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Mariah Maras
Professor Robert Wilkie
English 413
May 8, 2014


Post-college Hypomnesis and Anamnesis in the Construction of the Digital Self

In this essay, I intend to discuss remembering and the weakening of memory by the post-college person
in the process of constructing a digital self on social sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I plan to
discuss how the process of making a digital self begins as an attempt to fit the agenda of the job opportunities
they plan to take up and how it ends as a kind of personal illusion. The process involves both a remembering of
the unique self and simultaneous weakening of the memory of the part of ones self that doesnt fit the agenda
of the objective at hand. From there, I intend to investigate how this activity, and certain concepts underlying
this activity, may affect a post-college person.
Anamnesis consists of remembering and rediscovering what is within us, it provides us with a sense of
self, an identity. It with holds our values that are passed down from generation to generation and sustains those
values when we construct a digital self. Along with that however, David Gross, in his book Lost Time argues
that in the present day What is needed for a full and free personality, it is often said, is not a self that can
remember and repeat but one that can [also] shuck off the past, improvise, and adapt to new situations (Gross
3).
When remembering and forgetting in the construction a digital self, one must be conscious of the
balance it takes to retain an identity while also being able to be spontaneous and creative in ways that are new to
the individual as well as to those they wish to appeal to. This balance of remembering and forgetting is perhaps
a sign of a healthy mind. Since, according to Gross, around 1900, the person of prodigious memory was not
the exemplary individual he was earlier thought to be. Indeed, the person inundated by multiple recollections
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spring[ing] up on every side (Ribot) was labeled a disturbed individual (Gross 33). On another note, Gross
mentions that a person who remembers may not be recollecting out of the highest or purest motives of loyalty
to the past but out of some pressing inner fear, based on an incapacity to fully engage life as it presents itself in
immediacy (Gross 33). Many people tend to avoid facing or testing reality by remembering a greater time or
more desirable self. For Nietzscheans and similar thinkers, those that tended to focus more on remembering
rather than living and seeking their present life seemed controversial. For those who retain a balance of
remembering and forgetting, the nostalgic individual seems withdrawn and more timid than those who were
seemingly brave enough to face the surrounding world. The overly nostalgic individual is susceptible to dull
and patterned ways of living, and consequently tend[s] to be morbidly melancholic (Gross 34).
When creating a digital self, an online self, one becomes aware, either consciously or unconsciously, of
this concept of anamnesis or rather, the remembrance of the ideal, unique self. One tries to construct their own
self in a way that represents them, yet also distinguishes them from the rest of the crowd. In doing so, one must
make decisions not necessarily about who they are, but who they wish to be seen as. In short, we are stuck with
deciding what to keep around in our memory, and what to let weaken and pass, or banish outright upon more
immediate discretion. In this sense, our decisions about memory are dressed with agency. They suddenly
become more calculable and deterministic of our future according to how we interpret what is asked of
ourselves. This may also affect how we think of our digital self in comparison to the digital self of those of
higher class or status.
In todays digital nation, class difference is imminently absent. The rich and famous are visibly posting
pictures on Instagram minutes after ones friends are posting pictures, Facebook socialites are able to like
their favorite singer, actor, writer, or model and have immediate access to their social sphere by commenting on
their idols posts, and CEOs are Linking-in to recent university graduates across the nation. The void of
marginalization is perceived to be filled by the feeling and anticipation that the next big singer, author, or
corporate boss could be you. Organizations that previously appeared to be secondary, gated communities are
moving their way into the genre of organic, grassroots extensions that delve into the minds and hearts of the
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common people. With all of these apparent opportunities, the digital world is sensationalized. The hard, cold
truth of reality is replaced by heartfelt inspiration that will either make you or break you. This ideal in turn
creates a new divide, a new marginalization: those who can and those who cant.
In this way, not desire, as Robert Wilkie in his book The Digital Condition: Class and Culture in the
Information Network, is the source of agency, but rather the decisive action of the individual to sort out their
better memories of themselves from their worse ones by posting these better memories and
characteristics of themselves. The individuals posts serve as exemplary evidence of this decisive action. One
can desire many things, but few desires make it out of ones mind and into words now not only seen by oneself,
but by others. The community once gated by a brick wall is now accessible by the many, such as the common
self, who can serve as witnesses to testify for those who intend to prove to the rest of the now equally common
and famous people that they, one individual, are capable of making it, that they can.
Not only does the individual have this opportunity, but the individual also has a longer moment to prove
their own self. They have all the time from the moment they join Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, to the
moment they pass or decide to delete their profile from cyberspace foreveror to the moment they simply
forget their email and password combination. Either way, the moment and the very creation of the moment
becomes more possible from ones parents basement to ones Los Angeles mansion. The idea of opportunity
becomes revolutionized through the construction of the digital self, whether the opportunity in reality exists or
not.
For the post-college person, the opportunities of digital spaces such LinkedIn seem more relevant
considering LinkedIn functions like an online resume. A post-college person has the credentials and means to
create a stronger resume in comparison to a pre-college person. When creating a LinkedIn profile, a post-
college person, to an extent, has to follow the template that LinkedIn has set up for them. Therefore, the person
must show a sense of creativity in the way they display their information as well as abide by the limits of the
construction space. Ideally, LinkedIn creates a space for a resume slightly bigger than an average one to two
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page resume typically handed in to a potential employer. The restrictions of the construction of a resume outside
of the space of LinkedIn then, are more confined and perhaps to an extent, prescriptive of the way the individual
attempts to appeal to the job through their resume. In contrast, even though LinkedIn does provide a template to
work within, the amount of space available for a persons information and credentials is observably larger and
less restrictive of a persons unique characteristics.
With more space however, comes more room for memories and reflection about ones own personal
characteristics. The digital world in the nation is structured to fit our personal interests, motives, and desires,
and spaces such as Instagram and Facebook are specifically and overtly tailored to those qualities. It is plausible
to assume that the qualities permeate into more professional spaces such as LinkedIn as well. Unlike a standard
resume, LinkedIn has places for endorsements by others, causes one cares about, and a section simply for ones
interests. It appears then, that the doubt about memory in the 1900s as part of a healthy persons routine are
doubted themselves. On LinkedIn, one seems to not only have more space, but more categories within the genre
of creating a profile of ones own self. This allows for the opportunity of a combination of the characteristics of
the unique self while still maintaining a sense of professionalism exemplified by the individuals job,
educational, and volunteer experience.
However, it is also these characteristics of digital spaces, Wilkie later argues with the support of Negri,
that help the nation create and maintain the illusion for the individual that wage labor is not the site of
exploitation and that the wage-for-labor exchange is always fair and freely chosen (Wilkie 170). What he
means by this is that the digital world of the nation aims to appear heterogeneous. It aims to appear as though it
attends to the lifestyle of the user of spaces such as Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn in order to maintain the
underlying homogeneous structure of wage labor and what appears to the user as essentially nonexistent in the
digital sphere, class relations. Wilkie gives the example of turning concrete labor into abstract labor and use
value into exchange value.
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The illusion of the absence of the homogeneity of class relations and wage labor that is maintained in
digital spaces deeply affects not only the individual, but society as well. When creating an online profile, again,
decisive action of the individual is taken. Decisive action about what memories of oneself chooses are better
and to keep, and what memories of oneself to let go or simply banish. Though decisive action is the agency of
the individual, it is not to say that the desire of the individual to perform the decisive action is necessarily of the
individuals own accord. In that sense, yes, desire is involved, but on the other hand, the individual still has the
choice of either making the decisive action to go forth with fulfilling their desires or not. The underlying
homogeneity of class relations and wage labor are deeply embedded in this action.
By creating a digital space where the underlying homogeneity of class relations and wage labor are just
that, underlying, the user of that digital space gains a sense of freedom, perhaps even empowerment, as to how
creative one can get about exemplifying who they are and who they are not. In contrast, standard versions of
mediums such as resumes may appear more restrictive to the individual as far as what they remember and either
choose not to remember or simply forget about themselves in comparison to digital spaces such as LinkedIn.
However, taking into consideration the environment and concrete reality of where ones place is in society as
far as class relations and wage labor is concerned, the resume may help illuminate the evidence of such a
reality.
The very act of having to research a company, checking ones own qualifications, and deciding whether
to email, snail mail, or hand deliver ones resume grounds the individual in a non-negotiable, concrete reality.
Research makes conclusive the availability of jobs and the availability of types of jobs the individual is
qualified for. In contrast, digital spaces such as LinkedIn only conceal that reality. They buffer and in turn
confuse the relation between profile user and their actual qualifications for an available job. What I mean by
this is that the creation of an online profile becomes appealing to the individual and the illusion is created of
jobs existing that are catered to the individuals personal agenda rather than the individual catering their
qualifications to fit the agenda of the job. This illusion advances the distance between classes and in turn
hinders the opportunities for more fair and freely chosen wage-for-labor exchange without the individual even
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recognizing that they may have had a part in creating the effect that they come to notice is keeping them from
getting a decent job. Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn all support this illusion through seemingly differing
genres, but under one, detrimental agenda.
In conclusion, the personal reward of taking decisive action when creating an online profile as a post-
college person can seem fulfilling, but maybe we should take Gross findings from 1900s psychology into
consideration. Online profiles cater to the individuals extensive memory of oneself. They also support building
that memory through giving the individual the ability to post things which will remain in cyberspace forever.
Remembering is once again becoming a cherished activity, and the ideas of 1900s psychological interpretations
of an individual with a great memory as being disturbed is disregarded. With the evidence of the digital
construction of self as creating an illusory belief that one is on the market and free to more opportunities than
truly exist, the extent of what one chooses to remember and retain about and for oneself can once again be
questioned. Each remembered activity can contribute to the individuals personal experience, but may make
arbitrary the true sense of self that only the forgetting of mundane daily activities that havent been posted to
ones profile can provide.




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Works Cited
Gross, David. Lost Time. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. Print.
Wilkie, Robert. The Digital Condition: Class and Culture in the Information Network. New York: Fordham
University Press, 2011. Print.