The inconvenient truth about social media

I am going to consider this as part one of my three part series on social media but thought that I save some real estate on the title!

Now you’ve probably heard from a lot of people about how evil social media is and how the validation it drives people into seeking is unhealthy. A lot of the studies out there may have even found a strong correlation there, I am not here to actually debate those studies even if they might be true. What I am here to do with this post is to give you the practical yet inconvenient truth behind social media. You can do with that whatever you want. While you’ve heard a lot of things and strong opposition to the use of social media, I am here to tell you about the reality you are actually faced with.

An inconvenient truth about social media.

Social media is here to stay. Whether it is LinkedIn for finding a job, Facebook for staying in touch with family, Instagram for showing how awesome your lifestyle is, Snapchat for Snapchat, and TikTok recently for whatever; social media is here to stay. While individual social media channels might lose their popularity, the concept of social media is here to stay. In other words, chop off one head and two more will grow back in its place.

Connecting with people you know on a social level, having a peek into their lives, the validation (as bad as it may be), and how it has connected the world as a whole. Almost every celebrity or major public figure has a social media account, it has even opened doors for people to get fame and fortune through whatever creative means they have. To think that we are going back to the days of just texting and phone calls? Keep dreaming.

In some ways, it is the new way of showing the haves and the have nots of the younger generations.

Think about it and look at it from an unbiased point of view. What kinds of people generally have the strongest social media accounts or generally strong social media accounts with others liking their stuff? Celebrities, public figures, hot girls, and the few guys who are perceived as popular. In other words, individuals on social media are like products on Amazon, an account with a lot of followers and likes is like a product with a lot of good ratings. 

Now I get it, it might not actually be that black and white, very few things in life actually are. While we cannot talk in absolutes here, we can look at general trends to see what is true majority of the time. Social media in some ways is that new measuring stick between the haves and the have nots. 

While it is true that the old rich and the established billionaires rarely flaunt their wealth compared to the new rich, the reality is that social media accounts are used to show a cool life outside of flaunting wealth. Not just travel photos but also purchasing that new puppy, a night photograph done of an area, or just a cool high quality pic of a night chilling with friends. The laughter, fun, good times, and what will become memories for you to look back on.

The haves and have nots are not exactly determined by material wealth though, they are determined by what I’ll call social wealth. Maybe someone else already coined that term but in the context of this post, what I mean by social wealth is the amount of people you actually give somewhat of a fuck about you.

People following you on social media accounts, liking your posts, and a lot of likes on a photo of you. What does this all really signal? In a way, it signals that you fucking matter or are a somebody. 

In a test of perception, a lot of likes and “friends”/followers shows that something about you or the content you produce gets people to take time out of their day and give it to you.

I used to be in denial about this sort of stuff.

I used to be in that camp of people who thought that everyone on social media was the loser and it was the people avoiding social media who were being smart. In some ways, I thought I was being edgy by not being on Facebook or Instagram because the “red pill” movement talked about how social media was for the “normies”. Well, truth be told, you interact with normal people and if you ever want to rise to importance, you’ll have to be seen as someone worth trusting to normal people. In a way, social media and transparency about your life actually create something called trust. People trust a guy posting Instagram stories of himself playing with puppies or drinking on a rooftop in the summer more than a guy posting on Internet forums under an anonymous name. Don’t like it? I didn’t either but I had to get with the times. 

Most of the times though, I found that it was hard to actually avoid social media when people genuinely gave a fuck about you in real life. Girls wanting to know you better? People wanting to connect? You better have a social media account or you are just “weird”.

Now think about it, majority of hot girls you know or popular guys who got those girls, almost all of them are on social media. The guys doing well without social media? They are doing well in spite of it, in that case they are so attractive that the girl will fuck them even if they pissed themselves in a bar. 

Then the line between the haves and the have nots became way too clear for the younger generation.

If you were to disregard famous people and celebs and create some sort of a pecking order between who in the younger generation or age groups, say 16-30 is seen as higher value (even if they might not be once you get to know them as people), it would go something like this.

At the top you’d have the attractive and social women, those who were captain of cheerleading squads in high schools and went on to college, often rushing and getting into the best sororities. Alongside them, you’d have the socially popular guys who seem to hit it off well with these women and are on their radars. Usually an athlete, some trust fund baby, or some stereotypical fraternity guy in a popular fraternity. Just think of all the male stereotypes that seem to be the guys good looking women want.

Alongside them competing for the top spot you might have the rich couple that travel the world (no its not an affiliate marketing ad here), a group of people with top quality photos of their vacation, and someone who seems to be that renaissance man with a cool lifestyle that does not come off as too try-hard. Throw in attractive fitness models or aspiring models in general with a lot of followers, you kind of have an idea here.

Somewhere in-between you might have people who are upper middle or in the middle, in other words, “normal people”. Maybe they have a cool unique hobby, maybe they are attractive but not too gungho about the popularity games, and they are content with just having their close friends and network a part of their accounts. Maybe you get a pic here and there, mostly with them and their close ones doing fun stuff. 

Then at the bottom, you have the people who just don’t seem to really get it. A lot can be people with really bad accounts full of mirror selfies and pics that scream that they are an outcast. Maybe it is low quality photos but something about the account where you can look at the profile and say that person does not do so well with attracting the opposite sex.

I will say that close to 80% of the time, you’ll find this to be the case. Most guys who have active and cool social media accounts of them with a lot of followers and likes are guys that girls tend to want. Reason being? They are curious about the guy, his experience, and what is going on in his life. 

Just like businesses went from face to face ma and pa shops, which still exist, to going online with e-commerce, I feel like we are seeing the same with people. It is as if we are brands instead of people now.