Originally posted on Medium
Isn’t it ironic and amusing at the same time that we live in an age when #nofilter is almost a badge of honor for a media? A sign of pride shouting this is the moment as it happened—nothing tampered. Take it for its flaws and it’s charm. Remember it forever, for this is how I want you to remember it.
That brings me to memory. Remember what it was like when memory was the only way to remember the past and thereby forget it? Sure people used to write diaries and take photographs, but those were few and far. What your first date was, was not based on a photo on your timeline, but just in a hazy yet cherished corner inside your brain. It’s almost as if memory has a way of applying a filter of it’s own. Making everything so charming, just like the filters.
In our minds we can toy with memories and relive them, perhaps smoothing the rough edges a bit to make the thought more pleasant to hold. Complete video documentation of our lives seems harsh and too true to the details, unlike the comforting, hazy, quality of a true memory. — Kyle Meyer
With the tools of today, we started down the road to preserve ‘all’ moments. Creating timelines, profiles that are in a way a public version of journals—of our memories. For one and all to see. Maybe even judge. Maybe that’s why we needed filters. To make the moment feel more beautiful than it really was—to give it that hazy quality of memory, as Kyle puts it. To make it magical. To make what had now become permanent, pretty. But what fun would it be if life were all but a series of magical moments.
Sadly, this also means that all we cherish are pretty pictures and happy thoughts with a shade of vanity. Because who would want to know about how low you feel right now. Our profiles are not really us, but just how we want others to see us. There is something that is not right here. Something has to give in. Change. Evolve.
Does this change look like the flood of ephemeral networks we have been seeing lately? I really doubt that. I often wonder if Snapchat and others are an over-correction. A generation-wide knee jerk reaction due to the side effects that nobody had planned for. I don’t have an answer. But I do wish for a more casual sharing and more #nofilter shots in my feed.