When I think about “digital identity,” I am reminded of the simple, fake smiles that people post in Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and any other platform that can conjure likes to fill the void of connection that people miss in our fast-moving, forward-thinking society. I am guilty of this like an other, but I decided to get rid of my face all together for this piece. Faces give comfort and help to show the emotion of the figure, but sometimes I have no emotion. This also reflects how we use social media, as we often don’t see the faces of those we interact with and if we do see pictures, women are often only liked for anything other than their face.
I have lived with anxiety and depression my entire life and this painting is a homage to my struggles. Social media gave me an outlet to start talking about my problems, but no one really wanted to listen. So I gave in to my peers’ likes, shares, and follows and began to show only the good sides of myself. The smiles brought likes and those likes made me feel better for just a moment. It is like a drug. When you reach a certain amount of likes, you feel some relief and you chase the little attention you can get from social media like it’s a drug, but it doesn’t fix you.
Social media can feed a person’s mental illness by making them feel even more isolated and alone despite the seemingly connectedness that the internet is praised for. Once someone starts using social media as a crutch it is hard to let go of it. It can consume you.
With this piece, I focused on creating many thin under layers and playing with the textures throughout piece. The figure is an image of myself, but you could only tell if you knew that I had the same moles as the figure. The face is entirely obscured, with some normal skin coloring peeking through. This is a representation of how I hide my true self, the one that is consumed with the demons in my mind.
The text behind the figure is from the song, “Broken Hearts Club” by gnash. Some important lyrics that you can see say, “Where the lonely make the lonely feel less lonely,” which is exactly how I feel about social media. Lonely people meet other lonely people and begin to feel less lonely because at least they aren’t the only ones feeling that way.
This piece also comments on the sexualization of women, as the only part of me that you can really focus on is my breasts. It doesn’t matter if you cannot see my face, my boobs are enough to capture anyone’s attention, right? That is what social media teaches us, we are only as pretty and popular as the amount of sexy parts we show. Men too can fall into this habit, but it is more common with women, either way, it is detrimental to our mental health.
I had a lot of fun working on this piece and I enjoy hearing other people’s opinions of what they see and feel. When I showed it to friends, they seemed to get my theme spot on and even saw different demonic faces in the textures of the piece. It is amazing to see that my thought can be seen in this piece more clearly that any other work, I’ve done.
