Huxley

I am 21, I grew up in the generation where youtube and social media was solidifying its grip on society. through the many different stages and changes, it has gone through, one thing that has stayed consistent is its ability to give the everyday person a chance at fame. because of this aspect of the internet, the temptations and alluring nature of social media have changed the lives of so many people, changed their lives and given them opportunities that would not have existed otherwise. Because of the over-saturation of youtube and “influencers”, they have to fight for our attention in everything they upload, and from that, we get clickbait. Youtubers posting a wild and crazy image with a cliff hanger title pulling viewers in to hear the end of a story that was fake or exaggerated to being with is usually harmless, usually. So here are my thoughts on the situation with Huxley and his “family”. I truly think that the Stauffers’ thought they were doing a good thing, adopting a little boy and giving him a new home and sharing the process, right? that may have been the intention, but putting a situation like that under a microscope and broadcasting it to the world was the wrong way to go about bringing this boy into their home. One of the things about this story that makes me believe they are at more fault that not is because of one detail, they were told that making videos about this process was not a good idea. They knew from the beginning that it was ill-advised to broadcast such a tenuous process to the world, and they decided to do it anyway. This falls well into the category of the savior complex. The article that we read talked about this as well, but in making these videos and portraying their family in such a way that they looked like they were taking in this ‘poor orphan boy’ and giving him a new family, and then basically returning him like purchased goods once they realized it was not going to be easy, shows there was more than just a pure motive here. I think that the internet gives us an amazing view into other people's lives, and lets us learn about things we would normally never be exposed to. But it also creates toxic situations, and toxic situations mixed with people who take advantage of those situations create a bad outcome, just like what happened to Huxley.