tavitulle
Brooklyn,NewYorktavitulle
LosAngeles,California395 likes
#selfie4,596likes
#brooklyn#style#streetstyle#ad#rachelcomey
#openingceremony#miumiu#mansurgavriel#niconicothat made me feel bad enough to put my phone away.
For all my years growing up online, I am still unable to
both rapidly and accurately manage so many realities at
once: to account for hundreds of people’s feedback in a
matter of minutes; to know what to give weight to and
what to let go of, what to take at face value and what to
read into, what strikes a chord because of a real insecurity
I have and what strikes a chord because of a silly insecu-
rity I’ve learned to have, what of other people is authentic
or performance or both or neither, and how to catch my
brain when it goes to this place. This cycle of judging and
being judged is a black hole in which time disappears, in
which I and the people I encounter are all frozen in our
profiles. It is where I nourish my insecurities over the mil-
lions of past versions of me that float around like old year-
book photos and where I still judge people I don’t know
for reasons I can’t even remember. Together, we have
helped Instagram become its own multibillion-dollar
economy: the influencer industry, where people become
brands and where brands reach people through other
people, fueled by our attempts to solve
the great mystery of how one looks in the
eyes of another.
There are plenty of well-documented
reasons to distrust Instagram—the plat-
form where one is never not branding,
never not making Facebook money,
never not giving Facebook one’s data—but most unnerv-
ing are the ways in which it has led me to distrust myself.
After countless adventures through the black hole, my
propensity to share, perform, and entertain has melded
with a desire far more cynical: to be liked, quantifiably,
for an idealized version of myself, at a rate not possible
even ten years ago.
I think I am a writer and an actor and an artist. But
I haven’t believed the purity of my own intentions ever
since I became my own salesperson, too.By the time I had instagram, I was already used to watch-
ing myself multiply. I started my fashion blog in 2008. My
friend’s older sister had one and sent me others to read.
I wanted to participate. Nearly every day after school,
I came home, grabbed my dad’s tripod and family’s digital
camera, and took a photo of my outfit, usually in our
backyard. Finding the act of posing somewhat embarrass-
ing, I mostly tried to make my face as neutral as possible,
or goofy and self-effacing, or occasionally—if it were a
film-still-esque shot—emote. Then, using the app Photo-
Filtre and the now-defunct website Picnik, I edited the
photos, altering the light, the coloring, the implied era.
I pasted my face onto scans of old photo-booth strips,
passports, and Polaroids. I could repeat it like a Warhol
or frame it like CinemaScope. Sometimes my photos were
supposed to be of characters, but they were always a way
of envisioning myself in times and places that felt more
real and more special than our backyard: movies, fashion
editorials, a vague idea of the distant past.“I think I am a
writer and an actor
and an artist.
But I haven’t
believed
the purity of my
own intentions
ever since I
became my own
salesperson, too.”
ACTII
TheInfluencer
Whenallthe#con
became#spon.S I T T I N G S E D I TO R S : D I A N A TS U I A N D D E V I N E B L AC K S H E R ; M A K E U P BY Y U U I V I S I O N U S I N G L A U R A M E R C I E R ; H A I R BY M AT T H E W T U OZ ZO L I AT S E E M A N AG E M E N T U S I N G B U M B L E A N D B U M B L E. P R E V I O U S S P R E A D, S P EC I A L T H A N K S TO R OYA L PA L M S S H U F F L E B OA R D.
september 16–29, 2019 | new york 43nico.nicomansurgavrielopeningceremonyrachelcomeyrachelcomeymiumiu