I started this semester writing about dirt on my floor.  My first blog post for the Minor in Writing was about my severe tendency to procrastinate and the dirt on my floor.  It was one hell of a first impression.  On the first day of class, my classmates were introduced to my struggles with insomnia, my living habits, and my slightly neurotic style of writing.  I wasn’t particularly proud of any of these things, but my first blog post reminded me why I wanted to minor in writing: writing is my space to be unapologetically honest. That blog post was my first open-ended writing assignment since freshman year, my first chance to remember what it felt like to expose my thoughts to an audience, and my first time writing something I enjoyed at the University of Michigan.  Yeah, maybe I overdid it, but it was a New Years resolution to be more honest. So here it is: my semester of writing unpacked, dirt included.

 

My purpose for my project this semester was fairly simple—I wanted to be as honest about myself as I could while exploring different genres.  My origin piece was an exploration of my family’s mental health history, my relationship with self-esteem, and how I expressed myself.  While rereading my origin piece, I became convinced that I needed to share these themes but in a more universal way.  I quickly realized that the space where I was least like myself was on Instagram, and I became determined to show the effort that goes into how I portray myself. 

 

In the first experiment, I created a persuasive photo essay that showed filtered photos on Instagram next to the same photos pre-filter.  Ideally this would result in a visual that shows how what we see on Instagram is not reality, but as I was working on this experiment, I found myself doing exactly what my project was trying to correct.  Somewhere in the process of revealing who I am, I became caught up in what the project looked like and I forgot my original purpose.  Too often I think we portray ourselves on Instagram in a way that is black and white, and I wanted viewers to come to a conclusion about me that was overwhelmingly gray.  I wanted nuance, and clear evidence that who I am is not fully dictated by my presence on Instagram or how I portray myself on any form of social media.  By the end of my project, I think that I had created something that was opposite of my goal.  I wanted people to see my project as a reflection of something honest, but the nuances of my personality and social media presence were lost yet again.

 

To correct for this departure from my purpose, my second experiment was a personal narrative that explicitly described my feelings.  Although I enjoyed the type of writing I did for this experiment, I felt like I was back in my comfort zone writing in a genre that I was familiar with.  Furthermore, I felt that the genre of personal narrative wouldn’t be universally understood. 

 

I explored a new genre in experiment three.  I decided to fully embrace the idea of being honest and wrote an open letter about the emotions discussed in my origin piece.  In this experiment, I felt like my original purpose was best achieved, but I’m still trying to balance this idea of being open and deciding how much of myself I actually want to share.  I’d love to be able to discuss my emotions at whim, but everything about me repels that idea in practice.  More importantly, I wanted this project to be relatable, and I knew that what I did in this experiment did not achieve that goal.

 

These experiments culminated in my final project: a persuasive short video replicating an ad produced by Apple.  In this video, I walk viewers through Instagram and my Instagram feed, showing a version of myself that is “unfiltered.”  This final product best achieved my original purpose.  By showing the superficial way that we use Instagram, I demonstrate the harmful effects to self-esteem.  More importantly, I think I showed an “honest” version of myself that would relate to a larger audience.