Forced Correlation

What interests me most about the just-released Instagram Stories along with Facebook’s not-so-subtle offer to “make a slideshow of your day” from recent photos is the idea of what I call forced correlation.There is a noticeable trend across social media to nudge users toward multi-post storytelling (#lifecasting). However, not all stories are linear and most people usually think (and want to share) one thought or idea at a time.

• ‘Here’s a photo of my kid playing baseball - and a fun story about that.’
• ‘Here’s me at work, bored - this is a story about what I do to pass the time.’
• ‘Here’s a cool thing I saw while walking down the street - I’ll tell you this story about it.’

But with Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories, and the Facebook slideshow prompt, the platforms are demanding that linear narratives be woven through many posts. Below, you'll see Facebook trying to weave together the 29 photos I took over the course of 5 hours into 1 post or 'story'. (but they were very disparate)It is clear that the majority of people on social media are followers, not creators. Snapchat certainly bucked the system in that, by nature, it is a push-first platform: it immediately opens up to a camera. Almost all others, including Facebook and Instagram, are voyeur-first, or pull-first, platforms, and among those people who do post, only a small percentage are thinking about showcasing their life iteratively.Not everyone is a gifted visual storyteller, but as we’ve learned, it takes one to create a truly compelling narrative, especially when the primary medium is video.What will occur as a result of this nudging toward complex storytelling? Will people be more thoughtful in not just what they post, but also how they structure them? Likely not. In the short term it will either lead to mish-mosh stories or to a decrease in people creating due to the complexity.But perhaps this is just the natural evolution of the visual web; from stills to multiple stills acting as a flip book, and then from videos to multiple videos stitched together.This cultural transition is akin to the shift from shuffle to the rise of playlists in music. I recall when only a small amount of music would fit on my iPod or when people just got a Nano and let the musical chips fall where they might. Now, Spotify and Pandora reign supreme and carefully curated playlists drive music consumption. People – whether listeners, friends, or DJs – used to create these playlists themselves, but now computers are taking this over. ‘Playing tonight at 10: DJ Algorithm.’So, what is the storytelling equivalent? How will a shift to multi-post-over-time updates be made simpler for the masses?I’m not sure at a macro level, yet, but I do have one resolution to a particular issue, particularly as it pertains to Snapchat and Instagram Stories: Allow for multiple stories per persona.Why is it assumed that all our stories are ‘day in the life’ perspectives? I’m a marketer, a photographer, a DJ, and a dad. Maybe I’d prefer to stitch together a video of my son and I eating breakfast in the morning, followed by us watching Ninjago together later that evening, without being required to include in between video from the conference I attended as my marketer persona during the day.It is interesting to me that these platforms have not initiated a workflow that allows us tell different stories about different aspects of our lives and ourselves over the same period of time. We compartmentalize our lives so we can focus on them more intently.The narratives we most often tell are of these compartments, not of the full 24 hours that has just passed, forcefully correlated. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this idea - in the comments here, or via whichever venue you prefer. You can find me @djtakefive on twitter, instagram, snapchat, ello and facebook. Also, my synopsis and mini-review of INSTAGRAM STORIES can be found: here. (special thanks to Adam Flomenbaum for his assistance editing this piece)  

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