This project for my Writing for Digital Media class was to create a story on a social platform to "hack" that platform. The word "hack" is used loosely on this project where it is just a way to use the platform in a way that it was not intended to be used.
For this project I used Instagram because Instagram is one of those platforms where users try to portray the best parts of their lives and show off to their followers. I wanted to make a statement and show that it is okay for you to be real across every social platform. One of the aspects of Instagram that really grinds my gears is the fitness trend that is totally fake but everyone still follows. I even follow some myself, maybe that makes me a hypocrite... But, all of the fitness pyramid schemes and the people pretending to have "perfect lives" is exhausting to a normal, chubby girl like me.
My story is about a girl who is unsatisfied with her body and is persuaded by these fitness models to buy their products and try to loose weight. She crashes because of how unhealthy these pills and detoxes are and feels even worse in her body than she did before. She then finally realizes that it is okay to be thicker as long as she is healthy. So many people could benefit from hearing this especially on Instagram because there are too many unrealistic expectations put on bodies and pyramid schemes and fitness accounts use that insecurity to sell their products.
I really enjoyed this project because it was a different way of telling a story on a platform that could be more widely viewed because of the use of hashtags and geo-tags. I am really happy with how I executed it because I made sure to use the same excited tone that the fitness models use in their posts. This gave me experience in writing captions and mimic the tone of different accounts that I'm not completely familiar with. This could really help me in my future and I am thankful that I was able to have this experience.