Social Capital Reflection

Everyone on social media has a social capital. As a preteen on the internet, I was very influenced by my statistics on the platforms I was a part of. I never had as many likes or followers as my peers, which I honestly think had a really big impact on my self esteem. As a young teenager, and even now sometimes, I feel like I’m not good enough. I think the pressure to be “caught up” socially I’m these platforms as a preteen definitely had an effect on my self esteem currently. Now, I realize that the numbers of likes I get and followers I have has no representation of my worth as a person. I have friends that get 5 likes on every photo and have tons of friends, and I know people who get 500 likes on their photos and feel like they have nobody. Therefore, you can’t really judge a person or who they are by their social media accounts. Social media is like the decorations you chose to put on your door, but who you are once that door is opened.

Some people take a lot of pride in their social capital and think it defines them, and in some cases, even lets it control them. I know people who will go to a location just to take photos of themselves to post them on Instagram, and not even enjoy the time they have there. Social capital creates this ego that isn’t even an accurate representation of who we are most of the time. A lot of people spend a ridiculous amount of time defending their social capital without realizing that most people really don’t care about your statistics or what you’re doing on the weekends.

A person with a lot of social capital is Danielle Bregoli, also known as the “Catch me outside girl” from Dr. Phil. Like many others with high social capital, she accumulated this popularity from being disrespectful to her mom and not following the rules she wanted her to do. People will do anything to gain attention and popularity from the internet. I don’t agree with it, but there is a high need for validity in people, especially younger individuals who may not be getting the attention and love they need.

I believe social capital is just a digital version of the popularity idea in real life. If someone is popular and has a lot of friends in real life, they are most likely going to have a large following on social media. I think the idea of social capital in itself is stupid and overly taken into consideration by others, but at the same time I know a lot of people’s careers are dependent on it and it can even help people by gaining attention for good causes.