Patience is a virtue, but we millennials got none.
As a millennial, we all get big dreams. We don’t want to be normal. We see “success” happened to other people who are our age or even younger. Youtube and Instagram made it possible for normal people to be influencers and have their own voices and platforms. However, these success stories might have created huge amount of anxiety to people. Suddenly being normal is like you are doing something wrong. If you don’t have your own brand, you are not living your life to your fullest potential. You also get a lot of people making money by selling you on the idea of chasing your dreams.
Truth to be told, do we all need to be popular? The more I thought about this question, the more I think the answer is no. We can simply not all be popular, because of yin and yang. Maybe 1000 followers are considered popular at one point, but now you need 5000. We are just going to drive up the numbers. Businesses thrive on acquiring more followers for you. Now we have a whole industry called social media marketing. Every business got an Instagram account, even your dog has one probably.
But who does it really benefit though in the end of the day? Facebook is what I can see since it owns Instagram too. While you are trying to get more likes, comments, and followers, you notice the game is kind of rigged. Your Facebook post doesn’t even go to all the people who like your page. You don’t know who is actually seeing your Instagram post due to Instagram’s algorithm. So you spend a little bit money on boosting your Facebook post and advertising on Instagam, you realize there is no free lunch after all.
Now let me take a step back and ask this. Why do we all want to be popular in the first place? Why do celebrities who have millions of followers still want our attention? What is going on in our world? Do we want attention for the sake of attention? I’m at lost.We all want to make it from 0 to 100 really quickly. Hustling is a buzzword. Gary V is more popular than ever. Suddenly everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, fashion blogger, yogi, Youtuber, vegan and who knows what. Is this information overload really good for us? I started to wonder. Do we need to know and see what other people are doing all the time? The more we see other people’s success stories, the less patient we become. When would it be me? Why not me? We ask ourselves.
Are we losing perspectives? Should we shut down social media and choose to not see and not be bothered then? It seems hard to stay clear-headed these days.
These are just my observation and reflection. Tell me what you think.
