Company January 2014
Company British edition though a 20-something juvenile readings, it allures me to spend euros on several issues annually: not because its eye candy covers, recognizable magazine spines, never-boring layouts, 100% reader-target narratives, but its creative and innovative themes, month by month. Company has been reporting the functional use of blog, Facebook, instagram, LinkedIn, twitter and you-name-it, with instant responses with its website and tiwtterverse, it becomes a paper-platform of the social media. Copy to copy, the inspirational design and the spoken tone every page turn make readers difficult to dispose any.
Social media has made a great impact onto printing business, so has been to actual interaction between you and me. On Carlene Thomas-Bailey’s “Friends with Social Benefits”, it reveals even A-list celebs, not just in favour by media, they also create their own social channels to swap, to show, and the most important of all, to sell. Posing together with BBF avoids billy-no-mates awkwardness, also having friends good for your mental healthiness.
Yes, “Instagram (or any other social media) makes it easier to keep friendships ticking over when you live in different cities”, some ‘likes’ or ‘hearts’ keep we buddies updated and connected, but social friendship, much like offline ones, doesn’t always run smoothly, on the contrary, it would show a true colour of a person, in a very unexpected, a rather darker way.
A college girl chatted via Facebook demanding for sending my ID card back to her Kaohsiung flat due to her wish on internet contract cancellation (since I was the registrant) when I moved to Helsinki; a classmate complained in emails that my unintentional delay on paying back cash during my stay in Finland; a student commented impolitely-intentioned on Facebook pictures of my friends that she never met. Though those incidents were safely solved through instant chats and family members, it seems that I forget to inform them on social media that my non-existence in Taiwan has sometimes technical difficulties to complete those domestic affairs. One of them got ‘unfriend treatment’ since she’s become a stalker, or, more a copy-cat, and the other 2 almost have 0 interaction ever since, no messages, no cheers, no likes, just zero and blank.
Spreading happiness, sharing opinions or communicating in an efficient way, furthermore, sharpen one’s pen, are powerful benefits of social media, interestingly, they also explore a person’s sub-consciousness, in an obviously serious path. Nevertheless, I see the bright side of social media, since blogs portrait my personal critiques and art projects, Facebook connects friendie, twitter and bloglovin promote my blog essays, now I seriously consider getting a new mobile and start my own instagram.
Photography & Works Cited:
www.company.co.uk
Thomas-Bailey, Carlene. ‘Friends with Social Benefits’. Company, January 2014. London: Hearst, 2014. Pp.52-53.
