Advanced Essay #3 : Social Media got the tea
In the turn of this decade, Social media became the new voice for millions of people. From internet dating to international scamming, people created profiles that best describes the personality they want others to see. Though popular social websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others can be the place to connect, people tend to mistaken it for free therapy sessions. People haphazardly create profiles to express everything on their mind about sensitive topics without considering the consequences that could bring. When their thoughts become social media posts, they can be perceived as racial slurs, misogynistic views, homophobic hatred, etc. It can lead to people getting unemployed, exposed, lives ruined, and even death. All of those in which are made possible because of how social media runs the world around us.
Businesses hire their employees based off of their social network accounts, modern drama is normally based off of a social media post, and people are defining each other according to how popular they are on the newest social app. People look at social media for identity and guidance. They value its opinion over their own. This turned people into making decisions based off of what others say and post.
The Atlantic stated “The more than 63 million active users of FarmVille spend an average of 15 minutes a day pretending to run a farm. Over the course of a year, that's 5,475 minutes -- the equivalent of a full-time job for over two weeks”. Social media can be bad when someone invest more time into it than they would, a job. When people pretend to do real life activities on social media, it waste up time they could be spending actually doing something productive. They start to care more for getting virtual gems than taking care of themselves.
When a person start basing decisions off of a social media opinion, the ugly in that person is exposed. The murder of “The Kim Kardashian of Pakistan”, Qandeel Baloch, perfectly demonstrates this idea. Though her father accepted her rebellious social media lifestyle, her brother allowed it to drive him to kill her. In fact, when being asked about his motive, he replies "I am proud of what I did. I drugged her first, then I killed her. She was bringing dishonor to our family." If Waseem really had a hatred for his sister choices, he would of been killed her. I came to that conclusion because when speaking of what led to her dying, he only mentions the reaction social media had on her posts. He had ill feelings about her becoming so popular for something that he simply doesn't agree with and then tried to claim that her death was for the honor of his family though the family was tolerable with her lifestyle.
Besides ending a life, social media can also destroy one. I would like to bring up the point that people carelessly post about their everyday life on social media like it’s a diary. They expect no one to read it let alone, disagree with them. Let's take former IAC director of corporate communications, Justine Sacco, tweets for example. On a plane ride back to Africa, she tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” That one post made her the number one trending topic on twitter. She lost her job after people asking them to through social media. This show how much power social networks has over our lives and its value. It’s important for us to be careful not to offend any one when posting but I am always left with the question, why do we judge a person off of their social media posts if we never met them in person?
Having my fair share of basing decisions off of what social media says, I took the way I was presented on my social media profile, seriously. Going through different phases, my profile would change with it. Social media was becoming the main outlet for me to express who I am. My family had a issue with some of the things I would put out on social media. I did not realize they did until my mother talked to me about her sister calling her about my Instagram username. At the time, my username was “phvckyouropnion”. She felt as if it was inappropriate to have cuss words on my profile though it was spelled different. I had to change it because my mom did not want my aunt to have a issue with my profile. I came to the realization that people truly do value a social media opinion over their own.
Social media has always been an important aspect to society. We promote businesses, celebrate birthdays, debate, date, and everything else, on social media. It made some of us famous while others, died. In all reality, social media have a larger voice than our own. People always say “ actions speak louder than words” but as this decade slowly close out, I’m starting to understand that a post has a pedestal over actions. We are what we put out in the social network.
Perry, Jullet. "Brother 'proud' of killing Pakistan social media star." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017. This source is to help me find a great example for why social media is valued more.
Jackson, Nicholas. "Infographic: The American Identity According to Social Media." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 16 Aug. 2011. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.
- Donovan, Laura. "These 4 People's Lives Were Ruined By The Internet." ATTN:. ATTN, 16 Jan. 2016. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.
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