Facebook Friends Couldn’t Care Less, Count On Your Friends: “Are You Really My Friend?”
In a unique study an American photographer travelled across the world to meet and photograph all her 626 Facebook friends in their respective homes.
The 45-year-old Tanja Hollander decided to embark upon a noble idea to figure out whether she really knew all her Facebook friends. She was curious to know whether she had any real communication with the majestic number of people on her friend’s list.
Recently showcased in an exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art was a have opened their homes to me — offering me a place to stay, sharing their lives, their stories, and their families while allowing me to document it all,”
Although her project promotes real-life human interaction, she stressed that the power of social media cannot be undermined, because she herself regularly relies on it to promote her work.
Hollander wrote on her website: “On New Year’s Eve of 2010, I found myself sitting at my kitchen table, simultaneously writing a letter in pencil to a friend deployed in Afghanistan and, on Facebook, instant messaging a friend working on a film in Jakarta. I woke up in 2011, thinking a lot about friendship and relationships, and how we communicate with one another”.
“On the one hand, the letter has a tangibility that makes it seem more genuine and real, while on the other hand social networks provide an immediate way to be part of people’s lives all over the world,” she further added.
In the next couple of months, she analysed and researched through the internet and her Facebook account and discovered the main idea behind this project.“What I found were some people I hadn’t met in “real life”; a few people I was not speaking to in “real life”; ex-lovers with new partners; ex-partners of friends; art dealers, curators and high school friends who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years,” she said.
The above realisations made her wonder whether she is really friends with all these people. Hence, the realisation made her travel across 12 countries, 43 states in the United State and more than 400 homes, teaching her valuable lessons of life along the way.
“On the one hand, the letter has a tangibility that makes it seem more genuine and real, while on the other hand social networks provide an immediate way to be part of people’s lives all over the world,” she further added.
In the next couple of months, she analysed and researched through the internet and her Facebook account and discovered the main idea behind this project.“What I found were some people I hadn’t met in “real life”; a few people I was not speaking to in “real life”; ex-lovers with new partners; ex-partners of friends; art dealers, curators and high school friends who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years,” she said.
The above realisations made her wonder whether she is really friends with all these people. Hence, the realisation made her travel across 12 countries, 43 states in the United State and more than 400 homes, teaching her valuable lessons of life along the way.
“Facebook isn’t a substitute for real relationships,” she told The Atlantic, “but it’s a way to start connections.”
In an interview with UpWorthy, the artist concluded up by saying: “One thing is for certain. There isn’t a difference between online friendships and offline friendships. It’s something that weaves in and out of everything we do, from work to friendship — everything, literally. There are some people that I see in person more often than friends that exist only online, but that doesn’t mean I’m closer to the people I see every day.”
“Social media is just a different way of communicating.”