My Adventures in Cheerleading
This instagram story was my contribution to a trend that encouraged cheerleaders to share collage of cheerleading photos in celebration of the sport’s 125th anniversary. As I maintain a private Instagram account, this ephemeral image was available for viewing by close friends for 24 hours before it expired (though stored in my story archive, awaiting moments like this for sweet revival). In sharing this collage, I fulfilled multiple purposes explored in Wakefield’s (2024) analysis of how ephemeral media can impact different communicative objectives, such as information management, social bonding, and impression management. The primary intention of this post was information management related, communicating that I was passionate about a sport that had been around for 125 years, as demonstrated by pictures of me looking excited and happy at various cheerleading competitions and events. However, high ephemerality is not ideal for information-sharing initiatives, which are often driven by a desire for a large consumer reach because ephemeral media is usually shared with smaller audiences (Wakefield, 2024). Yet, this targeted audience was well suited for an appeal to social bonding, fulfilled by signalling my membership to a specific athletic community and extending a notion of shared interest to others involved in cheer. This is because ephemeral media is great for relationship building when the content’s consumers, such as my select group of followers, are more closely connected to the poster (Wakefield, 2024). Ultimately, the story did receive a lot of support from 23 friends who privately reacted and responded, fulfilling the social bonding objective and demonstrating some level of information sharing.
In addition, there were messages encoded in these pictures that were guided by a desire to impact how I was perceived, which can be understood as impression management. The post insinuated that I was athletic and good at my sport by incorporating elements like trophies and championship sweaters and the photos were intentionally chosen with consideration to how I felt I looked in them, meant to show that I was generally attractive. However, stories with the objective can contribute to a social media environment that negatively impacts the body image and self-esteem of users. Kim and Kim (2023) report that perceived ephemeral media can increase user’s comparison to others, and that comparison can be linked to issues like body dissatisfaction. The truth is that a lot of those pictures misconstrued reality, either due to editing or lack of situational context. Ironically, as someone who edited my photos I was more likely to compare myself to others when consuming content in the future (Kim and Kim, 2023).
Understanding the content I’ve shared in this context forces me to evaluate my relationship with social media and my communicative motives. While ephemeral stories like mine can be prime for strengthening bonds, they can also negatively impact those who post and view them. Thus, if I hope to minimize my negative impact on the digital world, I must consider the intentions and potential consequences of content by looking at what each piece of ephemeral media that I share communicates. For me, this will mean a little less photo editing and a lot more genuine content.
Sources
Kim, Donggyu, and Soomin Kim. “Social Media Affordances of Ephemerality and Permanence: Social Comparison, Self-Esteem, and Body Image Concerns.” Social Sciences, vol. 12, no. 2, 9 Feb. 2023, p. 87, https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12020087.
Wakefield, Lane. “Conceptualizing Ephemerality in Online Marketing Communication for Consumers and Firms.” European Journal of Marketing, 28 May 2024, https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm-05-2022-0366.
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