From nervously walking off a ledge only to be caught by the zipline’s ropes and pulleys, to jumping off a plank and onto a humongous inflatable mattress for some blobbing. From the blacked out, military-like obstacle course the first night we arrived, to the raging pool party that last night we stayed. From the hand-selected kayak trip bright and early that Wednesday morning for some breakfast and hot chocolate over by the water fall, to the unforgettable cabin talks my group and I would have after the daily entertaining Malibu Club meetings. And many (that is an understatement itself) more memorable activities and memories made. Let’s not forget the breath taking scenery of the ever-stunning Malibu, located …show more content…
They are not limited like words. They can be comprehended in many different ways, given the audience. Shekhar Deshpande says that a picture “could appeal to the semi-literate as well as the literate by providing an entry into a field that needs to be taken with caution and respect for the ‘other’ world” (56). Here, in his essay “The Confident Gaze,” Deshpande emphasizes the role a photograph can have on anyone and any one person can interpret a photo differently. Take the picture of my friends and I taking a nap in our swim suites. A person living in the United States and most of the world would view that as a normal. Back home in the Marshall Islands, that would be considered too showy. The question comes up again. Am I being respectful or saving face by not posting such pictures of myself on …show more content…
On Facebook, I am a lot more filtered, conservative and respectful of my audience or friends than on Instagram. On Instagram, a social network specifically for posting pictures, my “western” identity is show cased more than it is on Facebook. Is creating an identity a bad thing then? According to Fan Shen, in order for her to completely grasp how to learn to write in English and stray away from her Chinese roots, if only for a writing period, she had to “compare the two different identities required by the two writing systems from two different cultures” (230). Here in her essay “The Classroom and the Wider Culture,” Shen realizes that she indeed does have two different writing identities and that she still had to use both identities so they can work for each other. Now this is understandable because this is writing and an individual’s writing style is normally praised. Shen’s writing style happens to include two cultures. However, I wonder if those who follow me on Instagram who are also friends with me on Facebook understand my identities. I imagine that those who share the same cultures with me would but then I have to wonder if they view that as fake. Since I posted the picture where my friends and I were dozing off half naked on Instagram and not on Facebook due to my audience’s comfort, what does that say about me? I often struggle with the fact