As viewers approach A Spectre's Horrifying Search for Self in Cyberspace, they are faced with a classic and cartoon-like stereotype of a ghost, wearing a virtual reality headset and navigating virtual reality. As the video progresses, viewers can watch as this spectre searches for an "avatar" or identity within these virtual structures. As a social media platform, VRChat draws parallels to social media platforms in general and this faceless spectre becomes a metaphor for all social media users.
Viewers are also faced with a much darker stereotype of a ghost in the form of TV static on a CRT television, referencing the 1982 movie Poltergeist. Within the context of this installation, both ghostly stereotypes represent the same disembodied entity situated in the realm of a digital space. The juxtaposition of both the comedic and horror-centric representations of the spectre speak respectively to it’s external and internal dialogue.
Our social media accounts often feel like extensions of ourselves, placing our idenities outside of our bodily experiences. Social media platforms allow for the editing, filtering and cropping of how we are percieved by others, altering our realities. With the freedom to create yourself however you see fit, comes a infinite amount of choices. Who will you choose to become? What part of society will you align yourself with? Whatever you choose, questions surrounding your own identity and social standing can often become paired with a feeling of existential dread. In fact, there is a substantial amount of evidence that the rising use of social media over the past decade has correlated to the rising percentage of people reporting symptoms of some sort of generalized anxiety disorder. Brenda Cossman has this to say,
“Anxiety theorists have long connected anxiety with freedom. Kierkegaard famously described anxiety "as the possibility of freedom" (1980). Anxiety, for Kierkegaard, was the natural human response to the condition of freedom...
‘Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down upon its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. ([1844] 1980, The Concept of Anxiety, 61)’
Anxiety comes with the individual's imagining and attempting to create and visualize possibility.” (Cossman, 894)
With this in mind, the access to this type of morphological freedom and the rise in anxiety amongst social media users becomes painfully entwined.
Acknowledging the feeling of existential dread within the installation, the use of humor becomes a form of coping mechanism. As the spectre searches through these virtual atmospheres, viewers move quickly through references and memes. Humour within memes is often used as a coping mechanism for the anxiety that these platforms create, there are even memes referred to as "depression memes” (Krawczyk). In a never ending cycle, memes are often used to acknowledge the realities of identity within social media and also when shared act as another representation of identity of the sharer. Conclusively, social media creates an infinite cycle of emotional negotiation within its structures. A Spectre's Horrifying Search for Self in Cyberspace reveals that social media provides the freedom to infinitely alter ones own identity but this could come at the cost of social and emotional stability.
Works Cited
Cossman, Brenda. "Anxiety Governance." Law & Social Inquiry38, no. 4 (2013): 892-919. jstor.org/stable/24545848.
Kierkegaard, Soren. [1844] 1980. The Concept of Anxiety. Trans, and ed. Howard Vincent Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Krawczyk, Konrad. Medium. December 13, 2017. medium.com/@krawc/how-digital-natives-use-memes-to-cope-with-mental-struggle-22c71063d6ff.
Viewers are also faced with a much darker stereotype of a ghost in the form of TV static on a CRT television, referencing the 1982 movie Poltergeist. Within the context of this installation, both ghostly stereotypes represent the same disembodied entity situated in the realm of a digital space. The juxtaposition of both the comedic and horror-centric representations of the spectre speak respectively to it’s external and internal dialogue.
Our social media accounts often feel like extensions of ourselves, placing our idenities outside of our bodily experiences. Social media platforms allow for the editing, filtering and cropping of how we are percieved by others, altering our realities. With the freedom to create yourself however you see fit, comes a infinite amount of choices. Who will you choose to become? What part of society will you align yourself with? Whatever you choose, questions surrounding your own identity and social standing can often become paired with a feeling of existential dread. In fact, there is a substantial amount of evidence that the rising use of social media over the past decade has correlated to the rising percentage of people reporting symptoms of some sort of generalized anxiety disorder. Brenda Cossman has this to say,
“Anxiety theorists have long connected anxiety with freedom. Kierkegaard famously described anxiety "as the possibility of freedom" (1980). Anxiety, for Kierkegaard, was the natural human response to the condition of freedom...
‘Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down upon its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. ([1844] 1980, The Concept of Anxiety, 61)’
Anxiety comes with the individual's imagining and attempting to create and visualize possibility.” (Cossman, 894)
With this in mind, the access to this type of morphological freedom and the rise in anxiety amongst social media users becomes painfully entwined.
Acknowledging the feeling of existential dread within the installation, the use of humor becomes a form of coping mechanism. As the spectre searches through these virtual atmospheres, viewers move quickly through references and memes. Humour within memes is often used as a coping mechanism for the anxiety that these platforms create, there are even memes referred to as "depression memes” (Krawczyk). In a never ending cycle, memes are often used to acknowledge the realities of identity within social media and also when shared act as another representation of identity of the sharer. Conclusively, social media creates an infinite cycle of emotional negotiation within its structures. A Spectre's Horrifying Search for Self in Cyberspace reveals that social media provides the freedom to infinitely alter ones own identity but this could come at the cost of social and emotional stability.
Works Cited
Cossman, Brenda. "Anxiety Governance." Law & Social Inquiry38, no. 4 (2013): 892-919. jstor.org/stable/24545848.
Kierkegaard, Soren. [1844] 1980. The Concept of Anxiety. Trans, and ed. Howard Vincent Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Krawczyk, Konrad. Medium. December 13, 2017. medium.com/@krawc/how-digital-natives-use-memes-to-cope-with-mental-struggle-22c71063d6ff.