How stupid are we when we use Social Media? All of our most basic instincts come into play (follow me!). We all end up as original as a rock in the desert (look at this picture of my feet! #FromWhereIStand) plus we spend all the money we could have invested on the pair of shoes we’ve just instragrammed on annihilating our data plans (Oh my god look at those shoes I’m dyiiiinnnnng! On my wish list asap! etc.)
Then add in all the collective hysteria of fashion week and all dignity goes out the window.
Plus, the stuff we post… I mean c’mon.
Blurry pictures.
Does that sound good to you? 1,465 blurry photos from the Dolce&Gabbana show? No?
Yeah, I know so annoying, but, it’s not our fault! It’s the models! They are walking too fast !!!
Here’s a photo taken by Cathy Horyn, who has quite the talent for blurry photos.
And who has a good sense of humor as well as she retweeted this here:
RT @AndreChiles1: @CathyHorynNYT You really aren’t the best at taking pictures, are you?
One legged models.
Have you ever tried to take a picture of moving shoes? Try it. It’s not your fault. It’s that the models walk too damn fast.
The finale shot.
EVERYONE posts a blurry picture (SERIOUSLY CAN THESE MODELS STAND STILL FOR JUST ONE SECOND?) of the show finale. Do you want me to post my finale photos? No, seriously… I’m curious, do you?
The #WhoGivesAShit tweets
Today, I’m wearing @Balenciaga, @Marni, and @Topshop
No photo attached. Already we could care less about what she’s wearing, and plus we have to make all the effort of imagining the thing. Seriously, #Couldn’tGiveAShitIfITried
The #TMI tweets
Spotted: @Caroissa in front row @Topshop eating @PretaManger sandwich.
I mean, for starters, it’s a little #WhoGivesAShit about what Caroissa is eati…Okay, to be honest, our natural instinct to be voyeuristic (Don’t play innocent. You know it’s true.) gets a huge lift for a micro-hundredth of a second.
OF COURSE you have to fight this instinct. We have to protect ourselves from ourselves. I mean, you can paparazzi yourself as much as you want, try not to paparazzi folks who don’t realize you’re doing it.
Tweetiquette: Let’s all try to edit our tweets and think about what the person whom we’re tweeting about will think of said tweet.
Well, do you think repeating the Tweet in question on my blog is some form of metapaparazzism? I won’t ask Caroline. I hope she reads this post long after fashion week, a long long time from now. Never, even. Caroline, if you’re reading this, please forgive me. I love Prêt-À-Manger too. And sometimes, I’m in the front row and I’m darn hungry.
The #MyLifeIsSoMuchCoolerThanYoursCommaBitch Tweets.
@BryanBoy : Huge breakfast before the Marni show.
Really Bryan, really? A fruit plate?
So annoying when you just scarfed down two croissants.
@DerekBlasberg : Did you see @KateBosworth @JessicaAlba @TheLSD @MariahCarey @NaomiCampbell @NicoleRichie (and more) in my NYFW diary?
Oooooh, so annoying when you’re not invited.
The #WelcomeToTheNewWorldOfTechnologyAndCommunication tweets.
If you’re interested, @AnnaDelloRusso instagrams all of her daily credits (Meaning the who’s she’s wearing that day) inventing a whole new fashion series. Live. Awesome AND terrifying at the same time.
The “quote” tweets.
No need for another quote please. We already have many too many on our Twitter feed. Why are we flooded by quote and wisdom tweets? Because a quote is short, you don’t have to invent it, and you usually get a lot of retweets. A quote is a massive followers-getting weapon.
Tweetiquette: Let’s not do these too often. You end up seeming desperate for followers.
Now all these tips don’t apply to Diane Von Furstenberg, quotetwitteuse-in-chief who regales us with her aphorisms. And who quotes herself, so to speak…
*The moment of bliss that follows is brought to you by Dianne…*
Be true to yourself. It is hard but avoids complications. Good day Love, Diane.
Clarity, clarity, clarity… not easy but SOOOO important! Getting there! Love, Diane
I tell the world “dare to be you” and sometimes I forget it myself! Love, Diane.
#FuckingiPadPeople.
Arggggg shit!!! At a show, when someone is sitting in front of you (in runway terms, that means next to you going the opposite direction of the models’ walk) and decides it would be an awesome idea to film the entire show with his iPad. He then sticks in right in front of your face.
You have two options: Either you fold yourself in half and try to watch the entire show underneath his iPad or you just watch it right on his iPad. It’s the blurry version, but you’re probably already used to that. You can try to express your discomfort, but with the electric ambiance that pervades the shows this year, don’t be surprised if you get slapped.
#ShitWhichFiltershouldIuse?RiseHudsonorToaster?
Instagram is high-drama for perfectionists. Me, for example, I have four photo apps. It takes me hours to put together a single Instagram. #NoKidding.
Yeah, anyway, since 100% of the people around are Data Roaming like crazy during the fashion shows, the internet never works. Your iPhone just keeps thinking and thinking and you shake it like its going to change something (I mean I do that all the time) and your battery runs out real fast. That’s how you have 100% battery at 8:00 a.m. and 7% at 11:30 a.m.
Solutions? Either you have a car with a charger, or you make stops into cafes :
“Buongiorno avete una prisa (?) elettrica (???)” with your charger and a converter (Which is enormous and takes up tons of space) to have it work with the Italian outlets. That or you buy an external battery. Here’s my experience with those: #Don’tWorkAtAll
Anyway, long story short.
Since we’re just between friends… If you’re addicted to Twitter and Instagram, you can subscribe to our group, TIA.
Twitterers and Instagrammers Anonymous.
Here’s some excerpts from a conversation I had with Matt @BaronNYC and Emily, @emilynote (Did you really think you could have a group of ANONYMOUS Twitterers and Instagrammers? Are you CRAZY? That’s totally contradictory. We WANT to be known, just like everyone else. FOLLOW US.)
[This conversation has been adapted with the angle of Fashion Hysteria in order to better serve this post.]
“I always try to use the same filter. I just like to think this is my filter, my way of seeing the world.”
“Well, for me, every photo is torture. I have three filters, 5 photo aps, and every Instagram takes me so much time I could’ve done another blog post. Ugh. This thing…” (Recognize me? Yep, that one’s me)
“Yeah, I wish I could share my life with more than four people. How many followers do you have?
“165,000. You?”
“345.”
…
“Pffff. You see the problem, don’t you? It’s not the number of followers you have but the number of likes. You know what my goal is? I want you to see not the people who like the photo, but have Instagram put just the number of people who like it. Like, you have so many likes that you can’t even read all who liked it. That’s classsssy. Like you, Matt, you have SO MANY likes that you have to move to the next step: THE DOUBLE DIGITS.”
“Omg. So true.”
“You know what… I’m gonna give you my secret. You ready?
“My secret is the HoD. Yeah. The Hour of Delivery. For example, if you post a photo right when it’s the end of the Prada show. Yeah. That’s just too bad for you girls. It’s 7:00 p.m. Everyone is busy posting blurry photos of the show. Instagram is blowing up and your bomb of a photo goes unseen. Two likes, max. But if you do it at 4:00 when everyone is pissed about the beeeeeep show, then you’re like-count is through the roof. You’ll get 12 likes right off the bat. Listen to this: Thanks to my HoD technique, of that, one day, I totally blew up: 31 likes!!!”
“Damn Matt, you’re gooooood.”
“Aaaaah, yeah and you never have the moment where (small little voice) Oh nooooo! I forgot to put the blur option on my photo! Noooo!”
“My style is the moody photo. You know, all artistic. So, see, the photo I posted of that latte, 5 minutes ago? It was a huge artistic risk that I took there. My followers could’ve taken that terribly. They could think I’m a sell out.”
“That said, the only thing that is always appropriate are pictures of cats. With a cat shot, even during fashion week, you can never go wrong.”
…
That’s it.
So of course I had to report this fascinating conversation (I know, you just can’t wait to join TIA, right?) to Scott, and he told me that since the most popular subjects on Instagram are cats and food and so he’s going to start an Instagram of cat food.
With that, I’ll leave you with a few pearls from a girl who knows how to twitter. Short, personal, and lethal. Lauren Santo Domingo, @TheLSD. She’s got it down to an art.
- Skinny looks good on everyone.
- Why is it that men who have the most expensive tastes in life have the cheapest taste in women?
- The following are not real jobs: cocktail waitress, bikini model, former reality star, aspiring actress. (Aspiring anything, actually)
And one that should apply to me :
- Being an adult means feeling relieved when one is not invited somewhere.
Ha! I’ll try to remember that one next time I read a Tweet from Derek ;-)
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