Recently I flipped through a photo album put together by my parents about my first few years. The album was pulled out to show my boyfriend. Looking through I was reminded of some of my earliest memories. It filled me with nostalgia. Flipping through the photos with my boyfriend, we talked about someday creating our own family albums.
It made me think of the changing cultures of capturing childhood memories. With cameras on today’s smartphones being so good quality, capturing memories has never been easier. But even though I take a lot of pictures in daily life, I rarely ever print them out. They usually stay on my phone and the best ones end up on my instagram; a carefully selected collection of my memories. My instagram account is what I would describe as my own digital photo album that I share with friends and family.
I enjoy posting on social media, and picking out the photos, choosing the right order and caption. And in some way I would compare it to the creative process of scrapbooking and creating the family albums of the 2000s. But I also realise this is a quite idealist view on social media, and there are also more negative sides to it. I see many pictures of families and children online, some posted by family and friends, and some posted by complete strangers. I think with the added audience and public aspect to childhood memories on social media, there is a change in the performativity of this generation’s family photos.
While I do think there is a performative aspect to all pictures, where the participants are aware of their picture being taken. We see this in the way people smile and position themselves for the camera. And I am sure that the pictures in my parents’ family albums are carefully chosen to bring out a certain perception. It is in itself performative, showing us in a certain way, usually a happy way. But it is also intended as a private collection. It is first and foremost for our family and then the few, we open the book up to. It is not intended for the view of distant family or friends of friends or strangers at all. With posting family pictures online the intention and function of the photos are changed. The family pictures of this generation are not just used for our own later enjoyment but it has become an important tool in the staging of our families. The audience is not just the people around us but the whole world. This in many ways leads to a culture of perfection by some social media users.
I will argue that this public aspect and staging infiltrates and takes away from the intimate family moments. I already feel this today within my own family. One way is the how meals are shared. In general most of my meals I share now, needs to be photographed before consumption. This can be anything from a coffee with friends to Christmas dinner with the family. It creates a pause before we get to eat, nothing can be touched and it all needs to look nice. It is all carefully organized, and now it has sort of become a family project, where everyone at the table needs to help out. A moment centered around the family, the sharing of a meal, time usually used to enjoy each other’s company, is now changed to be framed and staged for an imagined online audience. This pause before consumption symbolizes a pause before enjoyment. Before we enjoy our time together, we must first make sure to take time to stage and document.
While smiling for the camera is not new, and the camera has always brought with it a certain element of performativity. Today’s normalization of sharing private family moments online makes a whole new level in this performance. These pictures are no longer primarily for private keepsakes but they now are used for staging and establishing an online performance.
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