Kitty Baker Scrapbook, Norfolk, VA, about 1916. From Scrapbooks: An American History.
Last month, Jessica Helfand posted to the website Design Observer a consideration of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scrapbooks, a subject she discusses in her recent volume Scrapbooks: An American History, and Facebook. An odd juxtaposition, it would seem. Yet the text makes a plausible claim for her observation that “the very perception of what is public versus what is private is a fundamentally generational conceit. It is also, as it happens, a visual one.” An excerpt:
Where Facebook is concerned, the line between public and private exists in a sort of parallel (though oddly torqued) universe: like scrapbooks, Facebook is comprised of pages with amalgamations of diverse content, all held together by an individual’s own process of selection. Generally speaking, there is a pronounced appreciation for nostalgia, alternately endearing (how adorable you were at 15!) and excruciating (how appalling you look at 50!). Just like scrapbooks, there is a fair amount of posturing and proselytizing, bad grammar and bizarre juxtapositions. There’s a scarcity of snark. And an almost evangelical devotion to stuff: where scrapbook-makers once pasted in pictures of their favorite film stars, Facebook encourages the construction of fan pages, as well as groups to join, causes to support, and so forth.
“But when it comes to posting actual images, the similarity ends somewhat abruptly,” she continues. To read the rest, click here.
