From my interview, most people said that their environments are now used to seeing them expressing themselves and even though some remarks still come out, it isn’t as annoying as before. This explains that people have to be familiar first with it to finally accept it. But I think as these self-expressions are niche and don’t have one clear space to nurture it, it’ll be hard for people to get used to them. There is also stigma and prejudices about these people. I think by providing narratives alongside the visual, it will let people to better understand why someone chooses to present themselves in a certain way.
Self-expression itself is “…expressing one’s thoughts and feelings, and these expressions can be accomplished through words, choices or actions.” (Kim & Ko, 2007). The importance of self-expression differs according to the area and the culture it belongs to.
1. I found some studies and case that strengthen my idea of space for self-expression: At Georgetown University Medical Center, each year they celebrated self-expression by making a space called “What Makes You?”. At the event, student and faculty staff can show diverse perspectives, identities, and artistic talents that otherwise won’t be known. It’s a unique space where everyone at Georgetown University Medical Center is welcome to be vulnerable and sharing something intimate about themselves. The performances then documented and celebrated through a photo series titled “More than Medicine”, commenting that these talents or identities can be overshadowed by the rigour and commitment required in medicine. There are two people in the stories that inspired me to do the interviews like this: one shared about how she used to act in a theatre and she still struggled how to navigate her identity as an artist and medical students. The “What Makes You?” able her to show her other identity that she thought won’t be brought up in medical school. Another story came from a faculty member, who shared about an individual who took care of her children during her time in medical school that left a great impact on the family. People who heard the story felt that the faculty member seemed more human and made her seen in another light. The story, that won’t be brought up without space makes people felt more connected. This is why I feel it’s necessary to create this open space and that connected feeling is what I aim for GILIGILI and create a documentation for people to celebrate it whenever and wherever.
2. As for having interview and documentary series, Burger (2015) explained that “public self-expression is anchored by the intersection of public participation, identity and self-expression, and focuses on how people publicly express and work on their identities. In the process of describing the participatory turn in culture, media and communication studies, different forms of self-expression are identified. It is argued that even though some of these forms are noisy and narcissistic, they are meaningful to the individual who creates them. Some of these forms offer opportunities to voice opinions that might otherwise not be heard in the public sphere. Most significantly, public self-expression affords the ordinary person the power to (re-)imagine the self in the wake of the many changes the world faces due to globalisation and hegemonic power relations.” Internet pushes globalisation even further without border. Globalisation disrupts stability and tradition and characterises contemporary modern global societies with its turbulence, discontinuity and mobility, all of which are accelerated by constant change (Appadurai 1996, 4–7 as cited in Burger, 2015). David Gauntlett (2011, 7) argues that the segment of Internet users who are not primarily browsers but who are actively creating information online boasts a ‘making-and-doing’ culture, instead of a conventional ‘sit-back-and-be-told’ culture. For my participatory-style projects (as pandemic situation still hanging in Indonesia), Gauntlett theorises three reasons why it is gratifying for active Internet participants to create something online: 1) it is meaningful to people to be creatively involved on the Internet (Gauntlett 2008, 2); 2) they feel they are connecting to other people through the Internet in what he calls ‘making is connecting’ (ibid, 2–7), and 3) they have the opportunity to do identity work and share their life stories with others, which also signals connecting to others (Gauntlett 2011, 7). That is why I think people are happily participating.
Also, the therapeutic ethos of telling one’s story is commonplace in the territory of talk radio and television, where participatory mass media formats have been described as ‘talk therapy’ or ‘the talking cure’ (Shattuc 1997, 111). – I think this therapeutic ethos also works for digital content like podcast and @humansofny. The reward for people who participate in such formats is the validation that ‘I am worth talking to’ and, more importantly, ‘I am worth listening to’ (HOW I WANT MY INTERVIEWEE TO FEEL!!!) (Andrejevic 2004, 86–88). Digital storytelling and identity expression often take place in close-knit communities or demes, and this contact with other people is meaningful to the individual (Hartley 2015, 5). In combining the idea that interactive mediated platforms offer opportunities to connect with others in meaningful ways, with the therapeutic value of telling one’s life story through a mediated platform, it is no wonder that philosopher Thaddeus Metz (2013a, 235 and 2013b, 420) argues that an original, compelling life story creates the feeling that one’s life has meaning. In other words, in making sense of the many changes experienced around the world, some people choose to have a creative engagement with their sense of self, by telling their life story as a private project or making it public by sharing it with others through numerous audience-based mediated opportunities. This creating and sharing of identity with others may validate the self and satisfy the social human need.
Another set of self-expression is found in alternative cultures – especially in youth subcultures – that typically identify themselves as struggling or engaging with, and opposing mainstream cultures. At the same time, they need to express this opposition to the very mainstream culture by which they feel marginalised. – this is GILIGILI towards mainstream fashion dominated by influencers that are carbon copy of each other. In contrast with the vast sources of inspirations, as social media is the second foremost reason for using the internet for Indonesian, they tend to be oriented towards influencers (Zaenudin, 2018). These influencers create a certain standard, where followers copy the influencers’ ideals in hope to conform with the current social norm (Brucculieri, 2018), resulted in creating a homogenized expression of self.)
I’ll show an example of 5 influencers (@alikaislamadina, @ayladimitri, @rachelteresia, @elxielvina, and @_gittayunanda):
All have the same patterns: brand-sponsored events, holiday, ootd (but if you look closer they have similar styles and endorsed by similar brands). They’re all passed the ‘beauty standard’ (fair skin, long straight hair, and have slim body type).
Even the same bio (the top three wrote “traveller”). The bottom ones wrote another thing but they all have their holiday diaries in their stories highlight.
They’re even doing the same virtual photoshoot with the same ‘glass’ effects and edits. It’s not even unusual to see their preferred Lightroom setup. I don’t say this is a bad thing, and becoming something like this is 100% their choice and I know they worked hard for it (@_gittayunanda is my friend so I heard stories) but most of them were born wealthy and if the ‘influencers’ are all like this people will have a hard time accepting themselves and finding their own self-expression. They’ll feel that they need to conform to these influencers to be accepted as attractive. This influencers culture is one thing I want to oppose as they’re also included in “extraordinary” fashion, not “ordinary”. People need to realise that these influencers are not “human” anymore, they’re a “brand”–as Ms Alessandra in her book Contemporary Indonesian Fashion, they moved from “the blogger” to “the brand”–with brand guide and personality that is shaped based on their audiences’ preferences OR by data.
3. Fashion as a signal of identity and self-expression.
Understanding the “real-life issues” of fashion also means giving attention to “not just how the body is represented within the fashion system and its discourses on dress, but also how the body is experienced and lived,” Entwistle (2000, 344) argues. Taking the perspective of the lived body, or understanding fashion as a situated bodily practice, does not only mean a shift in scale to the micro-social order, however but also a shift from fashion as wear (object) at the boundary between self and other to fashion as the practice of wearing (activity) connecting body and the other through interacting (Hallnäs et al. 2006). In addition, a dynamic perspective also highlights another central function of fashion: to associate material goods with existing cultural categories, fashion also creates new cultural meanings and new cultural categories (Levi-Strauss 1973; Thornquist 2017). As Vinken (2005, 4) also points out, fashion is not only a representative function of social life and structures but also a poetological activity, a cause rather than effect, that constructs and subverts its expression and thematize itself with a performative power that is capable of inducing a change in individuals and social life.
In relation to the process of establishing and maintaining a sense of self through dress, wearing is not primarily a process of presentation or representation; it is a continuous practice of negation with yourself and inward experience constituted in the process of trying, changing, and experiencing (emotionally evaluating) the body/self through different ways of wearing (Kozel 2008; Ziesche 2014; Martin-Larsen 2016). Wearing as an activity is, therefore, a mediation between mind and body in the sense of Merleau-Ponty (2002); it is a transitional and interacting state of corporeal consciousness that opposes more static linguistic analyses of fashion. In the process of being worn, as when shoes transform body posture, the elasticity of the object initiates an endless bodily struggle against the material, the weight of the fabric directs a pattern (Martin-Larsen 2016), and the oversized hoodie expands the self in space. Fashion is not any more defined through types and a representative relationship but through the expression created by the body and wear in a wearing that conceptualizes an interactive embodiment as the process of moving—thinking—feeling (Shusterman, 1999; Kozel 2008). Accordingly, the material presence of things and acts, such as the activity of engaging and interacting with clothing, is at once an object of consciousness and consciousness itself—ways of wearing as the perceived identity of a person.
References:
Cortese, G. Creating Space for Self-Expression at “What Makes You?”. Available at: https://gumc.georgetown.edu/gumc-stories/creating-space-for-self-expression-at-what-makes-you/.
Kim, H. S., & Ko, D. (2007). Culture and self-expression. In C. Sedikides & S. J. Spencer (Eds.), Frontiers of social psychology. The self (p. 325–342). Psychology Press.
Burger, M. (2015) ‘Public self-expression, identity and the participatory turn: The power to re-imagine the self’, Communicatio, 41(3), pp. 264-286. doi: 10.1080/02500167.2015.1093318.
Thornquist, C. (2018) ‘The Fashion Condition: Rethinking Fashion from Its Everyday Practices’, Fashion Practice, 10(3), pp. 289-310. doi: 10.1080/17569370.2018.1507147
Zaenudin, A. (2018) Influencer di Media Sosial, Penantang Tangguh Iklan Konvensional. Available at: https://tirto.id/influencer-di-media-sosial-penantang-tangguh-iklan-konvensional-cEfr/.
Brucculieri, J. (2018) Instagram Influencers Are All Starting to Look the Same. Here’s Why. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/instagram-influencers-beauty_n_5aa13616e4b002df2c6163bc/.