The irony and hypocrisy of this post is not lost on me, promoted and shared on the very platform that I appear to be lamenting and punctuated with pretty pictures for aesthetic appeal. Really though, it’s not all bad. Social media can be a powerful means for facilitating connection with fellow creatives, driving engagement towards worthwhile causes, increasing visibility and elevating the voices of those who were previously unseen and unheard. If you can successfully navigate this noisy, image-driven arena, you can find wholesome, genuine and progressive content, collaborative opportunities with like-minded souls, and if you’re REALLY lucky, actual, real-life friends (and don’t get me wrong, memes and Chris Sharma ‘Climberisms’ most certainly have their place too).
No one wants to see you ugly-crying because you’re hormonal and didn’t send your route, or projectile vomiting because you probably shouldn’t have pushed so hard on the uphill bit of your run after a big lunch. Or do they?
It’s a wonderful platform for self-promotion but at times it sure can feel like an endless popularity contest that holds very little space for legitimacy, authenticity or anything that falls short of societal standards of ‘aesthetically pleasing’. It’s easy to delineate from the real reason we use these platforms – connection – when the ‘likes’, ‘follows’ and upward-trending analytics give us such an addictive dopamine hit. If the way to facilitate that hit is by posting content that pleases others, it’s no surprise really that so much content out there is distinctly lacking in authenticity. No one wants to see you ugly-crying because you’re hormonal and didn’t send your route, or projectile vomiting because you probably shouldn’t have pushed so hard on the uphill bit of your run after a big lunch. Or do they?
social media and sincerity probably never will quite go hand-in-hand and to be bitter about it only made me a lesser person.
I had a slightly disarming experience recently whereby somebody known to me quite directly and unapologetically plagiarised written content of mine. As humans, we learn and improve by observing how others with similar interests and skills work, and that replication to a degree is unavoidable and not necessarily a negative reflection on either party. One thing I learned during my time at London College of Fashion (yes, I know. Fashion College. This from the girl that owns more climbing shoes and cams than clothes these days and whose mother would quite like for her to get rid of that ancient, duct-taped duvet jacket once and for all), is that art is never new. It’s a perpetual cycle of regeneration and repurposing of pre-existing concepts and designs. Think about that scene in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, you know, with the bargain basement blue sweater? That definitely doesn’t make it acceptable and it certainly doesn’t make it ethical, but somehow social media makes it quite ‘normal’. The origins of plagiarised content are often hours of energy, emotion, rigorous editing, proof-reading and in many cases they are sincere, specific to the creator and from the heart. Perhaps imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s also a demonstration of a lack of creativity, originality and authenticity. Whilst upsetting, this called into question for me why a tiny bit of replicated text, almost unrecognisable to anyone else as my own, should bother me at all. Ultimately I had to resolve that as grids expand and news moves along, it would eventually become less of a ‘noise’ and more of a background hum, that social media and sincerity probably never will quite go hand-in-hand and to be bitter about it only made me a lesser person. Moving on.
Perhaps the greatest appeal of social media is its capacity for expression and projection of the self and others in a mutually beneficial way. There is an undeniable symbiosis between creator and sharer if credit is given where credit is due. Some of the most powerful and positive professional interactions I’ve had in my short career have been those whereby collaborators are actively and genuinely trying to raise each other’s profile, lift one another and support progression. Those creators, it’s worth adding, are also quite transparent about the ‘highlight reel’ nature of their professional presence on the internet and these are the people that I hold in the highest regard, for whatever that’s worth.
our lives and careers seem so intrinsically interwoven with our Instagram grids that even a few hours from our screens means an encroaching sense of dread that you might well be slipping down the ranks in that never-ending popularity contest.
Freelancers work ‘effing hard. They’re rarely off-duty and receive endless knock-backs, rejections and sometimes and perhaps worst of all, radio silence after putting forward what they passionately believed to be a great idea. It’s also incredibly difficult to take a holiday from what at times can be a very destructive and demoralising space, our lives and careers seem so intrinsically interwoven with our Instagram grids that even a few hours from our screens means an encroaching sense of dread that you might well be slipping down the ranks in that never-ending popularity contest. I’m absolutely guilty of this myself, and it requires some serious brain re-training to ditch the sense of self-worth that comes from gaining ‘likes’ and ‘follows’.
Returning to the concept of authenticity, which is another problematic element of social media. We are constantly exposed to content that is carefully curated, edited and in some instances unexplained (for example, climbing photos where the angle has been altered, a total lack of documentation of the uglier side of the adventure, and I’ve even heard of instances where people have photoshopped ropes from their photos), it’s no small wonder that this weird, techy world has the capacity to make us feel very small and insignificant indeed, whilst the purveyors of falseness become stars overnight, famous based entirely on a façade. But do you really want that?
Aesthetics will always be cardinal in marketing and self-promotion, it’s unavoidable. I’m not just talking about ‘beautiful’ people or places but the scene and the action too, which don’t always depict the full story, warts and all.
The photos attached to this post are designed to catch and hold attention in a noisy, image-driven arena, to direct traffic to this page, so if you made it here – thanks – it’s probably because my in-house photographer is pretty nifty with a camera. I once read in the submission guidelines for a magazine that it is much easier to make a bad article better with strong images than the other way around, so hopefully this text is all a little less rambly and a touch more engaging for being interspersed with some colourful photos too. Said photos depict the potential for a really ‘cool’ and adventurous day of beach bouldering, but one thing that is quite conspicuous in its absence is any actual bouldering and in fact, boulders. That’s because after trekking down the path to Porth Ysgo in gail-force winds with what was essentially acting as an enormous sail strapped to my back, we realised that the weather actually, and despite our slightly over-ambitious optimism meant that the tide was in so far that we’d have been better preparing for some extreme deep water soloing. So we went back to the van (luckily with a tail-wind this time so at least I had a little push in the right direction), and had a coffee instead. For the purposes of authenticity, please see also exhibit C which more clearly demonstrates exactly how hard it was for me to walk/see/smile for the camera whilst being battered by coastal winds, I also had a cold which lasted about four weeks all in, but you can’t see the snot in the photos. Aesthetics will always be cardinal in marketing and self-promotion, it’s unavoidable. I’m not just talking about ‘beautiful’ people or places but the scene and the action too, which don’t always depict the full story, warts and all. We seem to be moving away from retouching, but we’re not quite moving towards honesty either.
The aforementioned incident and subsequent introspection on how social media affects the consumer, whether operating in a business or personal capacity, or even sometimes a mix of the two, has further defined the path of professionalism for me, and reinforced the importance of taking a break when these things that should ultimately act as a force for good, really start to bring you down. I have always tried to be conscientious, meticulous in my consideration of others and the effect my words and images can have and I endeavour to be as ethical as I can. I speak truthfully, and sometimes I probably say the wrong thing and end up sounding a bit daft, I’m not a robot. Perhaps I’m not marketable or influential, but it’s a path I plan to follow for as long as I am creating. It might get you there a little slower and probably with a few less ‘likes’ and ‘followers’, but following that moral compass at the very least ensures that when you get where you want to be, you can look back from the summit of your achievements (I remain entirely unapologetic for the horrendously naff nav/mountain metaphor that concludes this post) and know that you got there using your own ingenuity, and that you did authentically and with integrity. Don’t let the ‘Gram bring you down.
