Am I what you read on my Facebook profile? Am I the photos or posts you see on my Instagram
feed or Pinterest or Tumblr account, or am I the stuff I say on the various chat
mediums I use? Am I that person? Perhaps, maybe to some extent I am… but who am
I really? Am I not a real life person with real life emotions and real life
things to say and do? I mean, even with this blog, do I live out all these
things that I find myself writing about? Or am I just another person trying to
shove my opinions down people’s throats? Perhaps to some extent I am…. But I
must say that I do feel a strong inclination to say that I have found that it’s
much easier for people, including me, to hide behind the persona we create for
ourselves on social network mediums. I have also come to realize that we tend
to build up a character (an avatar) that seems so remarkable and accomplished that
we find it more comforting to live that, the avatar, rather than the real deal,
the real life, the real you.
I do acknowledge that in a sense it is easier for
us to chat to or chat up someone via a chat app or social network medium because
of various reasons, maybe not being confident enough or maybe just keeping
contact with friends that have moved to far away cities or even countries. I
can appreciate that, like for the purpose of communication, but then there is
the case of just not being comfortable with oneself and we end up choosing to
communicate solely by means of social media rather than the ‘old-school’ face
to face, just simply to avoid who we really are…perhaps a bit boring and maybe
not as glamorous and as exciting…all just a fear may I add. My blog entry, ‘Ziron’,
is in some part an effort, in poetic form, to try and portray how pegged we
have become to technology and the social needs it offers to boost our egos as
well as how it has shaped who we are, who we have become and in a way how it is
shaping where we are going… narcissistic, egotistical and self-centered…almost
like an ‘I’ generation.
Personally, I must admit that I have fallen victim to the madness
of social network mania, and so have many of us, it’s not that we are weak in
any sense, or not that we are not able to think for ourselves, it is just that
we, as humans, like to have some kind of significance and our preferred
counterfeit internet persona allows us that. I suppose yearning for belonging
and identity is who we are fundamentally, it’s kind of what makes us human beings,
in a sense we are much more content with vicariously living our lives through
the lenses and screens and tales and adventures of others. We want to know what
other people are getting up to so we can also do it, or do it better, we want
to compare our lives to theirs, we want to compete with theirs and we want to
show off what we have done and are going to do. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t
think there is anything wrong or bad about uploading things you have done, your
adventure, your awesome boyfriend making you breakfast in bed…again…like he did
yesterday…no, not at all…I think it so cool that we have platforms that serve
as online diaries, its brilliant, it gives people that don’t diarize, that
comfort.
It’s just the things we post though… that is what we need to filter, the
content of what we post, I feel that we really need to evaluate why we post things, is
it to enrich or to boast? Are we sharing
something of value or just posting to post? Do we have something to say or do
we just want to say something? Are we inspiring, encouraging and stimulating people
or just undermining people’s intelligence and hanging out our laundry? And
lastly, is it a gossiping platform or a medium of social expansion?
I have done this. I have done of these things many a time, I
used to want to ‘chat’ to people and have no intention at all of pursuing them
but made it sound as such in the conversation because I knew I would never see
them in real life… Until one day I did… I have posted status updates to boast,
or to show off a pretentious, careless, imprudent existence that I was trying
to relish; meanwhile Facebook and other social networks were just tools I used
to get the necessary approval of it… I have posted arrogant photos on networks
to maintain a lifestyle that can only be maintained using social network
mediums… and none of it unintentional. Other than that I have also done this
for other people’s profiles. I have intentionally liked people’s photos or
posts that I could not for the life me figure out why it was posted but I just
liked it to ‘make them not feel bad’, not because I’m better or have better
post but just because I felt like it could do with a ‘like’… wrong hey, I know,
you probably thinking if I had done that to you… probably, and not to come
across as boasting or anything, but I do
assume many people do stuff like that all the time, just because I’m doing it,
I’m not special in any way, so there is no reason for this to my innovation…we
are human beings and we function from the same fundamental determinations and
so in some areas we do function the same, no matter what our Facebook profiles
says.
I believe that every single person has an arrogant persona in
them and somehow we develop a hunger for it and so we end up wanting it to get
fed. I know I do, I post stuff, I get likes and comments and sometimes I do it for
that sole purpose…. Yeah, I do that? …and
again I feel many other people do just that based on some of the posts I have
seen. Go ahead and run through your
social media accounts and just see which of the post are really worth your time
and which is just attention seeking? We all have certain social needs, even if
you are an introvert, we all need some kind of human contact to affirm us, make
us feel part of something, no man is an island, no-one can live in this world alone.
It is just so sad to see that we rather opt for the virtual interaction, we
settle for the notification, in fact we yearn for the notification, we want it.
That is utter rubbish! What we should be
yearning for is proper human contact, lunch with a person that has a beautiful
personality, coffee with a person that can tell you about what they are feeling
and tasting, no typing, no emoticon, no likes and follows, just real words from
real mouths, words with a voice, words that have meaning beyond it just being
said…words that echo far beyond just the
ear drum it reaches, causing ripples in time and transcending deeper than a
text message that is typed ever could.
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