I know how social media works (I’m a marketer) and that analytics prove that only 1/5 of you will truly read this. That’s alright, this really isn’t for you, but more for me. I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around this whole social media thing. It’s been a quite deep experience for me, actually. I have learned that it is all marketing. Heck, you are selling yourself. You are giving yourself a “vibe”, a “theme”. You are portraying the side of you that you want people to see, even when you say you’re not. It’s a total mind game. You want people to “buy in”. You want them to follow, comment, like. Though you say you are not feed by it, it’s the food in your stomach.
Here is where I have landed. Please don’t think I’m an asking for empathy or pity, I just want to be real. I do not like myself enough to “instagram”. I do not like myself enough to update you on where I am in life or what I am wearing. It is all a chore to me.
When I do post or do try to make things move forward in the social media realm, I am overwhelmed by the fact that I do not care enough. There is freedom in that, however. I do not need to feel consumed with the urge to post. I know my bread is not coming from the gratification brought by the likes or the views, but brought by life itself.
This is where I find myself in a pickle, I am a consumer. Yes, I do not like to sell myself, but hell I’m buying into everything else. I like your “vibe”, I like your “theme”. I want more of your Instagram stories, YouTube’s, photos. Give me.
I’m a leach. I’m feeding off of all of this. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re doing in life via social media because I’m too lazy to call you or pop by to see how you are doing.
We fighting a losing battle, my friends. We are disconnecting by connecting. We are forming a false reality -a false sense of connection- by allowing social media and technology to be the mediator of our daily lives.
It truly saddens me. Trust me, there are all kinds of irony by me writing this and posting it onto a form of social media. I just want us all to take a second, step back from what we place as reality in our lives, and ask ourselves if we are truly living.
Have you seen the sky today? Did you wonder how the heck the earth is spinning and you can not feel it? Have you talked to people in line next to you at a coffee shop? Have your hands felt a pen and paper or just your phone screen?
Reality is not what we think it is. Reality is this; life is passing and you are viewing it through a screen that is delayed and small. Wake up. Stop selling yourself short of a life that has much more potential, so much more REAL experience. Don’t do it for the gram, do it for you.