Talk:Madeline Jursek
Comment #1 (Madison Garver): Hi Maddie,
I really enjoyed reading about your Facebook avatar! We have been friends for three years now (yikes we are old), and I could sense your authenticity as an individual. This is very well-written and honest. Brava!
You did an excellent job in this piece of relating your personal experiences and feelings to greater phenomena in the world (both online and offline). Your analysis may benefit from expanding on some of the ideas you introduce, though. For example, you talk a lot about standards of beauty and how you alter or curate your identity to better adhere to these standards. However, what are these standards? Where do they come from? Are they perceived from your Facebook network or greater cultural norms? Furthermore, what are some of the implications of these standards and how you choose to work with them? You talk about whether or not they are ethical, and you mention that photo editing is gray. What are some possible consequences from editing?
Finally, just because your writing prompted me to evaluate my own habits and think critically of my own practices and now my brain is churning, it may be interesting for you to explore how your persona cultivation affects the overall perception that people have of your profile. What do you believe that others think when they visit your profile? Because your analysis is very visual in nature, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about how the desire to appear as attractive as possible affects the non-visual content you post. Additionally, is there ever a line where you are willing to post/keep a photo tag where you may feel as though you do not look your best, BUT the social implications/significance of the photo outweigh the "unattractiveness?" For example, sometimes my friends tag me in terrible photos of myself and I WANT to remove the tag, but I don't because I don't want them to be offended that I don't want to be seen with them OR the photo is from an impressive event, so I still want people to see it.
The questions or discussion points (or whatever you wanna call them) I came up with are just extra things to think about. As I mentioned earlier, I think this is a great piece, and I appreciate your insight.
Best, Madison
Comment #2 (Courtney Quell):
I believe that any girl who has a profile on Facebook or Instagram can relate to this post. It's true. We all worry about our body image and how others perceive us. It is human nature to judge others on their looks, even if we don't do so on purpose. This post speaks to that. You are very authentic in your account of retouching your pictures and untagging yourself in unflattering photos. I've done it, and most other girls can admit to it as well. Your writing tells your story of this process and how it impacts your friends and what they post. It's an issue that we unfortunately have to deal with based on our perception of social media personas, but I understand. It's a twenty first century phenomenon that we have to worry about our online presence just as much, if not more, than how we look in public everyday. This will not be going away anytime soon and will have an impact on future generations of social media users.
