To look at why we place value on images of ourselves, I started
to look into theory. In order to better understand why we have a need to make
social media platforms such as Instagram in the first place.
In my first post I
brought up the phenomenon of mirror recognition, which is when a child first
looks in the mirror and is able to identify themselves as the image in the
mirror. It is at this point that the child is separated from the outside world,
and now has a place in the physical environment. It is this point in our lives that we are
first placed into what can be called the social symbolic. Our lives from then
on revolve around images, and how those images relate to the image that we now
have of ourselves in this world of the visual. Elizabeth Grosz in her reading
of Jacques Lacan and his views on this specular recognition says that the body “becomes
the organizing site of perspective, and at the same time, an object available
to others from their perspectives – in other words, both a subject and an
object.” (Grosz,37-38.)
Sigmund Freud had a couple different ideas for the ego,
including one that he called the narcissistic ego. He regarded the narcissistic
ego as having a storehouse of libido, “a kind of psychic repository or dam
where libido can be stored from its various sources throughout the body in the
anticipation of finding appropriate objects in which it could be invested.”
(Grosz, 33.) As Lacan describes the self can be both subject and object, so the
ego can then invest value or libido towards itself as object. Images of the
self, either in a mirror or pictures serve as sources of validation for the
ego. Grosz says that Lacan saw the ego as a product of the internalization of
others. It becomes what he calls a map for the body’s “psycho-social meaning.”
(Grosz, 43.)
The ego, or the self is formed off the interactions and
investments with others and its own body. It is formed through a network of
interactions, a continually weaving mesh of fluctuating identity. This identity is formed through in how the
self views itself in relations to others. Imagining others viewing them,
and viewing themselves in the reactions
of others. Lacan says that “its fascination with specular reflections will
forever orient it in an imaginary direction.” (Grosz, 43.) The imaginary is the
identification with images, and the investment that we give to them.
I believe that it is pretty easy to see how Instagram is
just another venue that allows us to invest value to ourselves as visual
objects. Being able to take photographs of yourself is not a part of any new
technology. Feeling validated by images is not new. This app is simply adding
to the lexicon of investing into the visual imaginary of ourselves. However, what
this has provided is a larger platform to exercise these validation needs.
On my own Instagram account I have people following me that
I’ve never met, including people from other countries. We have access to visually
connect with the world. Of course you can change your privacy settings so that
you have to approve people that follow you. But is seems that most people do
not, and this includes myself. I have 42 followers at the moment. And I’ll
admit that sometimes I feel that the number isn't high enough. And I do get a
sense of validation when someone new follows me, or if someone likes my photos.
I do know some people that do not care how many people follow them, or how many
people like their photos. They only downloaded the app so that they could take
pretty pictures for themselves.
But either way, whether you are taking filtered pictures for
yourself or for the world, you are still investing into the narcissistic ego. You
are still experiencing self-validation thanks to the visual interactions of
Instagram. And once again, these don’t even have to be pictures of yourself but
they can also be pictures of things you are doing. They are still connected to
you, extensions of your ego.
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