Twittering heights

Picture a concert where you’re not Instagramming the proceedings realtime or eating at a restaurant without taking food snaps for #foodstagram. Can’t? That’s because social media these days is like second skin. It’s become so integrated to our workaday life that it’s hard to imagine functioning, or living, without it.

With how the landscape has changed, social media, like technology, has become a boon to humanity, creating borderless communities where there is no First World or Third World, only a common horizon of style and opinion that can connect with someone halfway across the world. But it is also a bane — shortened attention spans and disjunctive realities that take away from the beauty of a moment. “Oh what a beautiful sunset! Let me Instagram it!” #HumanityFail. It just goes to show how this thing called social media is really quite the double-edged sword.

For this issue, we rounded up fashion blogger Laureen Uy, host Sarah Meier-Albano, and artist/blogger Geo Custodio who is head of production for Zalora Philippines for a round-table discussion on the “push and pull” of maintaining an online presence and the secret to real happiness.

YOUNGSTAR: How important is social media in your day-to-day?

LAUREEN UY: I started my online shop back in 2009. And that’s where I got my inspiration to start a blog. Lahat ng trabaho ko, it’s all basically social media. I spend six or more hours on the Internet every day.

GEO Custodio: Zalora is online-based. For retail to happen online, everything has to be up to the moment. Our sales are driven by what people see. So if we put it out there, people will see it.

SARAH Meier-albano: My thing from the get-go was that I was really adamant about changing the perception of models and prove that they weren’t just dumb mannequins — that they could have a voice. And when MTV and my radio show went away, there wasn’t really a platform anymore until Twitter came about. It’s 140 characters which suited the way I communicated really well.

In your hierarchy of needs now — fashion, food, film — where does social media stand?

GEO: I would say pretty high for me, also in my personal life. I went to school abroad; all my friends are there. It’s so much easier to stay in touch.

LAUREEN: It’s really important. With my job, there’s no first world or third world. Everyone’s equal, especially on Lookbook. When you get on the popular page, and you’re from Manila, that’s a big deal. I get so kilig when I get invites from Milan na, “Hey, if ever you’re here, we’d like to invite you.” It’s pretty amazing.

Especially now since the world is so borderless because of it.

LAUREEN: True!

SARAH: For me, it’s keeping abreast with what’s happening in the world. I think getting news in real time — be it somebody you admired growing up passing away to a bombing in a certain country or NBA — it’s just become second nature to check online.

Quick survey: Which social media do you engage in?

LAUREEN: From the moment I check Instagram, I check Twitter. When I open my laptop, I check Facebook, Lookbook, Blogspot — I haven’t signed up for Pinterest.

SARAH: Just Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram. No Facebook. No Blogspot. Although the LA office of MySpace called me and asked me to be an ambassador. I was like, “Really?” They were like, “Well, Justin Timberlake is revamping it!”

I’m curious, why don’t you have Facebook?

SARAH: It was just too much. It got to a point where I didn’t want it to be a “fan thing.” I wanted to keep it personal. It’s just that the requests kept building up. It was too much, so I was like, let’s keep it to Twitter and communicate that way.

When did the landscape change?

SARAH: 2009 — Twitter.

Was that change a good thing or a bad thing? Social media is supposedly threatening the existence of print.

SARAH: I went to Columbia for publishing. And the majority of our discussion was how the Internet was going to change the world of publishing. Nobody seems to have too much fear. I don’t think print will ever die. The only downside I feel that social media has brought about is short attention spans — people have an expectation for real time now. It takes a certain type of person to be able to disconnect from that, sit down, and read a 900-page book.

It’s funny how you build borderless communities through social media. But then social media hinders communication within communities. Can you still go on dates without checking your phone?

SARAH: I was in Italy a few months ago and there are restaurants that won’t tolerate you using your phone.

LAUREEN: Really?

SARAH: Yep, in Rome. And there was another restaurant that offers you a discount if you don’t use your phone the whole time. Incentives like that — there are people who are really concerned with the state of socialization.

GEO: Sometimes I go on dinners with my friends and from the start, there’s a basket and everyone has to leave their phones.

LAUREEN: We did that before– big hat, and everyone needs to leave their phone.

Is it imperative nowadays to have an online presence?

SARAH: I don’t think so. So when people look for you, there’s a certain level of mystique or curiosity.

LAUREEN: Sometimes I don’t blog for three days just so people feel the desire and the curiosity. Parang why isn’t she blogging?

The push and pull of social media.

LAUREEN: Your privacy din eh. People aren’t aware but it’s happening. I went to Iloilo once, to a festival. And then I tweeted, “famous batchoy of Iloilo.” I didn’t even tag a name. When I went outside the restaurant, there were fans giving me gifts and taking pictures.

So how do you balance it?

SARAH: Gut feeling.

GEO: Before you create an online presence for yourself, you have to know who you are, what you’re willing to share.

What’s the longest you’ve gone without social media?

SARAH: Sixty days!

How did that work out for you?

SARAH: I remembered how to read in long form. What I realized is that it was affecting my writing. I was starting to write in status updates. I couldn’t create a story with a beginning-middle-end anymore. I went on a crazy fast.

LAUREEN: When was this?

SARAH: Around 2011.

GEO: During Holy Week, we’re not allowed to use our phones.

Talk about Zalora and how it changed the game.

GEO: Think of it this way. A brick and mortar store only has one entryway whereas an online store has several entrances to reach that one window. So you can be everywhere at that one place at the same time.

Do you think businesses now have to have an online component to their operations?

GEO: It would help.

LAUREEN: Unlike advertising in print, or on TV, social media is so much faster. It’s easier to put it out there.

GEO: The quickness of it all though is a double-edged sword. For print, you have to have the item way ahead of time because by the time the issue comes out, that’s two months after you shot. Whereas online, you shoot and it comes out.

SARAH: I think the Internet takes away from the process of creation. Someone could have spent three months creating art, or a dress. But that art gets snapped and it’s being shared like it’s no big deal.

So the game has really changed?

GEO: Yeah, everyone’s becoming more A.D.D. now because of it.

SARAH: I’m sorry, what? Ha ha.

So, if you went out last night, and you didn’t Instagram it, do you exist?

SARAH: Absolutely. And that’s where you know it’s real. You know when it’s not anything other than the people you’re with at that precise moment in time.

LAUREEN: Exactly what Sarah said – you know you’re enjoying when you haven’t checked your phone in hours. Real happiness is being with friends.

Photos by Aldrich Lim

Shot at NamNam, Greenbelt 2. Open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. For details, call 625-0515 or 0917-5399661 or visit www.facebook.com/NamNamPH

Special thanks to Joanna Francisco