Phototype: Social Media Selfies & Projected Securities

 Episode 5: The Persona: Jungian-themed poetry podcast reading & analysis

Image: Created by Marilyn Glover with Canva Design

Episode 5 from my Jungian-themed poetry podcast on Substack is now live, and it's free to listen to and read along with the accompanying post. Today, I conclude Part 1: The Persona of my debut chapbook, Shadow's Reprieve, with "Phototype," a poem about the effects of posting our own images on social media.

The archetypal Persona is the struggle between our real face, our truest selves, and the image we show the world. Presenting oneself as acceptable often means compromising one's real identity, forcing the genuine version to take a back seat to a molded reality. This molded reality tricks us into believing that the societal way is the "norm," and any deviance is shameful, below par, or otherwise best not portrayed.

What about social media? 

Based on the previous, should we not only present ourselves as we are conditioned, trained, or otherwise manipulated?

Should we not conform to a mass society-approved script we've been handed since we were little free birds; still young and open enough to fly high in our creativity? You know, when all of a sudden our precious imaginations were pushed down, filed away as no longer relevant because the "real world" needed us to adapt.

This week, my poem takes on the anxiety associated with posting social media selfies, the source of that angst, and how navigating the course is often accompanied by projections.

Often linked to the "False consensus effect," this self-perceived empathy is actually an assumption of a "shared reality." Security projection stems from trust, which creates vulnerability and naivety when the vision is focused on "what is seen."

Conversely, insecurity projection originates with fear and creates blame and conflict. This perspective "hates what it sees."

Poem excerpt

So, I post and deliver

feeding the algorithm

will they love me or hate me

will they judge me

tear me apart

assign my “worth”

based on what they see

one thousand words

equal stories

born of my picture

clicked on repeatedly

an image no longer my own

Personal resonance

Phototype is highly personal and directly relates to my feelings about posting my own images on social media. Personal appearance has been a struggle since my teens, and although I've come a long way since then, selfie posting brings back many heightened emotions from yesteryear.

As a writer navigating my own journey of individuation, I incorporate my own experiences into my poems so that perhaps someone else won't feel so alone.

Transparency is key to me; I even added a recent unedited selfie to this week's podcast-associated post, not only to help myself with continued inner work, but to inspire others to allow their true light to shine.

Listen to the full episode on my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/marilynglover/p/episode-5-phototype-part-1-the-persona?

My Substack is always FREE.

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