Population Infinite: Assignment 3
October 07, 2020
Re-Invention Performance
After class, I couldn’t stop thinking about the performance where Kristin Sue Lucas changed her name to Kristin Sue Lucas. I found it to be the most official, legal, and tangible form of saying “I am not who I was yesterday.” I also kept thinking about the judge’s sentence “So you have changed your name to exactly what it was before in the spirit of refreshing yourself as though you were a web page.”
I figured the 2020 version of that may be to re-create your instagram or something similar for no other reason than to leave that last set of people behind. I would need to re-form relationships. That would require updating the contract of friendship with everyone with whom I’ve ever felt enough of a connection to follow.
I wasn’t going to do that though. I am still the person I was yesterday. I know that.
I felt the first step would be to attempt to create new positive influences on my life. It is easy to get stuck in the mundanity and complain about a busy day (which I definitely had). I’m also prone to feeling embarrassed about doing things wrong. So, I figured I would force myself to stay positive for a day.
That spawned my plan, I was going to explain every hour of my day in as positive a light as I could muster.
Not only did this make the (many) awkward moments a lot less embarrassing, but split up my day into tangible segments that helped pass the time, keep me on track, and keep me focused on my work. Overall, I really enjoyed the process and felt positive the whole, very busy day.
But that wasn’t what ended up being interesting to me. What was fascinating was the sheer volume of instagram DMs I got.
They kind of fell into 4 categories: Friend Messages, Lover Messages, Acquaintance Messages, and Friend Sincerity.
Friend Messages
These were mostly messages from friends who told me to “slip a titty” or “show hole.” Gross friend stuff, but fun. Not particularly deep.
Lover Messages
I am not sure what actually made this happen, but like 8 men I haven’t spoken to in forever were reaching out, complimenting, flirting, etc. It was a bit odd and felt disingenuous, but was fascinating. I can understand better why people would post a lot if thats the kind of attention they’re getting. Not for me, but unique.
Acquaintance Messages
People who I spent one or two days with while I was traveling were reaching out and asking about why I was doing this, commenting on how it felt vulnerable and sincere. I also had about 3 people start to do the same thing today. I think there was something fascinating about the ripple effect my “performance” caused.
Friend Sincerity
This was interesting. A few people started their own versions of this (some on private story, some public) and were sincere in their compliments or discussions about positivity when interacting with me.
I think the two layers to this were Social Media and Positivity. The platform had a massive impact on the type of engagement I was getting, but positivity seemed to be the crux of this whole thing. People felt that I was really trying to be positive in moments of discomfort or stress. Forcing myself to use nuggets of positivity I’ve picked up over the years helped me and my audience. Excited to discuss in class.
Written by Philip Cadoux, current ITP student and Creative Technologist. Follow me on Instagram