So, I really dint think that Underground Man’s situation is that foreign to us, even though your modern reader might consider his life a rather extreme or somber existence.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Isolation in Media
In class, we briefly talked about how the Underground Man’s experiences with isolation are similar to ones people have today. In his story, the Underground Man lives in his “corner,” using books to live vicariously through a variety of stories. Although your average person today probably doesn’t live as gloomily as the Underground Man, I think many people are isolated in a similar way. Today, it is relatively easy to escape from reality through technology and media. People are essentially able to create a virtual world for themselves, from what they see in their social media feed, to what they watch on Netflix.
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I think you bring up a really good point, Liz. Although the vehicle of escapism is different, the resultant isolation is still certainly prominent. This reminds me of a college essay I had to write. I think the prompt asked about how I maintain integrity in the age of social media (you prob had it too for Emory). I wrote about how easy it is to portray yourself in a specific manner on social media by displaying only the good moments of your life. In this way, social media users including myself constantly distort their lives and make difficulty or hardship seem unusual. This contributes to the ongoing cycle of escapism from both the poster and the viewer. Moreover, it deepens the isolationist aspect of social media because it makes users less relatable to others. All in all, there's certainly a strong relationship between vehicles of escapism like social media and isolation like what Underground Man faces.
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