Social media and creativity.

How do you define creativity? Does the same definition apply to everyone?
Social media and creativity aren’t as far apart as you’d think. Social media is creativity. A whole host of websites pop-up everyday offering us new mediums to express ourselves in. We have been through a renaissance of sorts in terms of how we have come to express ourselves. We have moved away from stifling definitions of ‘art’ and ‘creativity’ to a more accessible and malleable one and it’s become so for both artists and consumers.
The beauty of social media is that it’s allowed us to expand our idea of creativity. It’s no longer limited to a canvas. Who would have thought paintings by the great masters could have haikus written about them or that we now have Greek gods exploring feelings of teenage angst in fanfictions? I have interpretations and re-interpretations of canonical works at my fingertips. It is possible re-write the Iliad with quirks from our present world, as has been done by a blogger on tumblr PunkrockPatroclus. Art works are being spread across the world, crossing physical and virtual barriers to reach someone in the remotest corners of the world. Fanfiction allows us to imagine and live in the world of our fantasy just a little longer, allows us a glimpse into the psyche of the characters that the actual books didn’t. Fanfiction has given voice to millions of young adults all around, with colleges accepting fanfiction pieces as a part of a student’s portfolio.
Considering the fact that most emerging artists are teenagers with little to no financial backing, social media has been a blessing to promote their work. Anyone can set up an account on a website like Devianart, Instagram or WordPress that too for next to no cost. It has never been easier to be an artist than it has now. It’s also made it easy for us to find such brilliant artists, considering we’re also broke college students.
Social media has made it easier for us to fall in love with art, to create art for the love of it and not only to make money. Conventionally, only those forms of art that bring in money and fame have been encouraged. Now, people are encouraged to put up the results of their creative endeavors regardless of any benefit whatsoever. They do so with the knowledge that no one else’s validity or approval is required.
Not just art for art’s sake, social media has helped harness creativity to make spaces to speak out against injustices. For example, In Kabul artists have taken to graffiti to express their resilience against the Taliban and we get to know of these movements only through social media. We are not passive receivers of art anymore. There is more space for groups that have been traditionally marginalized from creative processes. Women are reclaiming genres typically dominated by men, changing misogynist narratives.
To dismiss social media as a distraction for youngsters would be to dismiss the thought process of this era.

Shakespeare would have loved twitter. Only 140 words to compose a sonnet that is really an innuendo about a character? He would probably be a die-hard advocate for social media. Van Gogh would have cut off his ear to have an Instagram account. Social media is everything Frida Kahlo would have loved. I would like to think that these stalwarts of creativity would have appreciated social media to no extent, and that they would have supported my hours spent online, reading all the fanfictions I could have laid my eyes on, criticising as many paintings as I could, parodying as many texts as is possible.