VALIDATION DOPE
consists of hand made pills out of sculpey depicting the Instagram heart shaped “LOVE” and FaceBook thumbs up “LIKE” buttons packaged in heat vacuumed blister casings formed over 3D printed molds.
The work is a commentary on how users, especially children and youth in general, develop unhealthy dependency on social media. Often seeking validation and acknowledgment through the virtual world of social media engagement in the forms of likes
This social media dependency can be described as a global epidemic. An engineered one at that.
This project is a prototype that is at size and similar to real medicine. However, ideally, with more funding, I would want to fabricate these in larger than life scale. I think this would be interesting to see at a large scale. Making them pills that are impossible to swallow.
In March 2026, a California jury found Meta and YouTube liable for negligence, determining their platforms were designed to be addictive and caused mental health issues in young users.
(Source: BBC News)
