Me, Social Media, and New York City

  I will readily admit that I am slow to jump on any form of technology, including various forms of social media.  I joined Facebook back in-the-day and stopped at that.  My seventeen year old daughter, Cameron, informed me this summer that I am "old school" and "out of the loop" not being on Instagram and SnapChat, but at the same time she said that those social medias are not for moms.  I had her set me up with SnapChat, and I pressed a few buttons and much to my surprise I downloaded Instagram to my phone.  The part that I have not figured out is how any of the people that I follow or who are following me connected on these mediums.  I guess if I want my followers to grow I need to figure that out, but for now I'm just trying to figure out the nuances of those accounts.



M7 bus love for SnapChat

Cameron has informed me that I am doing SnapChat totally wrong.  I like to take a photo and send it to all the individuals that I want to follow me on SnapChat, but I also post it to My Story, because I like to create little daily vignettes of my life (particularly my daily life as I traverse the street of NYC).  She said that the people who I send individual photos to don't need to get them individually, but in fact can just look at My Story.  I would argue, how will they know I have added to My Story if I don't keep them updated?  Yesterday I thought I had a particularly visually interesting day combining photos and mini video so I was sitting on the coach replaying My Story for my own enjoyment.  Cameron came out of her room and saw what I was doing.  "Oh, my god, Mom, I can't believe you are watching your own story over and over."  I told her that I wanted to review the interesting images that I had captured.  She informed me that "NO ONE DOES THAT".  She said that SnapChat is supposed to be used like texting except with photos and short captions.  Hmmm..., well, then I would agree that I don't do that at all.  If I want to have a conversation I will text someone, or better yet, call them.  For me SnapChat is a way to communicate to my friends the funny little things and people that I come across as I go through my day walking to work, shopping during my lunch hours, commuting on the subway home, and just generally being in New York City. 

Instagram worthy pancakes

  So you might say that that is what Instagram is for, but I disagree.  For me Instagram is more artistic.  I don't want to just post any photo (that's for Facebook).  I want my Instagram account to reflect my artistic view of me and what I see in the city.  The trick with Instagram is that I don't know how to get people to follow me.  Actually, I was complaining about this to Cameron the other day and she said that I am supposed to be using hashtags (#'s) so that other people using the same hashtags will look at my pictures and if they like what they see they will follow me.  So now I'm having to think of catchy, yet common, tags for my pictures (i.e. #cafeamrita, #dayatLongBeach, #farmersmarket).  I can proudly say that a farmer's market in Montreal is now following me after I posted a picture of the Rockefeller Center farmers market near my office.

Stealth Snapchat shot

   The most challenging thing to do for any of these mediums is to get the candid photos that I want.  I like to do fashion "hits and misses", which can be tricky.  Besides being stealth my older Andriod phone does not take the clearest pictures so I really need to be close and still to get the shot.  Well, as you can imagine, standing two four feet away from someone and getting a still shot is rather obvious.  My friend, Charlene, said some day someone is going to beat me up. Last week I was with Cameron walking down 5th Avenue and I saw a girl who was my "fashion DO" of the day.  She was walking quite fast so I had to practically run after her.  Cam got a video of me stalking this girl. LOL!  I found humor in it, but I might need to consider being a little less obvious.

  My brother, Clinton, was recently visiting and I asked him to download SnapChat so that he could get a dose of NYC whenever he wanted it from my daily stories.  He looked at me quizzically then began to laugh.  He said, "Do you actually have followers on SnapChat?"  I told him I do.  He asked how many of them were over the age of 13.  Rude.  Yes, I will admit that my foundation is based on Cameron's friends, but my network is growing.  I write my blog for myself.  I have been keeping this form of a journal since we moved her in June of 2011.  There have been many entries that only have as many views as I can count close family members, but that does not dissuade me from writing.  So.... just like writing I like snapping photos of what I see in the city.  If my observations are better appreciated by the younger generation, then so be it.  It's all in fun and I hope no one is judging anyone on what they post an something as trivial as SnapChat or Instagram. 

  For now I am writing, and snapping, and posting all of the quirky little things that I see in my daily life. Read, view and respond, or don't, but for now I'm enjoying documenting my observations, chasing fashion Do's and Don't down the street, and posting it all online.  So what if I only have 39 Instagram followers, I'm just getting started!