Institute of Art Design + Technology
Dún Laoghaire

Saorlaith Kelly 

BA [Hons] New Media Studies

Saorlaith is a 22 year old North county Dublin native, who recently completed her final year in the New Media Studies course. She has a particular interest for the creative and journalistic writing side of the course, as well as some of the visual components and screenwriting aspects of film. The shared human experience and how that can be conveyed in various artistic forms is what fascinates Saorlaith. She is often drawn to subjects with a personal side to them, and how we as humans interact with one another in the most peculiar and intimate ways through different creative mediums, revealing the rawest, perhaps undesirable parts of ourselves.

Final Year Project

For this final year project, the exploration of internet subcultures, particularly on TikTok, and how they create a parasocial experience for those who engage with them, was researched and presented in the form of a blog. With the use of social, historical and psychological context, the aim of this project was to uncover the meaning behind the draw of these online communities, the pros and cons of this never ending search for the self. The main book and film this research was central to or inspired by was "The Virgin Suicides", and it's associations on social media platforms with aesthetics such as Coquette and Lolita aesthetic.