Latest / Mini Scroll / Digital Immortality: Why We're Obsessed With Our Social Media Legacy ft. Mike's Mic

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Digital Immortality: Why We're Obsessed With Our Social Media Legacy ft. Mike's Mic · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  This episode of Infinite Scroll is brought to you by Britta from
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  Water Talk to the Emotional Support Water Bottle.
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  Gen. Z and Millennials have developed
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  an obsession with water and staying hydrated.
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  With Britta's water filter jugs, you can enjoy pure and fresh
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  tasting filtered water straight from any tap.
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  By ditching single use plastic bottles, you'll be doing your
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  bit for the planet and drinking water that tastes amazing.
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  Britta doesn't just filter water, it filters out the guilt
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  of plastic waste. Thank you to Britta for
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  supporting the pod, helping us just keep our deep dives going,
• 0:31
  and of course, keeping us hydrated.
• 0:34
  At the end of June, a video began circulating from content
• 0:37
  creator Tanner Martin, but it wasn't a regular video.
• 0:41
  For years prior, Tanner had been documenting his experience
• 0:45
  fighting colon cancer, but this video began with a line no one
• 0:49
  was quite ready for. Hey, it's me, Tanner, if you're
• 0:54
  watching this. I am dead.
• 0:58
  In the video, Tanner continued by speaking directly to his
• 1:01
  wife, Shay, reflecting on his journey and thanking the
• 1:04
  community he had built. He also shared how viewers could
• 1:07
  continue to support his family. Soon came an outpouring of
• 1:11
  support from his followers. The video has since been viewed
• 1:15
  over 15,000,000 times on TikTok and 5.8 million times on Reels.
• 1:20
  Tanner's final post left a clear and impactful legacy online, one
• 1:25
  that he also sought to shape himself.
• 1:27
  And he's not the only one. Other iconic creators who have
• 1:31
  passed away, like Technoblade, have also left behind versions
• 1:34
  of themselves online. Their videos, captions, and
• 1:38
  final words became part of their story.
• 1:40
  Legacy is a lofty concept, and one that most of us will grapple
• 1:44
  with at some point in our lives. But the way we curate our legacy
• 1:48
  is changing. It's no longer limited to the
• 1:50
  small circle of people we know and interact with in real life.
• 1:54
  It's not just preserving served in conversations and connections
• 1:57
  with friends or memories shared with family.
• 2:00
  There is now a digital version of us that exists and lives on.
• 2:03
  And while that might feel unsettling, the digital world
• 2:07
  has fundamentally transformed how we perceive and engage with
• 2:10
  death. Some commentators have even gone
• 2:13
  so far as to describe the modern world as post mortal.
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  This is an exploration into digital footprints and how
• 2:20
  through performance, storytelling and self curation,
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  we're all creating digital legacies for ourselves, whether
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  we realize it or not. From Centennial World, I'm
• 2:32
  Lauren Meisner and this is Infinite Scroll, a podcast about
• 2:35
  Internet culture, the creator economy and how social media is
• 2:39
  shaping. Jen Zed, welcome back to
• 2:41
  Infinite Scroll, everyone. You might notice that I have a
• 2:44
  bit of a different set up today. I'm trying a different
• 2:46
  microphone. My teleprompter wasn't working
• 2:49
  and I was like, you know what, why don't we just switch all of
• 2:53
  this up and see if the vibes are a little bit easier, a little
• 2:56
  bit better. I struggle so much with the
• 3:00
  technology around our teleprompter and these deep
• 3:02
  dive. So I was like, why don't I just
• 3:03
  like do something different? So we'll see how this goes.
• 3:06
  The handheld vibe, like she kind of feels a bit more casual.
• 3:10
  Anyways, before I get into it, Please remember to rate, review
• 3:12
  and subscribe. Please also sign up to our
• 3:14
  newsletter, which for now is also called Infinite Scroll.
• 3:17
  We're going to be having a rebrand very soon.
• 3:20
  For now, we round up the five biggest thing pieces on the
• 3:23
  Internet that week, every single Friday.
• 3:24
  But that will soon be changing. It will be very exciting, so
• 3:28
  please subscribe. So earlier this year, we did a
• 3:34
  deep dive into the phenomenon of parasocial grief, attempting to
• 3:38
  answer questions around why we feel genuine sadness when a
• 3:41
  public figure dies and whether this grief is even valid.
• 3:45
  Through this episode, we explored how social media
• 3:48
  capitalizes on the grief economy, as well as how social
• 3:51
  media users perform and police grief online.
• 3:54
  After speaking to two experts in this field, it became clear that
• 3:58
  parasocial grief is a real and powerful feeling, one that is
• 4:02
  unfortunately undermined. While we did come to some
• 4:06
  conclusions, this episode posed more questions than it answered.
• 4:10
  Having said that, we wanted to examine this relationship
• 4:13
  between the digital space and death more closely, which is
• 4:17
  what brings us to today's episode about digital legacy.
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  Now, the conversation around parasocial grief and dying
• 4:24
  online brings up questions like what happens to the social media
• 4:27
  profiles of someone who has passed, and how do platforms
• 4:31
  manage this? We touched on this in our
• 4:33
  previous deep dive, noting how platforms like Facebook and
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  Instagram have the ability to memorialize profiles of people
• 4:39
  who have passed away. In this instance, our online
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  profile becomes part of our legacy.
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  It is something that can live separately to us and even beyond
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  us. And that's what we want to
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  explore today. Not necessarily what happens to
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  our profiles after we die, but why that matters to us and what
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  that says about how creators and the average social media users
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  live online today. Before we discuss the specifics
• 5:04
  of legacy in the digital space, it is worth defining what legacy
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  means and exploring why it's important to us.
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  First and foremost, legacy is quite a broad concept.
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  According to psychological scholarship, legacy is typically
• 5:19
  understood as curating A postmortem reputation, or in
• 5:22
  other words, a specific way to be remembered after you die.
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  It should be noted, though, that legacy doesn't have to be
• 5:29
  exclusively after death. If you take a moment to think
• 5:31
  about various public figures, like athletes or musicians, many
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  have managed to leave a legacy for achievements well before
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  they pass. This is also something that
• 5:41
  could apply to social media creators, but more on this
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  later. People can leave different kinds
• 5:45
  of legacies, whether biological material or values driven.
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  Biological legacy may include having children or even being an
• 5:53
  organ donor. Material legacy is all about
• 5:56
  possessions and heirlooms. Lastly, a values driven legacy
• 6:00
  may refer to passing on personal beliefs, often extending to
• 6:03
  cultural and societal norms and experiences.
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  Of course, not every single type of legacy applies to the digital
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  space, but we could argue that material legacy in this context,
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  text may refer to accounts and profiles.
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  Meanwhile, a legacy of values could relate to the messaging
• 6:21
  that a creator or public figure shares on their platforms.
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  Regardless of the type of legacy someone may leave behind, the
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  commitment and interest in curating one seems to exist
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  across the board. This may simply be a matter of
• 6:33
  human nature, but there are a couple of theories within
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  existing psychological literature that attempt to
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  explain why this happens. The first one stems from our
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  interest in building community and connection through
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  reputation and social standing. Throughout our lives, we are
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  constantly told to look out for our reputation, both on and
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  offline. Just think about the fear
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  mongering that went on when millennials were first entering
• 6:56
  the workforce. They were constantly told to put
• 6:59
  their social media profiles on private working under the
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  assumption that employer wouldn't want to hire someone
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  who may have shared pictures from a night out.
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  From a young age, we are all taught that how people see us
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  matters. A good reputation means that you
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  are seen as trustworthy, reliable and likable, and that
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  can open doors, build relationships and lead to new
• 7:20
  opportunities. On the flip side, a bad
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  reputation can shut those same doors, at least in theory if
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  you're not a white man. So it makes sense that we care
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  about how we are remembered, whether that's after we leave a
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  job, move away from a community, or even after we die.
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  It's basically an extension of everything we've been taught to
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  care about as academics. Brat Wagner, Jesse M Bering, and
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  Jamine Haberstadt put it quote. Given that legacy driven motives
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  constitute essentially 1's permanent, idealized reputation,
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  the impetus to leave such a lasting personal impact may be a
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  reflection of basic human social drives for in Group validation
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  and social approval even after death.
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  Another reason explaining our interest in legacy is our
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  anxiety around death. Historically, we may have turned
• 8:06
  to religion as a way to mitigate this discomfort, but as the
• 8:10
  world becomes increasingly secular, religious beliefs in
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  the afterlife and the experience after death become less
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  convincing for some. In the same article, the
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  academics point to the concept of symbolic immortality as a way
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  to offset such feelings. As they write quote, attempts to
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  preserve the self through absorption into one's ambient
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  culture are common. Such efforts give one a sense of
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  symbolic immortality and may include creating works of
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  cultural value and social impact, or aligning oneself with
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  the values of a delineated group that will outlive the self.
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  So at its core, doing something that matters, or at least feels
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  like it matters, becomes a way to cope with the finality of
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  death. And it's another major reason
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  why Legacy is something that people think about.
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  Well, all of these are important factors.
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  When we talk about legacy, there's another piece that feels
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  especially relevant in the digital world, and that's the
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  idea of legacy as narrative. The link between narrative and
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  identity has been explored for decades in both psychology and
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  philosophy. While there are different
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  theories about how we use narratives in our lives, one
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  thing is clear storytelling is innate to human nature.
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  It's how we make sense of the world and its challenges.
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  It indicates a sense of progress, gives us some control
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  over how we're perceived, and lets us pass on knowledge in a
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  way that feels familiar. As the authors put it, quote
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  self. Narratives allow us to perceive
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  ostensibly meaningful, even if illusory, transformations of
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  characters and unraveling plots, providing a feeling of progress
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  and as a consequence, teleological purpose through the
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  hope of an eventual and climactic ending.
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  In that sense, legacy can be thought of as the final chapter
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  or the conclusion to a person's story.
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  What's interesting is that social media users have kind of
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  embraced this idea and the importance of narrative, whether
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  consciously or not. You see it in the rise of story
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  time content, but maybe even more so in the whole main
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  character syndrome phenomenon. The idea posits that you are the
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  main character and everyone else in your life is an NPC.
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  It encourages people to romanticize their life and live
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  as if they are the protagonist in a film.
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  This approach largely originated on TikTok and became a popular
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  coping mechanism to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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  Now, not everyone buys in to main character syndrome, but
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  almost everyone is pushing out some kind of self narrative
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  online. Whether it's a curated Instagram
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  feed, the TikTok niche you fall into, or even just choosing what
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  not to post. We are all performing a version
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  of ourselves. We are all in some way self
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  producing and curating a digital legacy in the process.
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  In this context, the version of ourselves we present online can
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  be seen as an archive of sorts. Our posts tell a story about who
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  we are, what we value and what we want to be remembered for,
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  even if it isn't always something you are actively
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  thinking about. But this idea of performance and
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  how we achieve it is being explored more deeply by creators
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  and commentators. One example is pop culture
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  analyst and podcaster What Zara Loves.
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  In a TikTok video recently, she discussed how posts on social
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  media can be viewed and understood as artifacts, where
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  for our sake, these artifacts can serve as building blocks of
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  a digital legacy. She begins by referencing
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  dramaturgical theory, which is a sociological theory likening
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  social interaction to theater. Through this lens, individuals
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  create specific versions of themselves to influence how
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  others perceive them and manage their identity.
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  There is a split here between the front stage and the
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  backstage. The former is how we present our
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  public persona, while the latter is how we exist when there is no
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  one to perform for. Ultimately, it's a powerful way
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  to think about how we manage our identity and public impression.
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  Zara, in her video, notes that she she'd always thought that
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  posting on social media was part of the front stage, but she has
• 12:08
  since started to view posts online, not necessarily as an
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  act of performance, but rather as artifacts and exhibitions of
• 12:16
  previous performances. Of course, Zara is correct, no
• 12:21
  one does post their backstage. Even as social media has become
• 12:25
  more casual, it continues to be performative.
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  It should be noted that this isn't necessarily bad.
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  From everything we've discussed at the beginning of the episode,
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  it's clear that this preoccupation with reputation
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  and how we are perceived as part of our society and human nature.
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  The true problem is that users don't fully understand the
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  extent of this performance. A couple of years ago, for
• 12:46
  example, there was a lot of discourse online about the rise
• 12:49
  of photo dumps on Instagram. People were celebrating.
• 12:52
  It was finally the end of the perfectly curated, polished and
• 12:56
  highly edited culture on Instagram.
• 12:58
  Instead of brightly colored brunch photos in front of the
• 13:01
  most perfect sunset on the grid, the photo dump was filled with
• 13:04
  casual landscape pictures and unedited selfies.
• 13:08
  They almost seemed like they were just thrown together, but
• 13:10
  often they were posted after much thought and to curate a
• 13:14
  specific vibe. This approach to social media
• 13:17
  trickle down from creators and celebrities to the masses.
• 13:20
  Where everyone was creating their digital legacy one photo
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  dump or should we say 1 artifact at a time.
• 13:28
  This brings us to another interesting point.
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  While our fascination with legacy isn't new, the ability to
• 13:34
  publicly curate it is. Like we have established
• 13:38
  platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube allow users
• 13:41
  to self produce and broadcast a version of themselves that can
• 13:44
  easily outlive their offline reality.
• 13:47
  Before social media, the average person had limited control over
• 13:51
  how they were remembered on a grand scale.
• 13:53
  Building a legacy was limited to their family, their workplace,
• 13:56
  or their local community. But now, anyone with a social
• 14:00
  media profile can shape their identity and legacy in real time
• 14:04
  for an audience of strangers. This is of course, what
• 14:07
  celebrities have been doing for as long as we can remember, and
• 14:10
  Beyoncé is one really interesting and current example
• 14:14
  of how artists grapple with their legacy both online and
• 14:17
  offline. While she is still actively
• 14:19
  touring and releasing music, it is clear she is focused on what
• 14:23
  she wants her career to represent.
• 14:25
  Her three act album project, two of which have been released so
• 14:28
  far, Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, is littered with imagery
• 14:32
  and commentary about legacy. On the Cowboy Carter tour, for
• 14:36
  instance, there is one montage that includes clips from
• 14:39
  Beyoncé's entire career so far. This isn't even to mention how
• 14:43
  her daughter Blue Ivy, who dances throughout the show, is
• 14:46
  introduced as the heir to the throne before one of the solo
• 14:50
  performances. Take one of Cowboy Carter's
• 14:52
  singles as another example. The song 16 Carriages contains
• 14:56
  reflections on the sacrifices Beyoncé has made throughout her
• 14:59
  career, all of which contribute to her legacy.
• 15:02
  With more and more nods to Beyoncé's long term influence,
• 15:05
  fans are convinced that after Act 3, she will be retiring.
• 15:09
  Now, not every public figure is thinking about legacy this
• 15:13
  intentionally, especially when they're still active in their
• 15:15
  fields. But Beyoncé's focus on it
• 15:17
  probably comes down to a few things.
• 15:19
  She's had a once in a generation career.
• 15:22
  She's reshaped the industry through performance, production
• 15:25
  quality, pure excellence, and professionalism.
• 15:28
  She has also used her platform to celebrate and uplift Black
• 15:31
  culture and Black women in ways that weren't always possible for
• 15:35
  the artist who came before her. On top of this, as a Black
• 15:38
  woman, she's had to work even harder to manage the public
• 15:41
  narrative about her and, by extension, her legacy.
• 15:44
  She also stands out as one of the few current mainstream
• 15:47
  artists who has maintained cultural and commercial
• 15:49
  relevance across more than three decades, from her early years in
• 15:53
  Destiny's Child to her current solo career.
• 15:56
  With that kind of longevity, it's unsurprising that she would
• 15:59
  be actively thinking about about her legacy, how it's shaped and
• 16:02
  remembered. While Beyoncé is definitely
• 16:04
  navigating legacy in her own way, she is far from the only
• 16:08
  celebrity to curate their legacy publicly.
• 16:10
  From greatest hits albums to farewell tours to memoirs,
• 16:14
  legacy has always been part of a celebrity's career.
• 16:17
  But obviously, all of this pertains to Hollywood and
• 16:20
  mainstream entertainment. In the creator economy, the
• 16:23
  conversation might look a little different.
• 16:26
  That brings us to one key question.
• 16:29
  Do content creators have the same relationship with legacy as
• 16:32
  celebrities do? Because the creator economy is
• 16:35
  such a nascent industry, it might be too early to say
• 16:38
  anything for sure, but there are a few arguments we can make
• 16:41
  here. On a fundamental level, creators
• 16:43
  would likely have a similar relationship and interest in
• 16:45
  legacy simply because they're public figures.
• 16:48
  They build their audience and construct a character or public
• 16:51
  identity that lasts beyond their online career.
• 16:54
  And when creators do leave the space, whether to go completely
• 16:57
  offline or to move into forms of more traditional entertainment,
• 17:01
  many do final videos or goodbye posts.
• 17:04
  Last year, for example, Matt Pat posted a video titled Goodbye
• 17:07
  Internet. Before stepping back from
• 17:09
  hosting Game Theory, it's also worth doubling down on the fact
• 17:13
  that the infrastructure around legacy building for creators is
• 17:17
  still very new. Unlike mainstream celebrities,
• 17:19
  who often have entire teams or variety of predecessors to draw
• 17:23
  inspiration from when considering their branded
• 17:26
  legacy, most creators are navigating this process on their
• 17:29
  own. In other words, the creator
• 17:31
  economy does not yet have the longevity of traditional
• 17:34
  entertainment, so it's difficult to see how digital legacy is
• 17:37
  interpreted and how it holds up in the long term.
• 17:41
  On top of this, considering how fickle content creation can be
• 17:44
  and how fast Internet culture moves, it can be difficult to
• 17:48
  effectively curate a legacy when it's the algorithm, platform, or
• 17:52
  political culture in a specific moment in time that decides what
• 17:56
  cuts through. So while influencers might want
• 17:59
  to curate a legacy, they may not have the same control to do so
• 18:03
  in a lasting way. And that's not even getting into
• 18:06
  the nature of the medium itself. Much of A content creators
• 18:09
  legacy is tied to digital platforms, and while we often
• 18:12
  say everything online lives forever, that's not actually
• 18:15
  guaranteed. Platforms rise and fall, data
• 18:18
  can be lost, and the ways we access and preserve information
• 18:22
  are constantly shifting. Especially now, as we enter the
• 18:26
  era of AI, it's difficult to predict what a digital legacy
• 18:29
  will even look like and years to come.
• 18:31
  Yes, there are tools that allow us to memorialize profiles, but
• 18:35
  there's no promise we'll be able to access them long term.
• 18:38
  Just look at what happened with Myspace.
• 18:40
  A whole generation of early Internet culture was essentially
• 18:44
  wiped when the platform lost most of its data.
• 18:47
  All in all, the conversation around legacy and what it means
• 18:50
  to curate one in the digital age is both interesting and
• 18:53
  definitely still evolving, especially when you consider
• 18:56
  just how much social media has become a part of our everyday
• 19:00
  life. Having said that, Gen.
• 19:02
  Z users are not afraid to poke fun at what may be considered a
• 19:06
  serious topic. Over the past few years, this
• 19:08
  demographic has not shield away from making light of their
• 19:11
  digital legacies and the prospect of leaving an online
• 19:14
  presence behind. There are a couple of trends
• 19:17
  that show just how unserious Gen.
• 19:19
  Z is about this. In 2022, for example, one trend
• 19:24
  saw users listing the rules of their own funerals, from
• 19:27
  insisting guests bring photo evidence of their friendship to
• 19:30
  gatekeep the event to asking attendees to show up in glam.
• 19:34
  More recently, when the wedding line of trend took over TikTok,
• 19:37
  some made funeral line UPS instead.
• 19:41
  Others have gone as far as creating Spotify legacy
• 19:44
  playlists, including YouTube. Mike's Mike who created his own
• 19:48
  soundtrack to be remembered by. With that being said, we
• 19:52
  actually chatted with Mike to hear his thoughts on curating a
• 19:55
  digital legacy as a creator and why he thinks Gen.
• 19:59
  Z is preoccupied by their legacy.
• 20:02
  So welcome Mike to Infinite Scroll.
• 20:05
  Thank you, excited to be here. I'm so excited to chat with you,
• 20:08
  I've literally been following you on YouTube for years.
• 20:10
  So for me this is like serendipitous.
• 20:12
  Oh hell yeah. Are we talking like the post
• 20:14
  2020 era? The post 2023 era?
• 20:17
  Like what are we talking? Oh no, no, no, like I'm going to
• 20:19
  say post 2020 like years. Wow.
• 20:22
  Yeah, I feel lucky because I can try a whole bunch of different
• 20:25
  things. I feel like over that last five
• 20:26
  years I've sort of pivoted into like long form content, also
• 20:29
  doing stuff on other platforms and all that.
• 20:32
  So yeah, it's been really fun. All right.
• 20:33
  Well, here we are today to talk about digital legacies and kind
• 20:38
  of what we leave behind online. Obviously you are a digital
• 20:42
  culture expert, but for anyone who doesn't, but for anyone who
• 20:47
  doesn't know your lore, can you give us a quick rundown on who
• 20:51
  you are, what you do? OK, so post YouTube videos
• 20:55
  talking about pop culture. And when I say pop culture, I
• 20:57
  mean like movies, TV shows sometimes and music as well.
• 21:02
  And then I also post on the other platforms, you know,
• 21:05
  TikTok, Instagram. And then I call myself somewhat
• 21:08
  of a Spotify players connoisseur.
• 21:11
  So if you knew my YouTube stuff after 2020, you would know my
• 21:14
  Glee video, which has my Spotify playlist of my Glee favorite
• 21:19
  songs. It's hit after hit after hit.
• 21:22
  And the. Girls like gather, gather.
• 21:24
  So yeah, just like that intersection of like 2000's pop
• 21:29
  culture, sometimes a little bit after that, but that's sort of,
• 21:31
  I would say 2004 to 2014 is like my favorite area of pop culture.
• 21:38
  OK, I love that. Would you call yourself like a
• 21:39
  video essayist? My, when I think of video
• 21:42
  essayists like Jenny Nicholson, she's just like a step above me.
• 21:48
  So I say that I'm like a step below that.
• 21:50
  Whatever you call that level of silliness, that's below, like,
• 21:53
  serious video essayists. So yeah.
• 21:57
  OK. I feel like you're not giving
• 21:58
  yourself enough credit, but sure, we'll go with it.
• 22:01
  I mean, being silly is important, so yeah.
• 22:05
  And I love that you don't take it so seriously.
• 22:08
  It's very fun. So let's just get right into it.
• 22:11
  What for you does the kind of idea or concept of digital
• 22:16
  legacy mean so? It's sort of like what you're
• 22:19
  leaving on the Internet. I think about it as So actually
• 22:24
  while I was getting ready for this meeting, I was listening to
• 22:26
  my playlist again through and I had some thoughts which are for
• 22:31
  Gen. Z.
• 22:33
  You know, we're sort of living me saying that I'm Gen.
• 22:35
  Z even though I'm like one year out of the bracket, but I'm
• 22:38
  still saying I'm Gen. Z.
• 22:39
  Let's just go with that. We're sort of growing up with
• 22:42
  the Internet and it's so intrinsically linked with
• 22:44
  whatever we're doing, whatever we're presenting ourselves as.
• 22:48
  Whereas if I think about my mom, she would have had like a photo
• 22:51
  album of memories and being like, this is what I did at this
• 22:55
  time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:56
  And you can like pull it out and show people or like maybe had a
• 23:00
  CD where she burned her favorite songs onto.
• 23:03
  Whereas like now young people are presenting their lives on
• 23:07
  Instagram, They're making their Spotify legacy playlists.
• 23:11
  It's sort of like, these are parts of my story that I'm
• 23:14
  sharing with everyone else via these avenues.
• 23:17
  That's sort of how I see it. And I it makes sense to me that
• 23:21
  Gen. Z would be the one that sort of
• 23:22
  spearheading this like digital legacy sort of trend.
• 23:26
  Yeah, absolutely. And do you think that there's an
• 23:29
  element of performance that goes into kind of what we're leaving
• 23:32
  behind or what we're posting and then obviously leaving behind as
• 23:35
  a result? I saw a really interesting
• 23:37
  TikTok yesterday and I might be butchering the exact words, but
• 23:41
  it was something like when people are posting on, for
• 23:45
  example, Instagram, they're not posting their current
• 23:50
  performance. They're posting highlights of
• 23:52
  their past performances. So it's like it's still
• 23:55
  performing, but in a way that they're showing.
• 23:57
  These are things that I do that I like and I want to share with
• 24:00
  people. So I think even if we're looking
• 24:02
  at it through that lens of like it's performative, I think
• 24:05
  there's still a very human element of being like, I did
• 24:09
  this and it was great. And I want to show other people.
• 24:11
  It's like when people go to Paris and they take a picture of
• 24:13
  the Eiffel Tower and they post it.
• 24:15
  It's like how many thousands and millions of pictures of the
• 24:17
  Eiffel Tower are there? But it's like, but I took this
• 24:19
  one and I want people to see it. So it's like they're memories
• 24:23
  and what's part of them being shown to other people.
• 24:25
  We did a bigger podcast episode on kind of like death and dying
• 24:28
  and what happens to your digital footprint once you pass on and
• 24:32
  what the platforms do with it and all of that.
• 24:35
  And do you find that this is something that Gen.
• 24:37
  Z is thinking about more now? Is that in any of the research
• 24:40
  or conversations even that you've had?
• 24:43
  It sort of links back to what I was saying where it just feels
• 24:45
  like it's part of what we do now to be like collating and
• 24:49
  collecting these pieces of us and sharing them with other
• 24:53
  people. What happens later on, it almost
• 24:57
  doesn't matter because it's like we're colliding them as we go.
• 24:59
  So it's like I don't know what could happen tomorrow.
• 25:01
  Whereas like my posts and all my things I've created online is
• 25:04
  still going to be there and people are still going to see
• 25:06
  them. So it's sort of like you're
• 25:07
  thinking about it as you go. Like I think there's an element
• 25:10
  of it for sure, but it's also doesn't have to be that serious.
• 25:14
  Like you just like collect some of your favorite things and
• 25:16
  share like my Spotify plays, for example, like some of those
• 25:19
  songs, like every song on there is linked to a specific memory
• 25:22
  that I have, but some of them are super serious.
• 25:25
  Some of them are just fun. And it's fun to just like have
• 25:28
  those all in one place together. So it's like how many people
• 25:32
  would have, you know, suddenly I see by KT Tunstall on their
• 25:36
  favorite song playlist. Probably a lot, but how many of
• 25:38
  those people would also have Until the World Ends remix by
• 25:42
  Ke$ha on there? It's like the context of it in
• 25:46
  the one sort of area being like this is my thing and sharing it
• 25:50
  is sort of like the. Kicker And I think like there is
• 25:53
  more nuance to just what we're posting in general.
• 25:55
  You know, people always love to talk about like, it's it's a
• 25:58
  highlight reel and like here's like the reality behind this
• 26:01
  photo that I took or whatever. But honestly, like multiple
• 26:03
  things can exist at the same time.
• 26:05
  Like feel like, yeah, I might have been having a really bad, I
• 26:08
  don't know, mental health day when I took this photo.
• 26:10
  But like this, the moment represents also like a bright
• 26:12
  spot in my day or whatever. And like, most of things happen
• 26:14
  at once. But how do you think like the
• 26:17
  perception that the like real time perception?
• 26:20
  How do you think that's shaping how people are posting or
• 26:22
  curating? You know, celebrities that I
• 26:24
  follow and they're Instagram presence, it feels much more
• 26:29
  curated than say someone that I worked with six or seven years
• 26:32
  ago. But the person I'm working with
• 26:34
  six or seven years ago is still thinking about what they're
• 26:35
  posting and, you know, updating people on their lives through
• 26:39
  what they're posting and what they're sharing and that kind of
• 26:41
  thing. I actually love it when people
• 26:43
  share songs to their stories and I'm like, so why are you sharing
• 26:48
  that? Like what's the story behind
• 26:50
  that particular share? It's like they're keeping people
• 26:52
  updated on their lives. So I think that's how I would
• 26:55
  sort of look at it. Like, yes, it's curated and it's
• 26:58
  like specific messaging, but I don't think it's as manufactured
• 27:02
  as a celebrity. Like if you think about a
• 27:04
  celebrity that doesn't even have access to their social media and
• 27:07
  they're getting someone else to post things for them, it's all
• 27:09
  for optics. Whereas like I think for
• 27:12
  everyday people, it's less a performance, more so a specific
• 27:17
  targeted sharing. And I think there's like a
• 27:20
  difference there, if that makes sense.
• 27:22
  Yeah, for sure. I actually always say like the
• 27:25
  dream would to be to be like so famous that you actually don't
• 27:28
  have to think about your social media presence like at all.
• 27:31
  Not that it's like necessarily done for you, but the fact that
• 27:34
  like when you see celebrities and they have like the worst, I
• 27:36
  don't know, like social media ever.
• 27:38
  And they you can tell that they don't care about it.
• 27:40
  And I'm like the dream, the dream that you don't have to
• 27:42
  think. About is like there's for me,
• 27:44
  there's two dreams. First one is bad that you said.
• 27:46
  Second one is just being so good at it that it's just like off
• 27:51
  the cuff, like do a lipa do a loop of social media presence
• 27:54
  and she's like posting this photo dump somewhere like you're
• 27:56
  so good at this. Yeah, or like food photos.
• 27:59
  Like I can't take a food pic like for the life of me.
• 28:03
  And every time I no, me too, every time I see like a Moody
• 28:06
  vibey, I'm like, how did you curate that?
• 28:09
  How did you take that picture and then curate that dump?
• 28:10
  Like I was at that restaurant last week and it didn't look
• 28:13
  like that. Like how did you do that?
• 28:15
  Exactly. I I just gave up on the photo
• 28:17
  stuff. I'm like, all right, let me
• 28:18
  stick to posting funny stuff, sharing songs and movie reviews.
• 28:23
  Let's keep it at that. Because the photo like photos of
• 28:26
  the food are not giving and people are like what is that?
• 28:30
  Yeah, absolutely. So on the topic of social media
• 28:33
  and different platforms, which platforms do you think actually
• 28:36
  kind of do the best job of capturing someone's digital
• 28:39
  legacy? Instagram and Spotify in terms
• 28:44
  of the playlisting, Instagram because like you're sharing
• 28:47
  those, it can be highlights, it can be just like key moments
• 28:51
  from your life. So that's the best way to sort
• 28:54
  of build that online presence slash legacy.
• 28:58
  Whereas like if I think about my presence on TikTok, it's just
• 29:01
  like silly everyday posting it like doesn't really mean much
• 29:07
  about me as a person. YouTube's like linked to my
• 29:10
  work. So if I was to share my catalog
• 29:13
  of work on YouTube and be like, this is what I did for work and
• 29:16
  things that I'm interested in. But if I'm sharing my Instagram,
• 29:19
  then it's like these are things that I enjoy doing.
• 29:22
  These are things that were like linked to my story.
• 29:27
  So for example, in 2020, I went to Japan with my cousins and I
• 29:30
  posted about that and I also added the song of the trip from
• 29:34
  that to my legacy playlist on Spotify.
• 29:37
  Because I don't know about you, but like songs for trips.
• 29:41
  Like it's just, it just goes together.
• 29:43
  Like every trip that I go on, there is a song.
• 29:45
  And whenever I hear that song, I think about that trip.
• 29:47
  Or like, whenever I go to that place, I think about that song.
• 29:50
  Yeah, yeah, music is so linked with like memory, isn't it?
• 29:53
  Yeah, totally. That's why it's like if I listen
• 29:56
  to this legacy playlist through, it's like the memories are
• 30:00
  popping back in and it's just so fun to remember.
• 30:02
  It's like when you smell something and it's like, oh, I
• 30:05
  remember that smell from what I smelled in Paris in 2015.
• 30:09
  It's like it, just like it takes you back.
• 30:11
  Yeah, I think I agree with that. And I think part of it is
• 30:14
  because Instagram and YouTube or sorry, TikTok and YouTube are
• 30:18
  more like entertainment platforms, whereas Instagram is
• 30:22
  not so much about like entertaining people.
• 30:24
  Therefore, it's not that you become more authentic on
• 30:27
  Instagram, but like you said, it's more of a documentation of
• 30:29
  like your everyday of like who you are as a person.
• 30:32
  And then with Spotify, same thing where it's not about like
• 30:36
  curating playlists and being present on the platform isn't
• 30:39
  about entertaining anyone else, so it's more authentic to who
• 30:42
  you are. Totally.
• 30:43
  And I also think the way the platforms are structured lends
• 30:47
  itself to that. If you're scrolling on someone's
• 30:49
  TikTok, it's kind of hard to see what they were doing a year ago.
• 30:54
  If they're posting a lot. If they haven't pinned it to the
• 30:57
  top of the profile, it's hard to see chronologically like what's
• 31:00
  happening. Whereas on Instagram, you go to
• 31:02
  someone's profile, it's pretty easy to see what happened when
• 31:05
  and they've got the highlights and stuff like that at the top,
• 31:08
  like story highlights. And then if you go to someone's
• 31:09
  Spotify profile, they've got their playlist, it says when the
• 31:12
  playlist was made, when the songs were added, you can see
• 31:15
  the like general vibe. So it feels more authentic
• 31:19
  because it's like easy to work out when things happened.
• 31:22
  Yeah, no, I I totally agree. Like the user experience is much
• 31:25
  better in some ways. Yeah, OK, amazing.
• 31:30
  And if I know you said that you don't consider yourself a video
• 31:33
  essayist, but if you had to pick one of your video essays or just
• 31:36
  videos, I guess to represent your digital legacy, which one
• 31:40
  would it be and why? Great question.
• 31:42
  Also me not being being a video essayist, I think the one video
• 31:46
  essay that I would say was a video essay was about Lady Gagas
• 31:51
  album art pop and it got like immediately demonetized.
• 31:56
  So in my head I'm like, I don't even consider that a video, I
• 31:58
  say either. Wait, why did it get demonetized
• 32:01
  for like music? It was because I was like
• 32:03
  talking through the lyrics and some of the lyrics she has like,
• 32:07
  pretty like risque, like terms and stuff.
• 32:10
  And they democratized it for that.
• 32:12
  But I would say it would have to be my Pretty Little Liars recap
• 32:15
  series because that sort of like changed everything for me.
• 32:19
  So I wouldn't consider that a video essay, but I would
• 32:22
  consider it like a moment in long form content, especially
• 32:26
  for me and I guess for other people as well.
• 32:28
  But yeah, that nearly at 10 million views.
• 32:31
  Wow, what a slay. Congrats.
• 32:35
  What a slay. Exactly, Yeah.
• 32:38
  Crazy. Oh my God, I love that.
• 32:40
  OK, well, before I let you go, can you just share a little bit
• 32:43
  about like what you have coming up or like what your future
• 32:46
  plans are for your channel for your career?
• 32:48
  I'm just so interested to hear. OK, so I behind the scenes, I'm,
• 32:53
  I mean, I talked about this a little bit on YouTube, but I'm
• 32:56
  one of those people that doesn't like to say too much about
• 32:58
  what's happening until it happens because I hate being
• 33:01
  disappointed. But I'm writing scripts outside
• 33:05
  of YouTube, like screenplays and that kind of thing for film.
• 33:08
  So I'm trying to get some of those off the ground now.
• 33:11
  There's like a heist and a comedy.
• 33:15
  And then on YouTube, I'm finishing off my Gossip Girl and
• 33:20
  Lost series and I'm doing some like smaller stuff about Sex and
• 33:23
  the City, which I'm loving. Oh my God, it's so good.
• 33:26
  And. I can.
• 33:27
  Also play light to that. I'm like watching this stuff and
• 33:30
  I'm like, wow, this was so good. Everyone's playing like, yeah, I
• 33:34
  watched this like 25 years. Literally.
• 33:37
  I've got one more recap series that I've got planned and it
• 33:41
  involves a group of women living on a street.
• 33:48
  Honest. Oh, Desperate Housewives, maybe,
• 33:51
  maybe my favorite. Desperate Housewives is
• 33:54
  literally my favorite show. I watched it in the second
• 33:56
  lockdown here in Sydney. It was like the thing I it would
• 33:59
  be like 2:00 PM every day and I'd be like, can I just finish
• 34:01
  work now to just binge Desperate Housewives because I have
• 34:03
  nothing else to do because we were in lockdown and it's so
• 34:05
  iconic. It's just peak 2000 TV, 25
• 34:09
  episodes per season. It's like growing up Pretty
• 34:11
  Little Liars to be honest. So it's like a natural
• 34:14
  progression. So it's so good.
• 34:16
  I'm so excited for that, yes. Although I mean.
• 34:19
  I can't confirm or deny, of course, just the rumors.
• 34:22
  The rumors are flying around. I love it.
• 34:25
  Amazing. Thank you so much for chatting
• 34:27
  with me. Thank you.
• 34:28
  Overall, it's clear that the digital world has transformed
• 34:31
  not just how we live, but also how we remember the world around
• 34:35
  us. It has blurred the lines between
• 34:37
  presence and absence, and even between life and death.
• 34:41
  And while this is undoubtedly a heavy topic, we're all trying to
• 34:44
  figure out what it means to shape a reputation and build a
• 34:47
  life legacy in a world where online presence can last longer
• 34:52
  than our offline one. Infinite Scroll is a podcast
• 34:55
  produced, presented and Co written by me, Lauren Meisner
• 34:59
  for Centennial World. This episode was researched and
• 35:02
  Co written by Annabel Ben David. Thank you so much for listening.
• 35:05
  I love you guys and I will talk to you next week.
• 35:08
  Bye.