When I came to Copenhagen over three months ago, I started an Instagram account specifically to document my time here (@spkobenhavn). The idea was I’d post something every day and share short updates about what I was doing so that people who were interested could keep up with my experience and I wouldn’t have to tell the same stories over and over again to multiple people. So far, it’s worked pretty well, and curating it has been a fun and interesting challenge in a way that I wasn’t expecting.
Upon starting the account I was approaching it as part scrapbook, part journal, part travel blog, but quickly big questions started coming up for me.
Is this account something I’m doing more for myself, or my followers?
Am I trying to portray my truthful and honest experience, or am I trying to show the cool and interesting parts of visiting and living in Copenhagen?
Should I approach my posts through an artistic lens or more of a journalistic one?
Personally, I’ve always valued authenticity. I think it’s what truly allows people to connect with one another. It’s so beautiful to me to see what lights a person up or gets them excited. At the same time, I think it can be almost profound to see and understand what challenges a person faces, or even just the mundane aspects of their life. It’s so interesting for me to learn about other people’s perspectives and how they overlap or diverge from my own.
Unfortunately, in the age of social media and late-stage capitalism, everything is commodified and it’s impossible to escape from advertisements in some way, shape, or form. There are even ads on this web page. Brands go so far to sell their products and services that they create social media accounts and give those accounts personalities to engage with their target consumer base and build loyalty. In my view, this essentially weaponizes the idea of authenticity in order to manipulate consumers into changing their behavior (i.e. buying specific products). The problem is that the ideas expressed by brands’ social media accounts are only being expressed in order to connect with consumers. A company itself cannot be passionate about social issues like racism or gender equality. A brand itself cannot think that a joke is funny, or make fun of another brand. This personification is intentional, calculated, and designed to make us feel attached to it. I myself am not immune, and some companies and organizations take it a step further by actually putting action behind their online “personalities”. I don’t even think that it’s all bad, but I think it’s important to be aware of it and think about our attachment to brands critically.
However, it’s not just large companies and well-known brands that do this. Like I said before, EVERYTHING is commodified, and that includes us, our bodies, our ideas, and our lifestyles. As “normal” people, we might not feel this way, but everyone who shares their life, interests, humor, etc. on social media has a brand. It might not be very well constructed or maintained like those of influencers and celebrities but it still exists.
That’s why I think the questions I was asking myself at the beginning of this post were so challenging and interesting for me to answer because they’re really asking “how do I want to brand myself?” Honestly, I still don’t know. I do value authenticity, and honesty when it comes to telling my story, but If I wanted to be a travel writer or something, I’d probably be taking a very different approach to my Instagam account.
Even still, there are things that I don’t share on my Instagram because they’re embarrassing, or I don’t think they’re interesting, or I simply don’t have the energy to type out the story. So while it’s my goal that the image that I’ve created and shared on Instagram is reflective of my real life and my feelings, it’s not everything. I know this isn’t news, and even our outward presentations of ourselves are performances that change and shift depending on the setting and who we’re with.
I think these reflections are coming up for me because my primary goal for this account is to share my experience and connect with people I care about. The way I have approached posting and captioning, and the way that my friends and family have approached following and interacting with my posts, this works pretty well. However, when I look at the rest of social media, I see a world of parasocial relationships with the primary goal of selling products and it makes me really uncomfortable (I think that’s why I have a hard time self-promoting my own things). It makes me uncomfortable because these social media platforms that are marketed with the intent of promoting personal connection, have really become platforms for promoting products. I guess I feel out of place trying to connect with people in a space that feels so fake and manipulative.
Something that I’ve often expressed on my Instagram is that being here has in some ways felt very isolating. I often feel the urge within myself to talk to someone, and often it’s not possible to quench that urge, so I turn to social media to feel some of the connection I’m looking for. It does feel nice when I get likes and comments on my posts, or when I get messages from my friends. But inevitably, there’s still a wall there, and sometimes logging on to Instagram when I don’t have notifications waiting for me just makes me feel more isolated and empty.
While these feelings can be incredibly challenging to deal with, these reflections and realizations are really valuable lessons to learn. In that way, I’m grateful for these challenges, because I’m not sure that I would have learned these things with such clarity without them.
I’m not yet sure what the next step is. How do I grow from these new perspectives? How do I continue to share my story in an increasingly virtual and commercialized world? How do I navigate the need to make money in order to support myself while staying true to myself? These are questions that I will continue to ask myself even after my time here ends.
Sophia Penney 