The taste of others, the taste of oneself.
As our connected lives lead us to experience many "firsts" online, the question of our memories arises.
Tuesday night on Earth. Looking at the weekend, seeing around twenty (!) dormant smartphones in an old drawer, I realized the waste of all my memories, undoubtedly lost forever. Welcome to all new subscribers! Check the archives to discover more.
“Firsts”, in the era of connected lives, increasingly happen online.
The first intense messaging conversation with a lover. The three little dots that say a lot, that don't say enough. The first "I love you," the last goodbye to someone leaving.
Many memories, fundamental moments in the creation of our identities, happen through social networks or digital platforms. Often, analyses focus on the new pop culture. But they omit to delve into what is the true engine of our digital life: human interactions in the shadows of public feeds, namely private groups, chats, or forums that continue to foster the culture of pseudonyms and a certain anonymity rather than our real names. You can't cheat with our feelings.
Difficulty accessing our past, our archives.
Despite the growing effort of Instagram, WeChat, or other TikTok to intensify the number of our online interactions, it is undeniable that the ergonomics of these platforms remain a nightmare to access the moments that have counted for us. Certainly, the user can see their archived stories, delve into saved content. Nevertheless, a screenshot remains for the common mortal more effective as the user experience is complicated to relive the past.
The taste of others seems to be privileged over our individual stories, to make us click on the next video, the next TikTok.
It is not surprising that as digital infiltrates our veins, the analog and the tangible are so popular. Géraldine Dormoy recalled the importance of preserving family photos through "paper" photo albums, in her latest letter (in French) "De Beaux Lendemains":
"An intrinsic interest in photography, the desire to hold back time and to transmit one's history, but also, faced with old photos, the exploration of one's roots, the taste of mystery and romanticism, the curiosity of finding oneself in the faces of one's ancestors. Looking at a family photo is diving into oneself."
Géraldine Dormoy
In marketing, the first taste is often decisive: the first sip of milk, the first soda, the first bite of chocolate are treasures that brands try to instill in us from the bottle. Our benchmarks are then created, on what is good or less so, on what defines us, or not. On platforms, these first times seem to have been relegated to the background; yet, in 2014, the tool launched by the late Twitter to find its very first Tweet had been a great success.
YouTube, a memory machine?
Of all the platforms made available to everyone, YouTube strangely seems to offer us some nice access to our first times. Is it because at its origin, the slogan of YouTube in 2005 was "Your Digital Video Repository" with a real logic of content repository?
The algorithm certainly highlights recent videos, linked to our most recent clicks. But YouTube uses its colossal archives to push us content that we have deeply loved. Based on a simple idea: a search is not necessarily motivated by novelty but by relevance. YouTube understands that a clip reminds us of a moment, an emotion from the past.
Most YouTubers, big or small, will confirm it: some "old" videos generate more views than more recent productions, because they are still as relevant or have even more "digital liveness."
We do not know what form our digital archives will take in 50 years; if little humans will have the right cable to read our hard drive, or if Meta's servers will still be running. However, we know that a page of writing or a photo will turn yellow at the bottom of a box. And it is probably reassuring to cling to the dust, to find one's roots. The taste of giving a little of oneself to better explain the taste of others, in a way.
The figure of the week: +27%
According to the latest study by Qustodio, children have increased their time spent watching videos by over 27% in 2023. Not on Netflix or Disney + but... on YouTube and YouTube Kids.
Amazing links.
I shared on LinkedIn some slides of my talk for the Journal du Luxe "Kindness, the ultimate luxury in social media."
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- speaks of dogs, and influence, and communication. To be read urgently.
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