Social media users have collectively fabricated a false reality, only existing under our shared experience within social media. This phenomena is a result of our growing reliance on the internet to reflect and represent our ways of communication. One phenomenon is identity culture, where users accumulate libraries of internet content to capture their ideal version of reality. This has created an endless feedback loop where the interactions on social media greatly impacts individuals’ sense of self, this very same methodology is used by corporations to manipulate us into consuming more.
In the format of current pop culture mediums like iPhone selfies, TikTok videos, Worldstar recordings etc—this series of images have created a prevalent identity. Through constructing a fictional world that references pop culture history and memes—this series of images aim to address individual psyche, spaces, and collective memory within hyperreality.
My thesis aims to highlight the drastic contrast of interactions in our life with social media, I used 3D depictions of Pepe the Frog, a controversial symbol that has been used on all sides of political activism culture as an avatar to deliver the message. I designed a series of commercial print advertising in public spaces to address and explore the blurred boundaries between social media and real life, highlighting the over-commodification of identity and culture through the same means used by corporate entities to sell products. The goal is to create a sterile environment and sense of claustrophobia reflected through body languages of the avatar that defy social cues.