Social Media Has Made You Strange

#FirstCoffeeThoughts

The word “follower” has always bothered me. Just as using the word “friend” so flippantly also has bothered me. Neither are accurate words to describe what people do on social media but I think “follower” is closer to what this bizarre action is.

“subscribing” to people, “following” people, “friending” people … that’s not how life or relationships truly work. It’s not “real” either.

I don’t think there are enough words to describe what this world has become as far as how people socialize online. I think new words need to be created to describe what society has become instead of adopting old words to describe behavior that is utterly strange.

I lose “followers” constantly because people are fair weather followers. They follow when they see something they “like” or “agree” with and unfollow immediately when they see the opposite which would be utterly bizarre behavior in real life.

You cannot see who unfollows you, but you can see when people follow you and I see the same people come and go constantly and it’s absolutely strange to me. This kind of behavior would be considered highly abnormal and dysregulated if people did this in their everyday relationships. No one would accept it from someone they knew.

You either accept people or you don’t. You don’t choose them only when they are speaking, acting, dressing, and/or behaving in ways that you approve of.

Similarly, when I post something random that people like I will get new “followers” based on just that one thing and these people don’t know me, don’t read the majority of my posts, have no idea who I am and all of the sudden they are interested? These same people will be gone the following week. Again … this kind of behavior is really abnormal but social media makes it seem like this is a normal way to make “friends” or a normal way to engage with people. It absolutely is not.

Social media has made abnormal things seem normal … and many weird behaviors have crossed over into the real world like butting into random people’s conversations, making yourself the center of other people’s business, attacking people randomly that you don’t know etc. Social media has, in many ways, done the opposite of what it was imagined to be capable of doing … but mainly it has created and reinforced behaviors that would otherwise be absolutely unacceptable to people in real life.

↑↑ That is NOT normal or healthy. ↑↑

DO YOUR RESEARCH with anything and everything that you are inviting into your life. Be it news, information, education or PEOPLE. Make INFORMED decisions not flippant ones.

Before choosing to be a “follower” of some absolutely random person that you aren’t going to bother taking the time to really know or understand and then literally judging every single thing they post and weighing it against whatever moral compass you’re swinging around on a given day … maybe take some time to find out WHO you are really choosing to allow into your space and decide if that whole person is someone you really want to know … because in most cases it probably isn’t.

People are complicated. People are nuanced. People are more than just their post on a given day. People have emotions. People have issues. People have conflicting thoughts and feelings on a number of issues. MOST people don’t even know who they are THEMSELVES. MOST people are “followers” themselves. MOST people barely have a personality let alone some clearly defined sense of self and solid ground that they plant their character into and grow from. Yet you judge them on every little thing? Judge YOURSELF by the same standards and see how well you fare.

Social media allowed me to be freer to be myself … but it does so equally for people who are very damaged, negative, dangerous, and emotionally dsyregulated. Social media has turned many people really strange and honestly, MORE dysregulated and dangerous. You have no idea who people are behind that screen. Most people are “versions” of themselves at best … “brands” at worst.

Most people aren’t like me where they share and blog literally EVERYTHING about themselves and have no secrets and share their knowledge, their struggles, their truth with the world. I have ALWAYS been outspoken, open, direct, believed in absolute candor, and always have been true to who I am … social media didn’t MAKE me this way. It didn’t embolden me to do things I never did before. It just gave me a place to be seen and heard outside of my family that wanted to silence, control me, and didn’t give a damn about understanding who I was. It allowed me to find community and additional support instead of being isolated and completely alone.

You don’t “know” anyone online truly and probably never will outside of social media. They are STRANGERS and it’s not your business to judge them for who you want them to be for you on a given day.

If it’s your habit to roam around social media judging STRANGERS based on random things that they post on a given day I’d say you have WAY too much time on your hands and maybe need to spend more time judging, analyzing, criticizing, and trolling YOURSELF instead. Or maybe just focus on your own business and figuring out who YOU are and who you want to be in the greater world … the real world … not the weird, insanely fake replacement world that social media provides.

Be better.

Defensive people always like to say … “Well this is just how social media is, social media is different, this is life now …”

No, it’s not life. It’s a VERSION of life people choose because it’s easier, it makes you feel like you have more control than in real life, it makes you feel more brave when you want to do awful or very abnormal things.

LIFE isn’t what happens on a screen where you have no accountability.

This isn’t life.

LIFE is living. LIFE is doing hard things, pushing yourself, and developing yourself further and further. LIFE is interacting with those who love and support you and who accept you for who you are at all times, unconditionally. LIFE is being touched, being seen, being appreciated, being recognized by those who love and support you through all of your ups and downs, good days and bad days. LIFE isn’t something you turn on and off or walk away from or uninstall or block or mute.

Don’t make excuses to cover up your fear of reality.

Do better. Be better.