Week1 B: Social Media Use Today
Business has always been a performance, trying to coax people into liking you. You need people to believe they're your friend just long enough to make a transaction. Unfotunately, with social media, the performance is unending, there is no intermission, the
curtain never falls. What's more, the definition of what a friend is
seems to have become increasingly broad to the point of losing all
meaning.
Friendship is no longer a communion between two people who enrich one anothers' lives. Friendship has evolved to become the recognition that you like the same show, listen to the same band, have the same God awful fashion taste or any other small nuance that can be mined for social appraisal. There's a troubling amount of weight put on arbitrary interests and commonalities. More so if those commonalities carry social or political caché that can be used to affirm one's online persona.
What's more perplexing is that people refuse
to do business with someone who isn't their "friend". The social and
business worlds have fused, meaning the net you cast already has some
serious holes in it. Potential clients want to be sure that you bolster
their own values and beliefs. They need to see that you actively
champion the causes near and dear to their hearts.
So
you're an artist, a woman, a podcaster? Well then it's your
responsibility to support others of your ilk! How? By liking their
posts, responding to their comments, replying to their messages, and
doing so promptly. This creates a damnable culture of reciprocity. No
one actually cares for anyone else's work. Rather, they're obediently
keeping correspondence out of obligation, hoping to have the favour
returned. We all like, comment and subscribe our lives away, awaiting
that happy day when the algorithm finally smiles upon us. Then, at long
last, our years of toil and suffering at last mean something.
Should you fail to uphold your end of this amorphous, mercurial bargain? Well, expect an avalanche of dissenters, tearing you down for so hideous a transgression! You're cancelled, and all your hard work, accomplishments and accolades come to naught.
For someone like me, this raises a perplexing question. Which mask should I wear and when?
I really enjoyed reading your post. I really didnt take the assignment the same way but I am beyond intrigued by your perspective. I love the mask analogy and I completely agree as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the redefinition of friendship in the advent of social media, as depressing a state of affairs as it is. I would have to say that I have struggled against it, futile as it may be. I've never "Liked" anything that I didn't really like or agree with. I no longer accept friend requests just because someone knows someone I know. I am slowly but surely shedding Facebook friends that I really don't know at all unless we're likely to become political allies or if we're involved in similar arts and crafts activities. I've always thought it was silly to try to have as many friends or followers as you could unless you were promoting something or wanted to be an influencer. I tuned off Facebook followers when I discovered that I had over sixty of them . . . half of them were from the Middle East or pretending to be high ranking military officers and I don't know where the rest came from.
ReplyDeleteI may use Instagram for business in the future so I haven't done anything about the 100+ followers I have. The thing is, I've posted two photos, two videos, and one folder with ten pictures of my artwork. Someday, I might get more artwork out there, but that is really nothing, minimal, useless content, and over 100 people are following it. What is wrong with this picture?