A
description seeks to give an account or representation of a person, object or
event. It’s how jobs communicate
their roles, how a friend relays her date and how restaurants explain their
menu items. More recently, however,
descriptions have been used as tools to project a particular appearance. About Me’s help you decide whether that
guy on Tinder is cute or creepy and captions determine whether that Instagram
picture is clever or cliché. But
in our desire to neatly sum up the human experience into a series of facts, are
we dismissing our complexities?
Does
a Twitter bio that reads, “Single black female addicted to retail,” a Pinterest
profile that says, “college student. foodie. avid magazine reader. chef
extraordinaire. retail enthusiast,” and an Instagram caption saying, “Yeezy
taught me” accurately capture my likeness? Or are these descriptions merely attributes that could
belong to any single black female with a shopping problem and an affinity for
Kanye West lyrics?
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| Twitter bio |
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| Instagram caption |
While
accurate descriptions, these details somehow manage to miss the mark and avoid
capturing the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of what it means to be
me. When we try to distill our
multi-faceted personalities into a 140-character bio or an “About Me” section,
is it inevitably a checklist of characteristics rather than a faithful
description or do the unique combination of descriptive elements suffice?
Just
ask Allison Portchnik from Woody Allen's Annie Hall.
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