Woeful Media
Social Media’s Dark Corollary
Being honest on the internet is insane.
Never mind the online troublemakers, identity thievery, and general douchebaggery. Simply being open and vulnerable to each other is scary in of itself.
Fear of rejection is an obvious one, and despite having a name for it we still want acceptance for our true selves. It’s human. Right there in the Need Pyramid.
In person at least we have secondary cues we can use to help construct the meaning of the message. Feedback in what people say, body language, tone of voice. Communication is a multi-faceted experience with content of words being only one factor.
Back on the internet however, our secondary cues come in the form of Likes, Reblogs, and Retweets. But is it adding any valuable information? Is it even accurate? How are we to interpret these signals anyway?
I wrote an article that picked up “positive feedback” for me. It was read by a lot of people and recommended by people I respect; basically blew my mind that anyone other than me would enjoy the read, much less recommend someone else do the same. I shared something honest, and some people (literally) liked it.
The article following that was one of the most difficult articles to write. I became consumed with secondary feedback concluding that this particular article must inherently be better than the others somehow. I got into some crazy feedback loop on attempting to recreate my past “success” without any direction or specificity.
Insane! In reality, there’s nothing constructive about using Likes, Reblogs, or other response metrics to construct usable feedback into an article. The overloading of the word “Like” and its derivatives created a simulation in my mind of real feedback. But because of the vagueness of the response, it’s essentially useless, only masquerading as useful feedback by feeding on our basic need for acceptance.
Writers must write for their future selves first, a reader to remember what the writer experienced prior. Only then should it be released to others to view, critique, dissect, and interpret. Once published, the article is then owned by all the readers, of which the writer only becomes one.
This is the hard part.
Creating work, sharing perspectives, staying honest—even when it seems no one understands, or sometimes worse—appearing to completely understand—what’s being said. Write for your future self first, and the rest will follow.
