Outcome

Intention: 

I want to look at the difference between Tumblr and Facebook. They clearly have different uses, one being more anonymous and where one can post personal opinions with no one knowing who you are and the other being much more public and almost like a first impression of you to anyone who looks up your name. This difference between two sites with the same goal of being a place where you can be yourself online have become vastly different and this difference really interests me. 

On Tumblr my profile picture is a drawing whereas on Facebook my profile picture is a photo. I've decided I'm going to swap the mediums and have my Facebook photo be a drawing and my Tumblr a photo of myself. The intent behind it was to comment on how the differences between social media platforms and to look at how I brand myself in different social media networks. I doubt anyone will react strongly on either social media platform but my intention is to challenge the norm of profile pictures on each social media website. 

I plan on drawing a rough sketch of my next profile picture and upload that as my new Facebook photo and I plan on taking a photo of myself in a way similar to the drawing. 

Process:  

A design choice I ended up making was just switching the pictures rather than drawing and shooting new profile pictures due to time constraints. I was really excited to try but shooting the photo, learning and using Photoshop, and drawing a new profile picture was too ambitious in four days along with other homework and schoolwork. 

A comment also made me realize that switching the photos really wouldn't have an impact on anyone I knew or me in particular and I realized that I should have ran my Facebook like my Tumblr for a day. However,  a very large part of me really didn't want to do that since Tumblr and Facebook are very different platforms and I feel like social pressures make me feel like that would be too awkward.

Effect:

I think what was interesting was how the Facebook photo was received. Part of the responses were my fault in that I forgot to credit the artist and only remembered when someone asked me whether I had drawn it myself. Which wasn't something I had initially thought about. I feel that on Tumblr most profile pictures are used to quickly show what kind of art style you like and what series of novels, television, or movies the person running the blog enjoys. The other part of the responses were questions asking about what exactly the photo meant, which was also something I had not thought would happen. 

What was also interesting to me was that with a few seconds of posting the change, immediately someone liked the photo. It was interesting to me how just simply changing a photo is an event on Facebook and worthy of a like, whereas on Tumblr its just a normal occurrence that confuses followers for a fraction of a second as they associate new picture to old blog.

Its weird how 2 social media sites meant to show the world your personality have small differences about the point behind a profile picture. Facebook seems to think that every moment, every picture says something about who you are. Since Facebook is used as a marketing tool for your own personal brand, everything is deliberate. Whereas on Tumblr, the focus is more on what you like and what appeals to your aesthetic or resonates with your inner personality. 

Reflection:

If I were to do this project again, I definitely would have  ran my Facebook like my Tumblr and just deleted all the posts afterwards. I think my experiment wasn't fully thought out and I wish I had more time to think more about what exactly I wanted to show and delve into. I went in with just the idea of taking too social networks and looking at their differences more closely and the user base but I don't think I accomplished that. 

A lot of my preconceptions going in were affirmed by the project, ex. how more people cared that my profile photo had changed on Facebook compared to Tumblr. But, it did allow me to think more about how profile pictures in general are received. When I changed my photo, I was slightly self-conscious about it so I began to notice others people profile pictures and the first thoughts that struck me from them.