Have you ever stared blankly at your phone screen, trying to brainstorm a caption that would compliment your Instagram flick? I certainly have, except with the addition of spending the next couple of days trying to create the perfect caption, often at the cost of neglecting reality.  

The phenomenon of social media has given individuals a platform to engage and interact with others online and thereby create meaningful connections. 

For those of you who are not familiar here is an in depth explanation (using drawings, yay!) of what social media is:

And to those who are familiar with social media, here is an info-graph of the some of the most used platforms:

The purpose of this blogpost is to highlight the issues users of social media can face such as envy, social comparison and how it degraded my health, both mental and physical. This post will also discuss how I changed my perspective to look past the superficial things that come with using social media and focus on sharing my own truth and creative passion. 

To remain fair, social media does not only lead to bad things. It has improved some aspects of my life including, keeping ties with friends and family overseas; geographical barriers are no longer an issue thanks to social media! FaceTime, Skype, Facebook and Snapchat make for great ways for instant communication of media and some examples of this include FaceTiming my Grandmother who resides in the mountainous region of Benguet in the Philippines. My Grandmother is too old at 87 to travel and FaceTime is a great way to include her in birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and just about any family event.

Social media has also allowed me to tap into online communities that are either niche, hard to access in real life, or where I would not have been exposed to. I have always been a fan of filmmaking, and YouTube has been a great tool for honing my skills especially audio and lighting – two quintessential skills for being a great filmmaker that sadly, only learnt only recently learnt.

Through YouTube, I discovered the genius of Caleb Pike’s DSLR Video Shooter channel, Christopher Rhodes’ YCImaging and of course, the trio behind Indy Mogul. YouTube, for the purposes of education, proved to be useful for me and I managed to land my first paid video gig which I learnt so much from.

I later learnt that the promotional video from my first gig would be seen by the Social Outcomes lab and that’s when I landed my second client; all of this would not be possible without Facebook and Instagram. 

For the reasons above, I was appreciative all the good social media had to offer, although growing up in the Age of Information, I would also feel the ugly. Two years ago, I was quite dedicated and infatuated with the idea of achieving the perfect Instagram; I was not always like this. As Instagram grew, more and more of my friends started engaging with it. I was regularly bombarded with friends achieving, celebrating, laughing and bragging (although now known as ‘flexing’) on my Instagram feed. 

This was great at first although long term, I would develop a toxic feeling when scrolling past met feed. As I saw my childhood friend graduate university, another explore the world and my best friend living his best life on a basketball scholarship at an American university, I felt like crap. The more I scrolled, the more feeling of inadequacy, envy and anxiety came to me. 

Wiederhold (2018) looks at the implications of Instagram and suggests that education is the key to overcoming the negative implications of social media. This is something I very much agree with and decided to make a shift in the way I use and think about social media.

To remove the idea of the Instagram feed being a highlight reel, I decided to unfollow all celebrities and people showcasing their lavish lifestyles and only kept people I know in real life. I also did a bit of research and learnt (yes I am quite naive, I know!) that the glamorous lifestyles influencers portray are staged. 

Influencers and celebrities often boast digitally enhanced photos of their bodies and stage shots (to provide a movie, dream-like feel). Another step to reduce the constant barrage of media I took was to monitor my screen time on Instagram. Thanks to an article I came across while waiting for a bus, I learnt how to utilise this neat feature on my phone to cut back on my Instagram use.

Don’t worry, for those of you who are Android users, you also have a similar feature.

Little by little I was able to overcome the implications of social media, envy, social comparison and focus on what was important close friends, family and my passion. As mentioned in my first blog post, I aim to share my passion with my followers and hopefully inspire people to not neglect their passions. I know life can get in the way and sometimes there really isn’t enough time, but my new mission is to implore people through my social media, to dedicate time for their passions. Even if it is only 5 minutes a day. I did just that and 5 minutes a day turned into paid work and a healthy balance in my life, work, fiends, hobbies and happiness.

Hola amigos!

Last weekend my brother and I landed our first paid video gig; our client was a recently founded startup by university students. Their mission was an admirable one, to reduce social isolation among seniors by hosting monthly skill sharing events.

As this was our first gig, we learnt a lot and realised just how challenging this line of work can be. One of our challenges started before the actual shoot, who knew transporting video gear could be so difficult? Fortunately for us, we do have a family car that was large enough to move the 3 tons worth of gear!

Another small hiccup we encountered was being mindful of our presence in the environment we were filming at. Because all the attendees were elderly, two guys head to toe in all black shoving giant cameras in their faces did not go down too well. For a fun easy-going event, we could have been more careful with our approach in terms of our attire and the way we interact with attendees.

After realising our mistake, we quickly made makeshift name tags to make ourselves less creepy. We also sat down in some of the skill share activities and introduced ourselves to make the guests more at ease. This worked wonders and we were able to capture candid footage of them sharing, laughing and chatting about their awesome skills!

We learnt a lot from our first paid shoot. Our biggest lesson would be, being mindful of our presence and our interactions with the attendees. A big misconception about videography and photography is that you just point and click; this is not true and this experience has taught us that we have a lot to learn. Can’t wait for the next one… Stay tuned!