[Concept Metaphor: Butterflies in your stomach]

The concept is that due to the easy access to one another online, many have mistaken love for infatuation. Love is a conscious choice after getting to know someone really well, understanding their positives and their flaws. Infatuation is blind, irrational and you can be infatuated with somebody you barely know or have never even met, it’s short-lived and based on fantasy and your imagination.

The term “butterflies in your stomach” can signify the nervous energy of new love, thus I wanted to look into how people in this digital age react to these new feelings. To understand the initial stage of “having butterflies in your stomach” in this digital culture, what do people normally do when they first felt butterflies towards someone? how does this digital age negativity impacts those natural responses we have towards another person.

Research conducted by Helen E. Fisher, PhD, professor and author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, indicates that romantic infatuation shares many of the same attributes as a cocaine high.

I hope to use this animation to show that infatuation is not love, and that it is very easy to become infatuated about a person and believe that we know who they are based on the combination of our imagination and the “research” we have done online. But, Infatuation is initially based on physical attraction, we don’t usually get infatuated with a person because of their qualities which make them who they are. In fact, we hardly know the person who we get infatuated with. 

There is no foundation in infatuation, different that love, which has a strong foundation and is a conscious choice made after knowing a person. Social media has many benefits, but when it is misused, it leads to disappointments and heartaches. 

I've also written a blog on some of my personal thoughts on it: https://heatherjeanbirkeland.weebly.com/65372life65372/ooooo-those-butterflies?fbclid=IwAR2oh3L23qO2AP6k-ypJxjdfTeItPOqXah7Hs37iqpv1LnaA0lXuyNvJGNg