ‘The Sound of Yesteryear on Display: A Rethinking of Nostalgia as a Strategy For Exhibiting Pop/Rock Heritage’ International Journal of Heritage Studies, pp. 1-14