- 27/05/2019
- Category: Commentaries
As Instagram flourished with one of its features called Instagram Stories, many users utilize this function to publish “real-time” contents. @eva.stories is an Instagram account that increases awareness among Jews in remembering the Holocaust to the present. With 1.7 million followers, @eva.stories shared her “story” since May 2019[1]. This account is a visual portrayal of the diary of a 13-year-old Hungarian girl named Eva Heyman who chronicled the 1944 German invasion of Hungary[2]. Since this account is a present representation of the history through the social media, the modern-teenage style of taking Instagram stories such as using internet lingo, hashtags, emojis, and a touch of teen love drama[3].
Bringing the history to present is a very bold action done by this account to inform the digital natives about the memories of the Holocaust. Resurrecting past memories back to life to share a personal and subjective story is believed to educate more about a specific event[4]. Educating about the Holocaust is not an easy thing since many people still see Jews in many different ways, and showing how an innocent subject struggle on becoming a Jew in a modern-technology platform might be the way on solving and straighten the misconception of the genocide.
People have always been concerned about how people communicate the horrors of the Holocaust. It might seem that the trivialization of the event is done by the account which shrunk the essence of the event, but it is somehow also one of media’s characteristic where hyperreality is created[5].
“Such would be the successive phases of the image: it is the reflection of a basic reality, it masks and perverts a basic reality, it masks the absence of a basic reality, it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum. In the first case, the image is a good appearance – representation is of the sacramental order. In the second, it is an evil appearance – it is of the order of maleficence. In the third, it plays at being an appearance – it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer of the order of appearances, but of simulation[6].”
Baudrillard followed the trajectory of the world filled with images and spectacles further. As technology progressed, it became apparent that there was no need to refer to a real object or subject at all. The image was abstracted from something real which could now be created from nothing. It did not need to connect or reflect the physical world at all which he later called these images as ‘simulacra.’ Therefore, the images can be produced to create a much more satisfying effect than images that reflect the reality to create someone as perfect as the standards say.
Baudrillard sees how the media controls the spectators while the spectators cannot resist the flood of images which somehow can diminish their subjectivity and autonomy. Most importantly, the extent of being granted a sense of omnipresence as a voyeur, even though they are a passive one[7]. Guy Debord then compliment Baudrillard’s work where he sees this hyperreality as a reality that is commodified by certain parties that are seen on the daily basis of each’s life [8]. Baudrillard was aware of Debord’s thought on how it shifts into cultural thinking that occurred with the onset of mass production. Debord then noted that “the whole life of those societies… presents itself as an… accumulation of spectacles.” Thus, life becomes condensed into a set of pictures.
Despite the condensation of the event, @eva.stories had given Instagram users to learn more about the Holocaust and understand the importance of history on taking a part of understanding the notion of Human Rights. Understanding how Jews struggled in some parts of Europe could elevate the acknowledgment of understanding personal stories and rethink that each subject and individual has their own stories. Bringing these stories to Instagram is a brilliant idea because it targets the internet users that are mostly ignorant towards the history. Therefore, @eva.stories has created a platform of remembrance in the digital sphere where it aims to give knowledge on the Holocaust to ensure that people won’t make the same mistakes all over again and to ensure the protection of Human Rights.
Editor: Janitra Haryanto
Read another article written by Anaq Duanaiko
[1] https://www.instagram.com/eva.stories/?hl=en
[2] Holmes, O. (2019). Instagram Holocaust diary Eva.Stories sparks debate in Israel: Jewish girl’s life is documented on social media to teach young people about WWII genocide. The Guardian (Online). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/08/instagram-holocaust-diary-evastories-sparks-debate-in-israel. [Accessed on: May, 18th 2019]
[3] ibid
[4] Scanlon, A. (2019). ‘Eva.Stories’ Uses Instagram to Connect Today’s Youth With a Holocaust Story. Jewish Journal (Online). Available at: https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/298657/eva-stories-uses-instagram-to-connect-todays-youth-with-a-holocaust-story/. [Accessed on: May, 18th 2019]
[5] Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
[6] ibid
[7] Martin, C. D. (2014). Social Networks and the Ethics of Hyperreality. ACM Inroads, 5(1), pp. 18-19. Doi 10.1145/2568195.2568199
[8] Debord, G. (1994). Society of the spectacle. Bread and Circuses Publishing p.29
