I was initially drawn to this work of art by the way it brought social media to life. I want to study it more because I think it is making an interesting reflection on the priorities of youth today and from where they derive their self-worth. The street art/graffiti depicts a young boy bawling with a cell phone in his hand. And floating above his head is the orange Instagram trademark notification box, only, the boy has zero notifications.
The picture was painting by a Vancouver street artist who goes by the name of I <3 (iHeart) and is titled “Nobody Likes Me”. There could have been a range of purposes for the piece but its effect on me is the highlighting of how society obtains its self-worth from social networks. I think it is very effective in showing this. By indication of the young boy, I would assume the youth of this generation to be the audience. The art assumes that all youth take part in social networking, including very young children. The cultural time period seems to reflect the 21st century in it’s attention to social media, specifically Instagram. The tone is one of turbulence and desperation. I looked up a list of genres and Speculative seemed to be the best fit from that list. A little bit of pathos and logos are represented. Pathos because you can plainly see that the child is obviously in distress and emotional. And logos because if you recognize that the orange rectangle above him is from Instagram, you can logically conclude that he is crying because he has no notifications. Which is, in a greater extent, an introspective comment on society.