How much social is too much social?
If the elementary intention of social media can be represented by a circle of say radius ‘x’, and narcissism be represented by another circle of the same radius, then never in a million years would they fit inside each other.
They wouldn’t even overlap, because social media is all about the world around you and narcissism is all about the world…. BEING around YOU.
Except that things have changed. Things have evolved. Now, evolution is a painfully slow process, but over here, it’s as fast as changing filters.
BEING YOU. So is that what narcissism is about?
So is this YOU you the you from your captions on Instagram posts, accentuate wild, free, daring, or the YOU from real life, accentuate nerd, haven’t seen the other side of the city, stuck in the societal rut?
Take a minute to identify yourself as a hypocrite. Might be hard.
Gone are the days when pictures where uploaded to let people know, “Hey, I look like this”, Gone are the days where an un-cropped picture of your passport size photo in a dimly lit room would do, for now people get themselves DSLRs meant for wild life photography, only to upload photos on Instagram and that too of their same old faces. Sure, it is more horrifying than the wild but ‘lesham ulupp’?
Gone are the times when a flower or two instead of your face would do, but now it needs to be you holding the flower in 20 different angles and then compiling the 20 to make one collage which goes online.
Social Media has evolved to become yet another platform for you to sell yourself.
It no longer can be contained within the definitions of ‘A place to catch up with your friends’, it’s a place where you do that, the catching up, and spam about it with selfies.
Freckle Shakespeare and the world is your stage.
Unless your world has a 5.5 inch dimension, with a secondary camera and YouCam installed.
If Social Media had not come into existence, would all of us have been the same?
Sure, Darwin was right with his theory of the survival of the fittest, we compare, we thrive, comparison is in our blood. Not patriotism, I mean patriotism is overrated. It’s just comparison sugar-coated. Sure, go ahead and blame biology for all the ‘self love’ that we proliferate over the web.
We have lost our identities, the true self that we were hardwired to become because ‘snapstreak’ has got us running this race for likes, for becoming someone we weren’t supposed to and isn’t that sad. Losing a sense of identity.
A hundred and one pictures of only your face, cold and bleak. I fail to understand what is it that’s going through the insides of your head when you do that. I wish someone started restraining orders on the various social media (literally) just so that you would hesitate a bit before posting pictures of the ‘once’ steaming hot chicken that by now has gone cold. Do you realize that while you were holding this photoshoot of the chicken and it’s juicy legs, two kids died out of starvation in some dark corner, and that is one more of the many ‘greater’ things that has come out of social media. To be oblivious of the world and it’s pain.
Living in a bubble of self and blowing into it, making it bigger, has made our world smaller.
Yes, Social media was supposed to build bridges and have the world fit inside your pockets, but we just interpreted the wrong definition, purposefully or maybe not. But definitely, yet again.
We take our lives for granted and that of the underprivileged as predetermined. We share posts about being Empathetic and helping the poor but turn our heads against those that beg for food, because some post written by a privileged know-it-all said that all beggars run a scam and are looting our money.
How many of us go to just for the food they serve, how many of us climb peaks to see the sun rising over the brow of the hills, how many of us celebrate birthdays, blowout candles and cut cakes to make wishes, any wish other than a 150 likes for your cake cutting venture and putting it in your mum’s mouth?
Social Media has got us trying to be someone that we aren’t and we all cluelessly fall into this vicious cycle of projecting ourselves for the world to see. We fake our smiles, we fake our celebrations, in fact we create our celebrations rather than having them fall into place on their own.
We are a bunch of sad people that aren’t sad because it’s not appealing. We suppress our depression and try to be one of them ‘self love’ gurus, smiling the same robotic smile, picture after picture after picture.
It might not seem as a point of concern to you or me, harmless even, but for every picture that goes on your wall, someone at the other end is getting pushed against and inside four walls.
Someone who can’t make it up for umpteen good reasons, that again, you guessed it right, doesn’t concern you. A dash of empathy, a bit of sense, if both exist in you, then try and live in that moment, breathe in the air and the instances, rather than bragging to the mountains and the world about it. Learn to have all of this concern, at least a bit, to you.
If the elementary intention of social media and narcissism be two circles of radius ‘x’, one would no longer be apparent because it fits right in. It goes right in, intersecting perfectly.
Oh. Don’t forget to like, clap, share!
I’m on Instagram too btw. Not that I want more followers, just saying.
Dm me for my Whatsapp ;)
Oh. Facebook. I thought that was dead?
OK bye.
