I think I was just out of college when MySpace was unleashed upon the world and kind of changed what the internet is used for. Back in those days it was pretty complicated or at least kind of a pain to get digital images uploaded to anything but things certainly have changed a lot now that everyone has a computer in their pocket at all times that is much more powerful than anything we had back when I was in school.
I never felt the pressure to put much of my life online and when I did build websites or something like that, it was a very complicated situation that took a lot of time. I did have a FB and an IG but that was as far as it went with me. I don't think I have ever uploaded a video of me doing anything and I certainly am not one of those people that tries to go viral by recording other people or myself doing stuff.
I read an article the other day called "When did it become OK to film strangers in public?" You can check out the article if you want to. My response to this question is that I don't think it ever did become ok, but people just don't respect one another anymore.
This prank and cringe content is another thing entirely, but I want to focus on how I am happy that I never felt the pressure to maintain an online persona at any point in my life. When I am interacting with my friends' kids it seems as though they are constantly under a lot of pressure to keep an online persona and this is especially true for the girls. The amount of filters and how many images they will take over and over kind of proves this and in the end the things they post online aren't really even an accurate depiction of where they are, what they are doing, and who they are as a person. It is all a ruse on everyone's part so it seems.
The feet in the sand post that I guess you are required to do at some point in your life (I never have) became so common that it just became annoying anytime I saw it. It was "basic bitch" stuff to brag about being at the beach when other people were at work. I caught one of the younger guys on one of my worksites taking pics of his feet in a sand pile that we were using for cement. I admit I found it funny but then told him to get his steel-toes back on because he is in violation of OSHA regulations.
But the point here is that it seems like social media for young people is all about bragging about how awesome your life is when in fact your life isn't very good at all. Since everyone is lying everyone else is trying to live up to a standard that was never real to begin with. Filters make people look completely different than they do and a lot of teens or young adults probably look at this stuff and feel bad about themselves.
I don't really understand the mind of a teen these days but that is because I am middle-aged now and this is not an unusual thing to experience. My parents didn't understand me and their parents didn't understand them and on and on it goes back to caveman times I presume.
But I think this is the first generation that has always had this sort of thing be a part of their lives. I asked one of my friend's teenage daughters what she was doing and she told me and showed me some of the stuff on her IG and she asked me to follow her so she could bump her numbers. I refused and don't even know how to do that anyway not to mention that it would be really inappropriate for me to be following the teenage daughter of my friend. No thanks!
She is a nice girl though and we talked about social media for a bit. She has never heard of MySpace and informed me that Facebook is for old people. I got a real laugh out of that and am not unhappy about that at all. I would like toe see Facebook completely fail as a company because it got the ball truly rolling on sort of making life a pain in the ass for all of us.
I didn't believe her because I don't really have anything to do with any social media but I'll be damned, it seems like she is correct!
I think that had I been born 20 years later than I was that I would have gotten sucked into all of it as well, I am not claiming some sort of superior high ground here.
I just think it must be really tough to be young these days and I am glad I am not in their shoes.