These are the journal entries i wrote throughout the course of this project. The objective of the project was to create a false persona and cultivate a social media presence for him/her and document the process. Through forming a network of connections and documenting a range of interests on these social media platforms, a fully developed character was the ideal final product.
Monday, October 13th, 2014 (writing as Annie)
Spoke with my friend Colby about having her pose as Mackenzie for this project, and she agreed! We plan to meet after my class this Wednesday and take some cool photos. Colby also let me use some of her pictures from Facebook to post on Mackenzie’s Tumblr, which I created today. I tried to make her sound as obnoxious as possible, from posting lots of selfies, to stating that she likes “guys with expensive taste.” She already has nine followers, and it’s been about ten minutes. This is going to be fun.
October 14th, 2014 (writing as Annie)
Today I continued blogging onto Mackenzie’s Tumblr, and I spoke more with Colby, who’s excited for the project. We plan to meet tomorrow and head into SoHo to do a faux photo shoot, hopefully with a couple different outfits so we can post them over the next several weeks.
October 16th, 2014 (writing as Annie)
Yesterday I went with Colby into SoHo so that we could take some photos for Mackenzie’s social media accounts. We went into a few stores and asked for empty shopping bags, which we opened up to make it look like Mackenzie had been doing a lot of shopping. We got caught in the rain and had to call it quits early, but we still got some good photos. I played it off by posting a selfie with the caption “got caught in the rain while shopping L.” An exciting milestone: the tumblr account received an anonymous hate message, which is pretty awesome. That means someone cared enough about our catfish to send her hate mail… so exciting.
October 22nd, 2014 (Writing as Annie)
Today our group worked on putting together our short film. We used some photos of “Mackenzie” as an opening and then filmed ourselves explaining who she is and what media outlets we’re using to create her. We also dressed up in weird outfits and pretended to be her best friends. It was pretty hilarious. I have yet to put the remaining film of myself and the film from SoHo into the movie.
October 24th, 2014 (Writing as Annie)
Yesterday morning I opened Tumblr to find an unpleasant surprise… my account was terminated for some reason. This means all of my blogs that I have ben cultivating for the past 5 years are gone, including Mackenzie’s blog. I’m currently in the process of emailing Tumblr’s support team to try and get my blog back, since I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything wrong, but for the mean time the blog is gone and cannot be retrieved. I am still working on the video.
Monday, October 13th, 2014 (writing as Mackenzie)
I just made a Tumblr! I don’t really know what to do with it yet… I’ve been posting some selfies and “reblogging” some cute pics but I don’t really get it??? I guess I’m just supposed to want a lot of followers haha
October 14th, 2014 (writing as Mackenzie)
I blogged a little more today… Tumblr is so strange. And I’m going to SoHo tomorrow to go shopping with my friends!! Yay!
October 16th, 2014 (writing as Mackenzie)
I went shopping in SoHo yesterday, but I had to go home early because it started pouring rain! At least I got to buy some stuff from Pink, Sephora, and Brandy Melville. I also got a message on tumblr saying I was ridiculous?? I don’t get it… But it’s kind of funny that someone I don’t even know cares about me enough to hate me!
October 22nd, 2014 (writing as Mackenzie)
I’m making a documentary about my life, yay!! This is so cool. My best friends are in it and everything. I put some reeeeally cute pics of myself in the beginning, it’s gonna be so good when I’m done making it.
October 24th, 2014 (writing as Mackenzie)
I tried going on Tumblr yesterday and my blog was gone!! I’m so mad; I have no idea why this would happen. I emailed Tumblr a bunch of times asking them to give me my blog back, but for now it’s gone and there’s no way I can access it or even look at it!! L
