Ashlynn Steele

Phillips

English 101

3/21/16

Essay 2: Banksy Visual

"Nobody likes me" by Banksy, a famous and anonymous graffiti artist, represents the negative impact different social medias have on their users and how social media also has the opportunity to alter our views about ourselves. While Banksy provides a visually appealing image to the audience, he also provokes a deeper level of thought in his artwork by having them consider location, meaning and relevancy to the message trying to be conveyed. Through the artwork "Nobody likes me" Banksy had the boy cry because there is no tangible interest in his Instagram post. This is representing the need in society today, apparent in the younger generations who make up most of the social media users, that we need social media for personal gratification. Banksy provokes this concept through symbolism, colors and the perspective of his own ideology to raise concern to a current growing societal problem. 

Banksy has a unique artistic style with a deeper meaning than the image itself. For "Nobody Likes Me", the surface level meaning is represented through the title initially. It is a painting of a young child in a blue sweater with his smart phone in his hand, throwing a fit. The boy's expressions in the artwork is being expressed as completely distraught and upsetting when finding out he got no "approval" via Instagram by the images and tags above the boy's head that read: 0 likes 0 comments and 0 new followers. By having the young child with this distraught expression, it directly relates how the lack of positive attention from social media is portrayed through how users are emotionally attached to the attention and gratification we receive through technology outlets like social media. Mood can be persuaded and influenced by how popular we are to the outside world and how we market ourselves is widely through some outlet of social media account ranging from Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter. Society's over dramatized views on social media is negatively impacting our views on ourselves, whether we are good enough or not if we don't hit the set number of likes that we crave. Social medias and other technology outlets have created an idealistic image of what a woman or man is suppose to look like and act. When anyone feels they do not compare to these images, it can impact how they view themselves and other people. Societal pressures are enough to deal with than having the worry if their followers socially approve of their looks, action or abstract qualities. 

The young kid's age around 4 to 6 is representing how the younger generations are more prone to this type of reaction and impact of social media disapproval. In our society today, the anticipated speed for how technology impacting and being apart of our daily lives is constantly moving quicker than the day before. The younger children and generations are being exposed to social media and the effects of it before they can accept themselves for who they are first and any flaws they may have. Social media has the potential to plant a seed of negative self reflection and the idea that you have to quantify yourself through the number of likes, followers, or comments you receive. By defining themselves and viewing their self worth through the gratitude of others is a rising and growing problem is society. Banksy sees this as a growing problem throughout the world and chose to symbolism it through the streets of Vancouver. With having a blank, white background allows more focus on the message and colors come into play and impact the audience to see the connection and meaning. While Vancouver is a fast-paced, constantly growing city, the reality of that typical setting and technology consuming the unrealistic lifestyle or appearance take over in a town like Vancouver. Small, less advanced parts of the United States may not have that same effect, but larger cities are subject have having more of a technology-prone environment where the room for impact is much larger. Banksy is warning not only large cities, but the entire world that technology is negatively influencing our children and generations to come by presenting it with a boy at this young age. This image is meant to raise awareness and visually see how this can impact someone.

The irony of this specific artwork lies within the meaning of the painting and how much attention this painting has attracted via social media and various other technology outlets. While new reporters, bloggers, fans, and anyone interested in graffiti artwork are commenting, posting or following online about Banksy and his artwork, they are doing exactly what Banksy is trying to warn us about. Assuming that Banksy knew this would go viral via social media or other online outlets, it still causes attention to the issue which is ultimately the purpose for this image. Through drawing attention of the meaning of the artwork and where it was located, it is causing more people to spend time on social media or other websites to view his work and make comments visible for more people to do online. The artist allows others to have such a connection with this painting because social media is used by all different races, colors, genders, ages and backgrounds, yet this still can impact us all individually and have a same possible negative impact collectively. It is clear we have an emotional and psychological attachment to internet, social media being the main source of this dependency. Studies by FEMA have shown we have created such a dependency on this technology that we are adapting to trends, ideas, creations, the old is being reformed to the new and is capable of consuming our thoughts and making us adapt accordingly. Not only does this research show the correlation between technology and how we develop our views on the world and new trends but it also shows the increase use of mobile devices for internet access and communication overall. With that, our society is furthering in a direction of adapting to trends through the overbearing use of technology. 

The colors of the painting are vague yet represent the emotional attachment between social media and self gratification. The young child is outlined in black and gray except his sweater and his cell phone in his hand are colored blue, as well as the orange bar with notification is orange. The contrast between the colors bring the mood and feelings to the surface and can have the audience visually see the direct connection. The blue portrays the mood associated with being sad and frustrated when the young child receiving no attention on Instagram and begins to throw a fit. In contrast, if there were to be another painting reflecting how someone can feel better about themselves and more accepted by society, perhaps the color of the body would be green or yellow to represent satisfaction and happiness that they're feeling confident with themselves. Banksy is conveying the dependency on this form of technology, by adapting to trends and gravitate to more materialistic views, almost a false sense of reality portrayed by the media. That false sense of reality being can begin to harp on the goals of other self approval rather than our own approval of your appearance and personality.

Banksy is an anonymous street artist known for thought provoking art across the world focusing on specific controversial topics that bring attention to problems within our society. Banksy focuses on his unique style of his own. By being anonymous, this allows full freedom for him to speak out and draw attention to topics other artists may not endeavor in due to the sensitivity of the matter. Typically, Banksy provides his artwork to be concise of what exactly it is referencing but the interpretation is entirely under the perspective of the audience. Even if the audience completely agrees or disagrees with how Banksy choses to portray it, it still sparks thought and conversation about the matter which is the initial purpose of Banksy being an anonymous artist. Society is shifting to a materialistic mindset by luxury items, ideas, and approval of other people. Banksy created this image to raise awareness for this problem in hopes to prevent it. This image can be related to more than just teenagers and younger generations on social media. "Nobody Likes Me" is for world to get a visual of how this impacting social media users, although having a younger boy as the representative of this issue is mainly attract attention towards what effects it has on the younger generations. These younger generations are growing up with social medias and other online outlets that will impact how they view themselves and the world as they grow up in comparison to the older generations who didn't have these outlets we have today.

Banksy provides insight of his perspective and some overlooked problems within our society through multiple visual techniques such as: contrast, coloring, symbolism, location and perspective in all his artworks, especially "Nobody likes me". The artist is able to provoke unique thoughts by expressing himself freely with no negative commentary returning back on his true identity and starting a movement for every individual concern shared with the world. 

Work Cited

Banksy. "I heart  "Nobody Likes Me" New Mural  --  Vancouver, Canada." StreetArtNews. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

Futur, "Getting Urgent About The. "Technological Development and Dependency." "Getting Urgent About the Future" Technological Development and Dependency (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
