But recently I click on a story from a model I enjoy working with. She's sharing someone else's story. Inside: a video. Cozy evening gathering in an apartment, looks like Paris. Five or six photo models sitting at a table, I know three of them, plus a couple of photographers. That's it.
Wait. Have you noticed too that this isn't actually a story?
The context is missing. The content. What am I looking at? Where am I? What are these people doing? Why did they meet up? What connects them? And what happens next? None of this gets answered. I'm staring at moving images and understanding: nothing.
An Insta-story is rarely an actual story. Most people fail to explain what it's about. They apparently believe you already know everything about them and their lives. Or that you follow them constantly. Do other people do that? Am I the only one clicking through wondering whether I'm watching a furniture store commercial or a private dinner party?
The fact that stories disappear after 24 hours obviously doesn't make it any easier. And everyone probably feels silly constantly providing context. It was probably about a workshop in Paris. But this story doesn't promote anything at all. For me it only conveys a feeling of "okay, they're still alive," nothing more.
When I criticize something like this, I feel like an idiot. Someone who doesn't understand the medium. Who's too old for the new communication. But maybe it just doesn't do anything for me. Maybe I really am from another planet because I appreciate stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That tell something, not just show something.
Or maybe I'd just rather be sitting at the table with those people. Having real conversations instead of looking at their conversations through a phone screen. But those have become rarer, real conversations. Ever since everyone became broadcasters and stopped being receivers.
Maybe that's my problem with social media. Not the platforms themselves. But that they've turned stories into mere snapshots. Narratives became proof-of-life photos. "I was there" instead of "And then this happened."
I don't know if you have to question everything. Maybe I think too much about things. But when you no longer understand what everyone else out there is doing, it feels kind of strange.