Each spring, hundreds of Tulane University students fill the streets of New Orleans for nearly a week straight of festivities. Beads are donned, outfits bedazzled and most importantly: Cameras are raised in preparation for content to be captured and posted. Between the first parade float and the last throw, a crucial element gets lost through the hyperfixation of “capturing each moment”: the actual experience of being there.
While it may be exacerbated during Mardi Gras, this desire to capture and post each moment isn’t just a Mardi Gras problem. It’s a psychology problem, specifically the psychology of Tulane students. We spend four years immersed in one of the most culturally rich cities in America, yet are often more focused on documenting the aesthetics of the outfits we wear in the city we live in than learning and embracing the culture.
Social media has fundamentally transformed what it means to experience an event. In a study of 1,000 people between the ages of 18 and 25, half confessed to having “a ‘secret’ alter ego that they hid behind,” and using social media to “make their life seem more exciting than it is in reality.”
There is pressure to use social media to show off the places we travel and the experiences we have to prove that we are leading exciting lives. This phenomenon becomes especially problematic in a place like New Orleans, where a culture that is celebrated through events like Mardi Gras transforms into one big photo opportunity.
New Orleans’ most popular spots are no different. Visiting the neon signs of Bourbon Street and having a beignet at Café Du Monde become checkmarks on a list of content to curate for Tulane students rather than historic New Orleans institutions to learn about and experience. If we did not have cameras and phones to document New Orleans culture, how would our experience of the city change?
The psychology behind this phenomenon isn’t complicated — in fact, it makes perfect sense. Experiencing events that are unique and wanting to share them with our social circle is a normal human desire. When you are at a parade and half of the crowd has their phones out, documenting seems like a natural part of attending. The same applies with outfits: “get ready with me” videos, thousands of Instagram stories, posts and Snapchat videos that are focused on curating a perfect Mardi Gras or Halloween outfit rather than actually attending the event. When everybody else is doing it, it becomes the new normal.
For Tulane students specifically, this matters more than it might seem. For a university where 86% of the first-year class is from out of state, many of us are guests in this city. New Orleans has a culture that is built by Black, Creole and Native communities through food, music and Mardi Gras traditions that hold historical weight. This culture demands the full attention of Tulane students away from their phones and social media.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with documenting parts of your life on social media or that posting a picture of a Mardi Gras float will take away the opportunity to learn about its history. The problem occurs when documentation of the city becomes the point of experiencing it, and when the intention behind exploring the city is directly correlated to its performance online.
Next time you are out with friends and inclined to snap a picture for Instagram, consider putting your phone away and sitting in the moment. Take the time to explore New Orleans without making a TikTok about it and listen to locals when they recommend spots, instead of just going to the most photo-ready spots around town.