Molly Soda, Webcam Princess: The Art of Self-Preservation Online
Contemporary artists have and continue to produce work which challenges their personal identity in the cultural and social environment they exist in. With unrestricted internet access, it has become easy for someone to highlight what is now considered “culturally relevant” and apply it to their representation of self, both on a digital platform and in their creative practices.
However, within many online subcultures, members will not only share common interests, but will garner online attention and following through exposing intimate details of their lives in photographs, videos, and text posts almost every day. Although the curation of a digital aesthetic can be considered an act of self-interest which doesn’t venture beyond a projected image, others may argue that at the centre is somebody who is still attempting to extract meaning from their experiences through a creative, public approach. Perhaps in terms of autobiographical storytelling, it is easier to keep editing a moving, digital self-portrait.
Get Ready With Me (2016) by Molly Soda - Comfort Zone Installation from Annka Kultys Gallery
You may have heard of American performance artist, Molly Soda. Her teen-confession style work first garnered attention on the then-considered “underground” site Tumblr, and her current Instagram handle (@bloatedandalone4evr1993) still humorously references the same tropes of isolation and angst which were prevalent across the first “Sad Girl” profiles. Shown across digital platforms and immersive installations, her practice explores cyberfeminism, the ‘technological mediation of self-concept’, and social media culture. Reflecting on her early content which earned her the title of “internet art star”, Soda declares: ‘Everyone’s always repping a place they’re from. I think I’ve realised the internet is that space for me…it’s the only place I feel like I could present fully, in a lot of ways’.
The artist’s first exhibitions at Annka Kultys Gallery examined lowbrow internet discourse in the form of images and videos on tablets, laptops, and pop-up adverts. Films showed Soda singing, dancing, talking to strangers online, and embracing the intimacy of her own home. She claims her practice is ‘about girls and for girls in their bedrooms’: she aims to take the ‘private behaviours inherent to those spaces’ and make them public, reflecting on how that process ‘changes the way those behaviours are seen and contextualized’. Featuring bejewelled gadgets, mirrors, and her infamous, plaintive pout, Soda’s use of multimedia materials reflect the multimedia layout of a Tumblr blog. Overall, an almost suffocating image of teenage vanity - of a girl hopelessly nursing a flurry of online instructions - is generated.
Bored, WYD? (2017) by Molly Soda via Jack Barrett Gallery
An example of the artist’s most successful performances is Inbox Full, in which she spends ten hours reading all the messages in her Tumblr inbox. Soda explains that this extensive form of documentation is a ‘tool for understanding the rising anxiety and preoccupation’ that everyone feels about their platforms. Another piece, Happy to Be Here, shows Instagram messages written to her from two anonymous profiles: the first repeatedly declaring their love for Soda and demanding that she respond to them, and the second simply questioning if she ‘is real’. While the latter challenges the legitimacy of her online persona, the former displays the symptomatic behavior of a dedicated Tumblr follower…
These video and sculpture pieces both represent the emotional co-dependency girls have developed between each other on social media. Users will religiously support and reward semi-fictious personalities, and similarly expect to be acknowledged for their own, often overstated fandom. Psychologist Sherry Turkle claims ‘our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other’. She insists that ‘technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities’.
So, should we all strive towards the status of “internet micro-celebrity”, as a means of moving closer to our individual complexity and potential? Or has the unreliable yet incessant influence of social media rendered the notion of identity to a handful of empty aesthetics, and esoteric interests? In Turkle’s Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, this generation’s ‘robotic moment’ is described as the decision to ‘put our faith in technology as the antidote to human frailty, when acceptance of frailty is what makes us human’.
However, sociologist Angela McRobbie describes the spaces which girls construct for themselves as both places for the ‘creation of a sexualised identity that conforms with mainstream notions of femininity’, and centres of ‘resistance to the requirements of heterosexuality and motherhood through the creation of an all-girl subculture’. The narratives in Soda’s practice, which follow themes of heartbreak, nostalgia, and female endurance, is ‘not afraid to look at the most embarrassing parts of us’ (Inverse Magazine). American Masters identifies that ‘we have a frontstage and a backstage, most of us just show our frontstage… Soda blurs this boundary’.
“Chick Magnet” Book (2023) by Molly Soda (@bloatedandalone4evr1993)
Furthermore, it can be argued that the multidisciplinary nature of the artist’s techniques is what defines the contemporary girl - or grants her the freedom to play with contrasting elements of her personality. Indeed, perhaps it is Soda’s elusiveness and effortless relatability which remain her most attractive traits as an artist.
Although the considerations of recording may hinder a complete emotional release for some, for others the embracing or perverting of online alter egos, fantasies, and even systems of belief, can be seen as a protective barrier against a world that so frequently misunderstands. Although inconclusive in terms of a long-term solution, perhaps social media’s promise of an omnipresent audience - to young women who are already so accustomed to being looked at rather than listened to - is enough. The validation one receives in return for maintaining their digital presence despite - or as a result of - it being performative can perhaps be summarized in the Aleksandr Kuprin quote: ‘Do you understand... that all the horror is in just this: that there is no horror!’
In response to i-D Magazine, author Hannah May insists that the image of the teenage girl is ‘fluid and constantly morphing’. Although contemporary art with a focus on girlhood as an allegorical state has always existed, the introduction of the internet has brought a more dynamic focus to the process of personal documentation. Soda’s online presence is what drew initial attraction to her artwork, suggesting one will always depend on the other - however - her conversations regarding the conflicting inner sanctuary and external performance in adolescence are boundless, and important. Her ability to develop and ironically criticise what was essentially a virtual character establishes her as a true representation of her digital generation, and a resourceful fine artist.
Molly Soda currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Her latest photo book Chick Magnet, which explores her refrigerator as a canvas, is available for purchase now.
Violets R Glue is an essayist, art curator, and columnist at Delude Magazine.