"'What's your opinion of me, anyhow?'...'I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear.'" (Fitzgerald 65)
Why is even the great Mr. Gatsby so insecure with what the public eye has to say about him? It is so ironic that a man with an absurd amount of power becomes so vulnerable to what everyone else's opinion is. There are pages after pages of an endless number of rumors that Gatsby has probably constructed himself over his "secret" background. This habit has become very frequent during current times as well because there is satisfaction of being favored and this is greatly demonstrated through social media.
Recently, Buzzfeed has posted an article upon people's true intentions when they post a picture on Instagram. http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/if-we-were-honest-on-instagram
Although this was all created for a comical purpose, it brought out an interesting point because these pictures were based off of genuine objectives of people, This is just another trick into letting other people we are connected to know that, by simply putting it, HEY I HAVE A LIFE. There is some satisfaction in knowing that other people think highly of us because the idea of a positive title placed upon us means that there is more approval. Such approval from society defines power. An example of this is democratic elections. The more amount of citizens that approve of a candidate, the more power the applicant has to the job. In conclusion, in order to gain power, this current generation has gotten into the habit of faking our image in order to convince society that we are someone better than what we truly are.
Hi Jeana! I must say you have spoken the truth in this blog post. Nowadays, with so much social media, it's not difficult to portray ourselves as someone we're not. And let's be honest, we've all (or at least tried to) done it before. People want not just the approval, but the admiration of others, and often times they will do whatever it takes.
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