FACEBOOK'S IMAGES

 

Like language, the images that inhabit the worlds of the social media are mind-numbing and cliché ridden. One often hears about a 24 hour news cycle and I reckon that the same sort of principle applies to postings and status updates. Imaging plays a big part in this as it’s meant to capture the punter’s attention. Alongside language being caught up in the vortex of decreasing meaning and quality, the images that users generate have become predictable and formula-driven.

What’s made the whole thing worse is that platforms like Facebook have substantially reduced access to online news services and special interest sites so that newsfeeds are now full of images highlighting skulls, café cuisines, half consumed glasses of a rough red (often accompanied with a scent-infused candle chugging away in the background) and punters jumping up and down for some reason. And it’s this kind of dross that has become the reality for anyone activating an electronic device.

Image attention-getting now seems to focus on the self. Punters’ walls not only become electronic pin boards of their comings, goings, thoughts and attractive progeny but, also, portals to their own mirror images via phones and cameras. Don’t look for explanations from me. My levels of expertise hit the ceiling at Psych 101 some fifty years ago but I’d confidently guess that Freud would have a field day when analysing the background to, and reasons for, the self-exposure in images that a significant minority of users now regularly post.

While an armchair deconstruction of the motives behind this narcissism should be left to the shrinks, the actual anatomy of self-edifying images is worthy of brief study and there are a few rough categories that the content sample appears to fall into. These include Half face, The big O, Toilet talk, Lockjaw and The full body bag.

1.      Half face- This image often confronts users when the updater posts any sort of graphic but has part of his or her head in the presentation. I think it’s meant to channel spontaneity or devil-may-care bravado but you routinely get a very good take on skin blemishes and jowls. It’s as if the punter attempts to encode a generated image with the personalised watermark of their own face. ‘Relevance’ or ‘image degradation’ aren’t in the lexicon of Half face perps.

2.      The big O- This group of images centres on the perp’s mouth being wide open when a picture is taken. It’s rather disconcerting in that a single image can be forgiven (sort of) but when they hit the dub dub dub every second Sunday then the obvious question has to be asked. I’m often confused when Big Os surface on the monitor because the natural response is to insert an upgraded burger meal deal in the gaping orifice yet, on other occasions, a ping pong ball seems far more appropriate……… if you get my drift.

3.      Toilet talk- Here is a rather alarming sub-group where the image generator retreats to a bathroom or toilet to harvest a swag of pictures which feature him or her cavorting in the bog. The general pop, as you’d expect, is the ultimate loser when ‘publication’ of the poop pasticcio album eventually and inevitably happens. It’s a load of shit in more ways than you’d imagine.

4.      Lockjaw- Manufactured ‘visages’ are all the go with this set. There’s a default setting for the smile and it’s adhered to for image after image. I’m assuming that individualised mouth guards are inserted prior to the happy snaps being taken in order to achieve a quality-controlled consistency from day to day, month to month and year to year etc. etc. Teeth form the wallpaper of these delightful moments captured on the hp Pavilion and dentists frequently scour social media sites for potential customers. Please note that a tetanus shot is often recommended when mouth guards aren’t available.

5.      The full body bag- The F.B.B. occupies the zenith of all this self-centred claptrap. The punter stands in front of a full length mirror and processes an image of themselves with their camera or phone pointed towards the reflector. I’ve seen quite a few of these ‘efforts’ lately and, far from depicting an alluring portrait, they all resemble a State Transit Authority bus coming straight at you. One can only hope that the screen on your device of choice is capable of withstanding a collision at catastrophic level.  

Social media sites serve as echo chambers of approval that reinforce all of this odd and ‘me’-focussed behaviour. The cycle of image generation, posting and affirmative response now operates in a predetermined fashion and the whole circus becomes almost normalised. If religion is dead, then its heir must surely be the adoration of images that defy reasoned intelligence and fairly basic humility. We’re all becoming dumber.