Maya’s story: Social media world – nice to meet you

My name is Maya, I’m in fifth grade. You may say that I’m doing my first steps in the social media world, because despite the fact that I have a “WhatsApp” account for some years I have only connected with friends and family till the last year. So this year was the first time that I have entered the “Instagram world“ where I can see other’s people pages. That’s why it was very interesting for me to a part of on the “Influencers” inquiry project. I want to tell you about my experience:

I have been following one of Israel’s famous singers – Omer Adam. I think most Omer Adam’s posts are commercial. I think it’s less engaging for someone who does not know him, or does not like him, to follow his Instagram account. But from the standpoint of someone who loves the celebrity, (I write this comment after looking at the page of a celebrity I love – Rick Riordan), the posts can make the fan happy. The non-commercial posts were personal photos. I think some of them weren’t photographed well enough, and I do not know whether it is good, when you’re famous. I think Instagram is a good tool for celebrities, because it allows them to update their fans on things like new songs. I think the celebrities’ feed should be organized to attract people, but in the celebrity’s feed that I was looking at, personal pictures were mixed with advertisements. Finally, I think that the phenomenon of Instagram is good and helps the fans, but I think there are still things to improve in its design, in order to attract people. In conclusion, although it’s clear that most of the Instagram accounts are a way to make money – there is nothing wrong with that.

I want to note that the Influencers project in WYRED changed my attitude to influencers, after following the page of my favorite writer (Rick Riordan). I had two reactions: first, I quickly fell in love with the page, and then I understood how people feel about influencers. Second, I was amazed by the “FanArt” of the characters from the books.

In that context, I’d like to talk about Fandom. Fandom means a community of fans which tends to create content such as FanFic (a feature related to the original story) or FanArt (a drawing related to the story). These two are created by fans, and in my opinion, are very nice and pretty.