Virtual Realm of Reality

VIRTUAL REALM OF REALITY

Jaime Ogston

Beyond the glass screen of your computer, tablet or phone there is a whole other world created entirely from language. This is a world of hash tags, communities, stories and followers. A world of going “live” and “tagging”. Where for some, the virtual IS reality. This is Instagram.

What was originally created as a photo sharing application has evolved into a realm where millions of communities made up of millions of like-minded people gather to express their self. A simple search for almost anything imaginable, from gypsy to gym junkie, preceded by a hash tag, will direct you straight to one of these communities. But it is your own personal Instagram page that is your springboard into truly immersing yourself in these conceptually created spaces.

Tuan (1991) discusses how the art of storytelling has the power to bring far off objects into the reality and that by adding certain elements to this story we are able to create more emotional attachments to place. This is just how the Instagram world works. Using the “stories” feature, one is able to narrate and edit their life according to the communities they’re aiming to establish an identity within. Upload a photo, add a few hash tags and you are introducing yourself to your chosen community. And if your content is well received then you will earn yourself some followers.

These followers are your very own tribe. Your Instagram page becomes a place in its own right. A creation of your narration. Tagging others will further establish your place. And going “live”, well that is just like having virtual coffee with your new-found friends.

Drawing on the week five lecture, in which Dr Victoria Kuttainen discussed the evolution of language, we can clearly see how the age of the internet is changing our culture (Kuttainen 2017). It is no longer a necessity that we even step out of the comfort of our pyjamas to socialise. Entire communities are just a click of a button away. And if we do feel the sudden urge to upload a “selfie” without having first applied our makeup, one of the many Instagram filters will render us fit for human consumption.

What a powerful tool the gift of language is. The ability to create places, both real and virtual, through communication is remarkable. Mark Pagel (2011) highlights this in a TED talk in which he discusses the transformations of humanity through language. Pagel further elaborates on how language is also used as a method of exclusion. Tuan (1991) provides an example of this very notion when, during the Second World War, the Japanese persuaded other Asian leaders to view the conflict as a battle of the East and West.

Throughout history, the mediums through which we experience language have changed but the power of it has never faltered. We are now inundated with ways of using that very power to create our own place and identity within larger global communities. This is the new milestone medium in the evolution of the human language.

References:

·         Kuttainen, V. (2017). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narrative and the Making of Place, week 5 notes [power point slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

·         Pagel, M. (TEDglobal). (2011, July) How language transformed humanity [vodcast]. Retrieved from https;//www.ted.com>talks>transcript

·         Social network analysis [image]. (2005). Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Internet_map_1024.jpg

·         Tuan, Y. (1991) Language and the Making of Place. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 684-696. Retrieved from http://.jstor.org/stable/2563430