Rethinking Digital Media and Culture

As I mentioned in my first blog post, before creating this website, I had tried three other times to make a successful blog, only to be foiled by my own laziness. I won't lie; I'm not much of an avid writer, so the only thing motivating me to update this blog is the grade. However, I have learned a lot about digital media through the upkeep of my own website for the past two months.

Before this class, my experience with digital media was purely practical. I managed my own social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. This past summer, I was the digital marketing intern at a commercial mortgage lending company, and I had some experience managing social media accounts in a corporate setting. Currently, I help run the social media accounts for my dance team. The way I was trained by society to use digital media was for the sake of popularity. In my own accounts, I seek validation from the number of followers I have, and the number of likes my posts get. I promoted myself, my company, and my dance team in order to spread awareness for those organizations and interest potential clients. Running a personal blog is entirely different to me than traditional social media. The goal of this blog is not for me to gain popularity, because chances are, the only people who will be reading this are Dr. Solomon and me. This blog is simply a space to be myself, and share my personal thoughts, which I cannot do on Instagram and Facebook. For example, in my essay "Using Tumblr Memes as Coping Mechanisms," I discussed my battle with what I think was a depressive phase two years ago. That is information I would never share on traditional social media, yet the more intimate nature of a personal blog makes me feel safer sharing that information here. It makes me realize how different digital media platforms help us bring out different aspects of our personality, and how there is a different culture on each type of platform.