COM 250 Leap 1 The first step of this project in picking out the person I would like to do my Leap 1 on was simple. I am an avid user of Instagram and have seen hundreds of unique individuals posting their lives on social media, but Slick Woods was always someone who inspired me. Over the years I have always shopped at online retail stores such as Pacsun, and I would always recognize their one model that would stick out to me. A beautiful woman with a shaved head and a large gap in her teeth, very different from many of there other models. When trying to determine Slick’s targeted audience, it was kind of difficult because I feel as though she represents so many cultural artists in the world. Initially, I recognized that her targeted audience is mainly females in there 20’s and 30’s. But as I looked closer into her posts, I noticed that she might be favored more by an edgy and culturally accepting audience. I also learned that just three years ago Slick was homeless, and had lived through struggles her entire life and is now a very successful and well-known model. Therefore her audience can also reach out to those going through hard times, and inspire them to keep pushing. Her posts consist of a combination of modeling photos that she has done through her renowned modeling company, CAA, and also fun personal posts that show us her personality, interests, and her love for her baby boy, Saphir. This helped me determine her target audience as being younger female adults who may have children, interested in fashion trends, or those who may be struggling and looking for inspiration to find their way out. One of the things I struggled was determining what Slick’s over all purpose was to her posts. After going back and forth, I have determined that her main purpose is to simply be herself, and post the content that shows her fans her true self. I don’t feel as though she tries to impress anyone through her posts. Many of them are raw, unedited, blurry images that she enjoys and wants to share with all of her viewers. I feel like her purpose is to show her value for the things she now has in her life, mostly posting her friends, her baby, and her success throughout her career. My overall creative process was simply scrolling through Slick Woods Instagram videos and photos, paying close attention to her captions, comments back to fans, and picking apart the meaning of her bio. Someone who is true to herself can also tend to be controversial within todays society. I struggled to come up with different viewpoints that others may see Slick as, because I only see someone who is natural to her true being. After some debate, I do see how she does not represent your common beauty standards and may make some modeling agencies shy away from her if its “not their look”. Some egotistical individuals may find that her posting a photo of her breast feeding her son to be “inappropriate” or “disturbing”, but in my opinion it a natural process for a mother and child to go through. After completing this project, I personally feel like this process was fun to create and dig deeper on an inspiring individual. I definitely learned many things about this individual, and forced myself to take different approaches, viewpoints, and techniques to discover how she has conveyed herself through social media. I am glad that I chose to do someone like Slick Woods, who came from nothing, living on the streets of LA and made herself into the incredible mother, model, actress, and friend all while staying true to herself.