I recently watched this on Netflix and learnt at the age of 32 in 2019 what a vine is. I feel so proud of myself right now that I had no idea about these absurdities! As soon as this is finished I shall immediately erase from my mind.
A cringe worthy watch, but watch it I must. A part from being totally put off from DJing, I have also been inspired to talk about my love/hate relationship with social media and to try and understand the beast.
‘I was bullied, kids were mean to me, it was hell. So I use social media to express myself with a gizzillion selfies, now I have 5m followers, and I am validated. hashtag epic.’ Said all the fucktards.
What does social media mean to you?
Facebook was my first experience of this thing we call social media. Facebook is a social networking site with 2.2 billion users. I am going to write this like there are people out there that have no idea what facebook is. (please god let that be the case) Basically it is a free website that hosts your profile, ie your name is your domain, and a massive part of this profile, are your images. So its like a pictureography of you.
I was first introduced to Facebook at university in 2007 as a way of getting access to pictures that other people had taken of me. So a very selfish purpose, I forwent the privacy aspect because I was so eager to have the pictures, I added everyone I could think of, and sold my privacy for a handful of attention beans.
My facebook profile then began to evolve into a infographic of my nights out, my travels to new places, or if could not be avoided, my mundane. All were snapped, then on a digital camera, now on mobile phones, uploaded, usually by someone else, and then I was tagged. Tagging just means I get access to this picture, it is then attached to my profile.
I got a little buzz every time a picture of me was uploaded because it usually meant that now everyone could see how fun my life was.
It also helped when I moved to China in 2008, my friends and family could all keep an eye on me, pervasively or not, this was how they could be nosy.
Now lets fast forward 3 years, I am now trying to keep up the momentum and stress over getting pictures up that show me here, there, everywhere, trying to curate your perception of me. If I didn’t post, it meant to you that I was not doing anything ie I was boring. I was doing nothing 6 days a week but god forbid you know that. So now I was designing photos exclusively for facebook. Not only did I have to look hot, I had to be preferably travelling, or doing something that I though someone would be envious of. Then there is the fretting over what witty comments should accompany the pictures.
“add me as a friend”
The terminology was now ubiquitous in my language, I started to hate it but felt I still had to keep up. Now I started to hate my friends, I had seen too much of them, this constant barrage of images of all my friends doing really mundane things started to grate on me, but instead I just ‘liked’ my way through this tsunami of information.
After going through pictures of someone I’ve ‘friended’ for an hour, I thought wow this is really unhealthy. I use this expression friended because it doesn’t mean you like this person. At the time it was considered a faux pas not to accept a friend request, kinda like shoving the proverbial olive branch up their arse. So I then had people I didnt even like looking through my life, and me trying to keep up show for people i didnt like.
Very luckily I got caught up in a police investigation and ended up shutting down my profile in 2012.
In 2016 I reopened it and now as an adult use it sensibly and have lots of positive reasons why facebook works for me. I decided not to have any images of myself and have disabled people posting pictures they might have of my gob to my timeline. After all who actually wants to see lots of pictures of themselves? Therefor it is not about me. You can glean very little about me and therefor I have no panic attacks about anyone knowing too much. Bosses, elderly relatives, in laws etc etc. I also pride myself on how useful it is to me. I really love the city I live in and massive amounts of events are only publicised on Facebook, so all I do is like the page and each time they have an event I get a notification.
Actually take time to understand your privacy settings.
Its free, it is a way to communicate with my friends I met in China, my family in Indonesia and the rest of the world. Before we were paying to call, now we can use facebook to send a message.
Disable notifications from people, if you get that little red blip, the only way to get rid of it is to look. Also change your settings to only see pages that will inspire you.
From a neuroscience perspective, it is fact that you get a dopamine rush when you get a like, or another follower or retweet etc etc. But as I learnt as a twenty something it can leave you feeling shite just as quick. Hashtag exboyfriend’snewgirlfriend
Watching innocuously from behind your screen is not harmless. Its theatre but without paying for a ticket, and you are getting the lifetime Bafta award for insecurity.
My acute hatred for the misuse of social media a side, it has benefits right. It is an excellent free marketing tool, it was been hailed as the impetus for the Arab Spring.
So it connects people and has power, but used cautiously, after all, marketing and advertising are worse that wood rot, and was the Arab Spring in 2011, a catalyst for change for the better? Jury is out.
After all is said and done an internet celebrity is still a talentless famous person.
majorloveme 