Saunter through Social Media

Image1: Modern day flaneur (Minkel, 2012)

“To be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world” (Baudelair, 1863) In this week’s readings and lecture we have come to unpack and understand is the terminology that is flaneurs. The term flaneur was coined by German philosopher Walter Benjamin in his unfinished writings the Arcades Project. He explains that in the Eighteenth century the Parisians arcades became an attraction for dandies as they “frequent the fashionable arcades” (Prouty,2009), consuming the spectacles around them and also become a spectacle themselves. However, with the destruction of the Parisians arcades in 1870s so too did the end the life of the flaneurs. Now in digital age of social medias a new flaneur has emerged the cyber flaneur.

Similarly, to the flaneur Benjamin came to know, the cyber flaneur has the ability to remain anonymous and enjoy the voyeuristic “scopic power” (Barnes 1997, p.7) of looking at others and consuming the spectacles. Whilst some prefer to draw attention to themselves and become a part of the spectacle. Mark Milian on Phys.org explains that people don’t represent their true selves online and create an online person. The cyber flaneur embodies this mentality mentality within the social network of Reddit by creating an online persona to draw scopic attention to themselves.

The way cyber flaneurs go about creating an online person is through Reddit’s content sharing aspect. Through the sharing of images and stories they can create an elaborate illusion to appear larger than life in virtual space, and become a spectacle on Reddit. A case like Essena O’Neill, a social media model, was a well-known model in the Reddit community. Essena has claimed that she had starved herself and altered her images to warrant more attention, to become a spectacle of Reddit.

After viewing Reddit in this new light it has given me an insight to the true nature social networking, and I’ll be looking forward to look critically analyse Reddit in greater detail over the next few weeks.

Referencing

Minkel, E. (2012, March 9). The Slacker in modern fiction: The Flâneur goes to the mall. Retrieved August 19, 2016, from The Millions, http://www.themillions.com/2012/03/the-slacker-in-modern-fiction-the-flaneur-goes-to-the-mall.html

Milian, M. (2010, May 14). Online personas rarely match real-life behavior, observers say. Retrieved August 19, 2016, from Phys, http://phys.org/news/2010-05-online-personas-rarely-real-life-behavior.html

Prouty, R. (2009, September 28). A turtle on a leash Retrieved fromhttp://www.onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2009/10/a-turtle-on-a-leash.html

Barnes, G. (2003, July 23). Passage of the Flaneur.2. Retrieved August 19, 2016, fromhttp://www.raynbird.com/essays/Passage_Flaneur.html

Baudelaire, C. (1964). The painter of modern life and other essays. London: Phaidon Press.

Kuttainen, V. (2016). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, lecture 4: Maps. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved fromhttp://learnjcu.edu.au