By guest blogger: Khanyisa Melwa
The advent
of social media has completely changed the way we interact and engage with one
another. Filters and hashtags have become somewhat of a lingua franca. As
millennials, we are often referred to as hyper-taskers and our teenagers are
now screenagers. We live in the information age, an age where one chooses to be
ignorant as information is readily available with a click of a button.
With this in mind, it was quite refreshing to be a part of
an event that puts the ‘social’ back into social media. I’m talking about the
first #NMMUWalk that was hosted by Cityofpe together with the Nelson Mandela
Metropolitan University (NMMU) on Tuesday evening.
The #NMMUWalk is essentially an Instawalk (Instagram Walk)
which is about getting the community together to take pictures of our beautiful
city/campuses and share them on Instagram. It’s an opportunity for people to
get to meet the people behind the Instagram accounts and interact with them on
a human level. “It’s about growing the community, that’s our emphasis” says
Joshua Terry, one third of Cityofpe. The community in this case, was the NMMU
community.
The walk began at Madibaz Café, with some quick treats,
because you know – food. Whilst enjoying the delicacies, I couldn’t help but
feel like an amateur (which I am) when I heard these guys and girls talk about
their lenses and cool cameras. Canon 550D’s, ISO’s and Insta-lenses were the
order of the day. Did you guys even know Insta-lenses existed? I didn’t.
Apparently some company in Cape Town manufactures these, a pretty nifty gadget
for you iPhone users.
 |
| Our Instawalkers at the kraal. |
We then missioned down to the kraal to begin our expedition,
in search for the coolest shots of our beautiful campus. Bar the odd selfie
here and there, our Instawalkers achieved this with aplomb, as a plethora of
beautiful pictures of the campus can be seen under the hashtag - #NMMUWalk on
Instagram.
 |
| River Leask doing a 'RiverJump' |
What was even more interesting was how 25 completely
different students, with everyone studying different courses and from different
backgrounds could come together for a new experience and enjoy it so much. We
all came to take pictures of a beautiful campus and share these on Instagram
but the bi-product of this was that friends and connections were made and for
some, followers were gained.
Barriers were transcended at the #NMMUWalk; people you would
normally speak to over an app using a smartphone were now standing right next
to you taking the very pictures that would leave you awestruck on Instagram.
Not only that, but societal barriers were also dismantled, this was evidenced
by the diversity of the students present. This goes to show how social media –
which is famous for rendering active-users as anti-social can now be used as a
socializing agent, which can only bode well for social cohesion in our
beautiful country.
It’s really cool to know that we go to a university that
encourages creativity, diversity and a vibrant student life. Kudos to the lads
from Cityofpe for hosting this event with NMMU, I hope this was the first of
many.
Photo: Stuart William Black aka Crazyninja88 on Instagram
No comments:
Post a Comment