Why I'm Rethinking This

*note: aside from slight modifications, this post is coming straight from my diary, a very raw entry. 

May 11, 2020, 12:44 AM

In quarantine my school requires that I'm online everyday.

When I'm not doing homework, you'll find me on Instagram. I'm on the app everyday; not healthy, I know. I mainly use it to talk to friends and clean out my feed and go on my explore page. It's also one of my only ways to get in touch with the friends who's numbers aren't saved to my phone.

I like Instagram, but there's a lot of problems with the app. Like, it gets boring and toxic after a while. I have what I think is the most clear feed now and my explore page is a LOT different than what it used to be (I've had Instagram for nearly 2 years), but no matter what I always find myself wanting to search up the accounts of people who I'm not even close to in real life.

Instagram's "Story" feature really irritates me sometimes. I haven't posted on my story a lot at all except for yesterday (Mother's Day) because it's so freaking pointless. I used to give people time and energy when I'd post on my story.

I'd post about K-pop and put pictures of myself on my story and use filters and add songs that I liked, and honestly only 50-some people would "view" it. I say "view" meaning people look at it for 2 seconds and then move on.

This isn't always the case because there are people who do actually care and take interest in me on the app. A lot of times though I assume people will literally just click through my story - that I'll think is meaningful - and view it for 2 SECONDS. Like I'll spend near 10 minutes overthinking a story post that someone will only view for 2 SECONDS???  That's an issue!



Instagram also plays other mind games with me and its users even if we don't pick up on it all the time, which is why I'm cutting back from posting at the moment. Every time I'm about to post anything it takes a mental chunk out of me. It makes me think thoughts that are self-damaging because I know that everyone is going to see what I post.

The app promotes posting and sharing pictures and videos, so why do I feel like I'm already being judged for my actions before I post?

It's because Instagram makes you care when you shouldn't care, and then promotes how you "shouldn't care". It's near impossible to have the app and truly not care about what people think of you and post what you want.

There's times when I wanted to go crazy and post about K-pop boys and male K-pop groups on my story, but my mind went "They're going to think you're a Korea-boo" and "If your crush sees this he'll think you're weird and that you only like him because he's Asian". It's always the same self-damaging lies that happen pre-posting.

No, I haven't gotten rid of the app, and I don't think I will for a while. I still use it to talk to my friends and post things I create on my art account. I can't change the app, but I can change the way I use it.  My main issues with Instagram are that people aren't given true respect and credit and stories are dumb. Also seeing food porn (glamorized portrayal of food) every day on my explore page can get annoying.

Next is the topic of YouTube. No I'm not biting the hand that feeds me.

I wasn't around for the "glory days" of the platform but I know YouTube used to be a lot different. I can't believe I'm being one of those people who say "YouTube isn't fun anymore" but I am and I get why people say it.

There are creators on YouTube who always want to spend 9 MINUTES promoting the entire entertainment industry at the beginning of their videos. I'll be sitting there watching like "Can you just start?" and real connection is lost as soon as they start promotion. If I'm on the app I'm either watching Insider, model and fashion runway videos, or anything K-pop (like this video series by Johnny from NCT. NO PROMO!!).

You won't catch me watching a lot of influencers because I find their promotion annoying. When I uploaded an unlisted YouTube video of a class assignment that I did with my friends, I noticed that the upload process was a lot different. YouTube basically said "Oh, you can add  all of these promo features on your videos now". I sat there like "I literally just want to put a video on here with no tags or any of that for a class don't make this complicated???"

I spent a lot of time on YouTube yesterday and I was watching a video of a girl who rated celebrities on how they coped with quarantine during the pandemic (I won't link her video for multiple reasons). SHE is the reason why I only watch music videos or creators that I trust.

Her video also made me realize that you'll never be able to fully express and explain yourself on the internet. In her video she commented on a video of Madonna in a petal-filled bath tub saying "(Covid) is the great equalizer". She also brought up Gwyneth Paltrow's new candle and how she thought it was weird, when these celebrities could care less!

This girl didn't realize that she was bringing light to their names even if she wasn't talking about them in a positive light. Some actors and celebrities are also performing artists and can drop weird content online and dip all the time because they know it will cause discussion and bring them attention in the end.

I combined this realization with what I came to earlier about "not being able to fully express yourself online". I realized if I was a celebrity, I would be dropping "weird" content too! Right now I know myself well enough and I know that the internet is vast yet limited. People can chose if they want to understand you or not.

A person who came to mind when I thought of this was Harry Styles. This man tweeted the word "Do" and people freaked out. Now I understand. I think Harry knows himself well enough - then and now - that he didn't need to fully explain. He probably went "I don't really care I'm an artist so I'll tweet it" which is really powerful.

Do

— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) October 5, 2019

I think realizing that the internet cannot fully let you express yourself is powerful because then, like Harry, you can just mess around and be as evasive and seemingly mysterious as you want.

In the end. these platforms aren't terrible, but we should always be aware of how they use us.

sources -

Me
GIPHY
NCT DAILY
Harry Styles

In My Procrastination

On Monday, May 4th, I turned my 3 minute procrastination session into a full 4 hours by browsing YouTube.

I had been doing basically nothing all day. It was my school's "Resource" Day. Resource Days are every Monday and are days that we can use to catch up on late work. We can also use these days to get work done for later in the week or to just do nothing, which is what I did.

I thought that I should turn all of the time and energy I was using to put off my work into something productive. So here's the blog on the videos I watched that day.

As said before, I was on YouTube. I decided to watch some videos of wolves. Like, huge gray wolves being pet by their caretaker. Since I can't focus for more than 5 minutes, I quickly scrolled through the autoplay bar on the right.

Nothing looked interesting, so I typed "capybaras" into the search bar after trying to remember the name of the animal for a couple minutes. Capybaras are basically big rats (factually huge rodents) and they look like guinea pigs when they're babies. They're very laid back and are what I would want to be if I was an animal.

I found this cute video of capybaras in a mini hot spring with oranges at this zoo in Japan. In the video one of the capybaras had gotten an orange on top of its head and the audience started awing at it, later going"aww" when the orange fell off of its head (1:37).

After looping this for a while I saw another recommended video from the same Japanese zoo:"Shoebill's Meal Time with her Favorite Caretaker". Up until watching this I didn't even know what a shoebill was. I just saw a cute guy in the thumbnail and I clicked.

My first thoughts were that the bird had a super big head and a thick neck; it looked like it was robotic. It moved with such purpose. It was so still in the video and I wondered if it looked like that to the audience in real life too.

The bird - named Futaba - waited by her gate for some time before the caretaker came out with a bucket of fish. She started making this low hollow clucking sound with her beak and then spread her wings while stalking over to the man.

The thing that made me love this video was the bowing exchange. When the caretaker was introducing Futaba to the audience she would shake her head while "bowing" to him, and he bowed back.

It was touching to watch Futaba and her caretaker bow to each other. It's like the caretaker "matched" Futaba, like she was his spirit animal/Pokemon.

There's another video where the caretaker is talking to the audience and Futaba just kinda comes and stands behind him, checking him out. There wasn't as much bowing in this video but it was still worth watching.

sources -

HIRO@sea

capybara with orange 
shoebill video 1 
shoebill video 2