The Art of the Digitally Socialized

Terminology alert: I will use the term Digital socialization to mean the types of social interactions that digital technology enable like sharing memes, reaction GIFs, texting, social media

The song “Reflections On The Screen” by Superoganism is a certain type of art that up till now, we haven’t had very much of. As I read it, the song is about being the emotions of being separated from someone you were once very close to. What I find innovative about how much reference the song makes to technology, and taps into the emotions I’ve had while using technology, without being about technology.

There is plenty of art out there that deals with our relationship to technology (things that immediately come to mind are OK Computer, 8th Grade, Black Mirror). But I can’t think of any other pieces of art that explore the emotional relationships we have with each other as mediated by technology.

Most art that features technology has something to say about technology itself. My hypothesis is that this is largely because the people who make most art right now did not grow up with digital socialization as a prominent part of their lives. Their formative years were not filled with smartphones, Facebook, memes, Snapchat, and texting. They have an experiential reference point to a time when digital socialization, if existent at all, was not as prominent and widespread as it is today. Digital socialization is the not the norm to them in the same way it is to people who grew up with it. So when they make art about digital socialization, there is a tendency to say something about it – it’s bad, it’s isolating, it’s changing how we interact with each other.

I was born in 1996. I got my first cellphone when I was in 8th grade, and my first smartphone during my junior year of high school. In high school, friendships were built on sharing memes, romance was mediated largely through texting, and some of my funniest memories are of conversations that happened in GroupMe chats. Each of these types of interactions has certain types of emotions associated with them.

Digital socialization made up a significant part of my adolescent life, and I can’t really imagine what it would have been like to go through high school without it. But this part of my life and the emotions associated with it are not really addressed by most of the art I consume. Much of great art is about our relationships to others, but very little of it addresses how digital socialization makes us experience these relationships unless it is trying to make a statement about digital socialization itself.

Orono Noguchi is the lead singer -- and presumably lyricist -- for the band Superorganism. I imagine that digital socialization has played an even bigger role in her life than in mine, seeing as how she’s younger than me, makes a living by creating digital content, and has cited “sharing memes and all that” as helping her bond with her fellow members of Superorganism. The lyrics of “Reflections On The Screen” read to me as if they’re written by someone who takes digital socialization as a given. She is able to articulate the specific emotions of communicating with someone who is important to you via text and GIFs, but doesn’t view this kind of communication as something interesting to explore on its own. In the same way that the Marvelettes “Please Mr. Postman” is about the emotions of waiting for a letter without being caring about how the postal system has changed people’s relationships to each other, “Reflections On The Screen” explores the emotions of looking at your phone without being “about” how smartphones have changed our methods of interaction. The postal system and digital socialization are both just facts of life for those who grew up with them, and as a part of life have emotional dimensions that are worth exploring on their own terms.

I expect we will see more of this kind of art as people like Orono Noguchi, who grew up surrounded by digital socialization and taking it for granted, reach an age where they are creating emotionally insightful art.