New era of memory making

We see crystal-clear, turquoise water. A boat is leaving the shore, and a palm tree stretches into the picture. The caption reveals that this image shows Thailand.

One click further, and a blonde girl is positioned just below the water's surface, wearing a large diving mask. She smiles at the camera. Her hair floats weightlessly around her.

Photos that awaken our longing for travel and offer glimpses of a dream vacation.

This is exactly what Zilla, a student from the Netherlands and creator of the content, aims to achieve.

With a supposedly five-week vacation across Asia, the idea for her experiment begins.

Because as real and realistic as the vacation impressions may seem, none of the photos are real. Everything is Photoshopped. Zilla spent five weeks in her apartment in Amsterdam, faking an entire vacation using only social media.

According to Zilla, the goal is to show that we constantly filter and manipulate the information we share on social networks. This creates an idealized world online that reality cannot keep up with. We always assume that influencers or celebrities stage and retouch their photos. What we overlook is that we, too, manipulate our own lives in exactly the same way every day.

Social Media – a construct that only works through our inherent need for social connection. “Who are you following?” “Why didn’t they follow me back?” “Look at what they posted!”

And although we know how easy it is to stage and present our lives differently than they really are, we constantly compare ourselves to others. And although this only makes us feel worse and we complain about it, we still spend hours each day doing it. We are so fixated on what others are doing and on getting the confirmation "that no one is living a better life than I am." In doing so, we manipulate ourselves. The content we present outwardly is just as manipulated as the content we see in others. It's a constant competition to show better lifestyles, highlights, and even more beautiful people. Even editing a video for a quick story is manipulation, as we actively choose what to show and, most importantly, what not to show.

Zilla’s experiment makes big headlines. It is proof of how far removed actual life can be from one’s social media presence and, more importantly, how easily people—even those from our close real-life environment—can be manipulated.

Value of a Memory

It now makes me wonder, how much value do real memories still have if moments can be so easily faked? Do we really have to travel to a destination every time to create content, or is the illusion and memory in the form of images enough?

Zilla is an example of how unimportant—at least on the outside—an authentic experience is. She even goes as far as waking up at night to adjust to Thailand’s time zone for messages to her family, creating exotic backgrounds for FaceTime calls, and getting a fake tan. The illusion is simply perfect.

Zilla's example, though extreme, shows very well how social media enables us to create an idealized version of ourselves. Experiences don’t even need to be genuinely lived, they just need to be represented.

It’s mainly about selling people moments.

In the futuristic film ‘Total Recall,’ pleasant, yet fake memories are implanted into people’s brains, indistinguishable from real memories. So, it’s no longer necessary to live the dream life—just the memory of it is enough. And since the film is from 1990, it shows that the question of memory has already been a topic back then.

Why does humanity try to create false memories and manipulate its own life? Does it stem from dissatisfaction?

If I manage to fake a great vacation or pretend to attend exciting events on my social media, it becomes my second reality and the reality for my followers. I don’t actually need to experience any of those things.

A friend of mine once pretended to have been invited to a fantastic event by a major designer brand to make her older schoolmates envious.

I was initially shocked because I realized how quickly one can shape their identity with staged content. At the same time, I also questioned what I see daily on social media. How much is the content worth if it’s not real?

The Game of Manipulation

If you look at it this way, it's like a game where everyone has their character, their online presence.

But how far can one go in this game without anyone getting hurt?

We modify ourselves the way we want to be seen—but we overlook that others are doing exactly the same thing, so we can’t actually compare our real lives with theirs. There are no real rules here. Who marks something as not actually looking as great as it seems, staged, or edited? That’s the point: we want to change or recreate our reality.

One could even say that a split personality occurs. The line between reality and fiction becomes blurrier, and manipulating our own selves becomes easier and more diverse.

We live and think in images and stories. We ask ourselves, is this post-worthy?

We are overwhelmed with content, and at the same time, we fuel the machine through our interactions. The pressure to contribute to the content pool is steadily increasing, creating a cycle. To remain relevant and counteract the flood of information, uploading content becomes necessary.

The Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" delves deeper into this topic and highlights the danger of constantly being confronted with so much social interaction.

Longing for Recognition

Almost everyone strives for external recognition—the likes and comments on social media provide immediate validation.

It’s no longer enough for our real, close circle, or even ourselves, to be satisfied with who we are.

But what does it do to us when an enhanced version of ourselves gets all these likes? Our self-esteem drops, and real life becomes "less likeable."

Let’s go back to the example of Zilla: Imagine Zilla sees how desired she becomes through her amazing vacation photos and what kind of envious feedback she receives. When we do exciting things, is it about how we feel or how others perceive us? Because if we are completely happy with it, we don’t actually need the envy or recognition of others, even strangers.

I wonder how this will evolve and in which direction self-representation will abstract even further. When VR glasses become accessible to everyone and social media suddenly moves to a 3D level, reality and fiction will blend even more, raising the question of what is actually real…