Facebook‘s recent Year in Review feature, a chronological collection of photos selected automatically from the user’s profile and offering those which gained the most responses in likes or comments as ‘highlights’, has proved a disaster for some. One of my ‘highlights’ included a now broken engagement but others fared worse; being shown photos of recently deceased relatives against a background of people celebrating.
The app not only proves that not everything can be done algorithmically, but how Facebook really does aim to show the best bits of people’s lives: edited, Photoshopped and posed. It’s also a reminder that our peaks are just that: fleeting moments of a longer story.
Artists, from the Impressionist painters of the 19th century who captured moments just before change in nature to pop stars such as Prince (‘But life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last,’ 1999) explore the transience of life’s highpoints and moreover, how acceptance of this intrinsic characteristic of existence can help us gain peace with it.
Gustave Caillebotte: Paris Street, rainy day
Looking at the bigger picture (which Facebook apologised for failing to do) of the last year is tougher than congratulating ourselves on its highlights. It means dealing with the journey towards the best moments and what happened afterwards (‘Wow – your split-up scenario sounds like something from a Hollywood romcom,’ Wine Writer said); it means exploring issues of hope, fear, loss, betrayal, doubt, failure and rejection; it means accepting life in all its messiness.
On which note, I wish you all a healthy dose of low and highlights and, most of all, an adventurous 2015!
