This summer, I could tell when rent was due by the sudden profusion of dumps; the final days of the month seemed to trigger some kind of retrospective mania. The albums that appeared mingled vacation snapshots and restaurant pics with posed portraits, pet photos, screenshotted memes, and blurry video clips. At first glance, they seemed to be chaotic jumbles, but the collections of images often conveyed an over-all atmosphere—a vibe—by way of juxtaposition, with the disparate scenes cohering like the elements of a collage.
Living life rather than curating it“Compared to your usual pristine spread of food, there’s more nonchalance to an image of half-eaten dinner,” one instructed. “If you’re feeling particularly enigmatic, go for a single emoji,” another advised.
No one wants to be judged on just one photo when that post will be appearing in the same feeds as those of professional influencers and glossy magazines. Social media is no longer meant for connecting with friends; it is designed almost entirely to facilitate the following of brands and the monetizing of personalities.
What if the byproduct of social media activity were not social connection but a physical artifact — something that requires ongoing care, like a garden? The shift from ephemeral feed content to something tangible and persistent could change the relationship between creator and output, replacing performative curation with stewardship.
