ABSTRACT
For many users, sharing photos and videos is the main appeal of social media, which is the focus of the fifth chapter. Beginning with the Snappening incident, where Snapchat images, far from disappearing once viewed, were leaked on the internet. This is interpreted in relation to the concept of presence, or the illusion whereby a mediated experience does not feel mediated. Hence understanding shared media as a kind of psychological travel, this chapter next reports on Instagram users sharing location data with their holiday photographs. Additionally, this chapter considers how users of two live video streaming services attempted to authentically develop their identities by providing their audiences with unedited access to their lives. However, this shown to be a precarious practice, as Meerkat was abruptly discontinued when Periscope was bought by Twitter. Other hazards of building social capital on social media discussed include sharing self-portrait photographs, and the onerous amount of labour involved, which seems prohibitive, even for the highly attractive. Finally, this chapter examined the collective labour of the Harlem Shake videos, and the commercial aspects of memes which remain largely unknown to most users.
