Duncan 1

Olivia Duncan

Dr. Holt

Essential Questionings

5-1-2017

A Distorted Lens On Reality

The true power of social media is influence, education and unfortunately manipulation.

Given its power, it should come as no surprise that social media is rapidly consuming our

modern day lives. In a way, we are now living through an outlandish version of a self-created

utopia that technology readily grants us. The strength of this new medium has opened a door to

endless possibilities for attaining awareness, self-made power and the building of a public

persona. Because social media now acts as a loop whole to power, its altering our modern day

version of self-fashioning. It creates an often-questionable lens on the creation of the self.

Arguably, it may reduce real world connection. The enticing proposition of creating your own

customized image and then living vicariously through other people that we follow, is very

seductive to many. I plan to inquire the realm of self-imaging, power and social media, in

modern day with correlation to the Renaissance era.

Various sources suggest that about 81% of the United States population use social media

(Percentage of U.S). This means that 81% of us are being consumed and indoctrinated by this

often unnatural perfection that the media possesses. We have a general persona we construct and

put in the hands of media, based on who we want to be. As a result of the medias influence,

people are often mislead into believing other peoples lives are much better than his or her own.

This medium has created such a distorted lens on reality that the idea of self-fashioning is

increasingly enabling portrayal of an inaccurate representation of a persons true self.

 Duncan 2

American Shakespearean and literary historian, Stephen Greenblatt introduced the theory

of self-fashioning in the 80s. He explains it as the method of fabricating ones identity, a publics

persona, in reference to a set of socially acceptable standards, and a conscious effort to strive to

imitate a praised model or image in society (The Concept). It is not my intention to argue a

difference in the denotation of self-fashioning, yet the effortless actions people now have to

make in order to become that so-called praised model Greenblatt references to.

In one of Greenblatts pieces, Renaissance of Self-Fashioning, the upper class often

practiced self-fashioning. Their attire and behavior was prescribed for both noblemen and

-women. For men, self-fashioning was about their fluency in education, art, sports, and other

culturally determined noble exercises, that defined who they wanted to be. The Renaissance

ideological traits that portray masculinity would translate to power and authority; meanwhile

beauty translates to purity, virtue and modesty for women. Both men and women were to be

painted as a work of art in order to reflect their position in society. In portraits, women would

represent those characteristics through abundant jewelry, fancy dresses and idealized features. It

was not intended to be showy through affected manners, but presented naturally and

nonchalantly. During the Renaissance there was a trend of individuals in art and in literature.

People were consciously fashioning themselves, and constructing [their] identities through

clothing and symbols (Eastbury English).

In 1513, politician and Italian Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli examined how to

become a man in power. Machiavellis piece, The Prince served as a handbook for rulers, giving

advice such as ways in which a person should carry themselves in regards to their people. Due to

his audiences desire for power he created established and entire political realism on how to gain

it and keep it. His work became so influential that the only way to attain power, at the time, was
 Duncan 3

by conforming to his rules. He established what a man with power should look and act like. It is

interesting to think about who has the power to do that to our society today? Do we have a

person that influences the public so heavily that everyone will automatically conform to? The

answer is yes- social media.

As a consequence of social media, the cyber world has created a false reality that alters

what makes up self-identification. Today, the meaning of beauty for woman does not translate to

purity, modesty and virtue, instead its connotation is connected to the physical aesthetics and

sexuality. In addition, yesterdays idea that an individuals attire was a major factor in defining

upper class is almost humorous. The need for fine dressing has gone down immensely since the

80s. Instead today, it is the actions people choose to make and publicize, the knowledge we

possess and present, and the standards we live up to.

Similarly to the upper class in Greenblatts study, politicians need to maintain and present

fine attire and knowledge. The reason being, the media is full of opinions- good, bad, strange

and indifferent(Barrett). Those opinions will indirectly shape the self. Because the information

is out for the public to retain and interpret, it can become detrimental for a politician. It can make

or break their campaign by altering his or her self-fashioning for the worst. There is a domino

effect when it comes to transparency and sadly the explicit act of fabricated fashioning happens

to be very prevalent in politics as well. In the most recent U.S election both politicians were

heavily dependent on the media, as it was incumbent upon them to share their persona and their

political commentary to the public. Many have concluded that Trumps ability to circumvent

traditional media through heavy use of twitter enabled him to defeat Clinton, who was a distinct

favorite up until voting day. The media can also create room for misrepresentation. In summary,

politicians rely heavily on the media because of the instant connection to the public. With the
 Duncan 4

ability to easily alter your self image, the media can manifests an individuals power. If the media

didnt mold personas and peoples beliefs, the term influencer would never exist (Barrett).

Perhaps this was a result of the media creating a distorted lens over the systems idea of reality.

It is difficult to even decipher what reality is anymore. We continue to alter our realities

so heavily that people have become less sensitized to even question what what reality is, even if

that reality does not include photoshop and manipulation. Our society now faces a problem of

rejection to reality. Discomfort often arises when we see a photo of ourselves without a filter,

lens, or flash and decide it must be deleted as it does not conform to what we feel best represents

the real me. The truth is people are often displeased with a natural photo. Does this mean our

society has lost connection to the real world? Have we created a permanent lens to correct

realities flaws? Ultimately this distortion spans far beyond our self fashioning, for example the

news.

There is an article recently published by Kalev Leetaru, on Forbes (2016) that contributes

to the idea of social media dominating our lives and realities. Leetaru, discusses the emergence

of blind spots amongst the media is making, regarding reporting of news stories. The author

writes, analyses drawn from social media can often yield results wildly off from reality, even in

social-saturated markets such as the United States (Forbes, 2016). Leetaru further explores in

some depth the ways the media influenced the 2017 and 2012 outcome in the political elections

for the United States. For example, twitter produced an interactive visualization of tweets about

candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney that showed Obama dominating engagement in

Southern states that ultimately were won by Romney (Forbes, 2016). Thus demonstrating the

limitations of using social media to draw hard and fast conclusions. It is the ability to publish and

platform anything we want, that initiates the distortion on reality.

 Duncan 5

One of the dark sides of social media is the increasing perception of perfection as reality,

despite clear evidence to the contrary which suggest imperfection is the most realistic of all

realities we confront. This perception contains massive power to influence. A type of power that

can be inflicted and brought upon, by an individual. With the convenience of instant media

access, an individual, a group, a company of the media can now control the publics perception

of him or herself, to position themselves in broader society. As I stated before, there is a enticing

proposition of creating your own customized image and then living vicariously through other

people that we follow, therefore I believe the idea of self-fashioning today has been drastically

reshaped as a result of social medias dominance.

Works Cited

Barrett, Jeff. "3 ways social media is warping politics more than ever." Digital Trends, 21 Sept.

2016, www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/how-social-media-is-warping-politics-more-

than-ever/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

 Duncan 6

Eastbury English Literature, eastburyenglishliterature.weebly.com/renaissance-self-

fashioning.html. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

Leetaru, Kalev. "Does Social Media Actually Reflect Reality?" Forbes, 16 Feb. 2016. Forbes,

www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/02/16/does-social-media-actually-reflect-

reality/#17da83274e43. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.

Percentage of U.S. population with a social media profile from 2008 to 2017.

www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-network-

profile/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

"Re: The Concept of Self-Fashioning by Stephen Greenblatt." Literary Theory and Critism

Notes, 18 Oct. 2016, literariness.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/the-concept-of-self-

fashioning-by-stephen-greenblatt/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2017.