»What Orwell Failed To Predict Is That We’d Buy The Cameras Ourselves,
And That Our Biggest Fear Would Be That Nobody Was Watching«
K. L. Jensen
Likes, Follower and reposts are todays indicators for social success. There seems to be no niche, as controversial as it may seem, that does not find its thunderous digital applause in social networks. Short-lived ideals of beauty, excessive sexuality and boundless self-optimization are being hashtagged and celebrated in a postprivate publicity for the sake of self-appreciation. Vices of the past have become today ́s leitmotivs. But Instagram is not only the sink of iniquity for a generation of hedonists and narcissists. Just as much it is a place where some digital natives devaluate themselves in the hope of catching empathy that the real world does not offer them.
On their relentless quest for meaning and purpose, more and more millennials adapt to a self-imposed identity that often affects their self in real life. The new public self-disclosure breaks with the traditional concept of privacy. Everyone wants to stand out, be seen or be of importance and thus often meanders between excentric and conformistic ideals under constant observation of their followers. Everything seems to be possible between gaudily coloured escapism and pale- grey tristesse as long as there is a picture that gains recognition. No matter in which way it will be remembered.
»Hashtags unplugged« is to be read as multilayered photographic essay that reflects the zeitgeist of selfrepresentation and its values promoted on Instagram.
