Social Media is for Idiots — The Lineker-gate
If you have opened Twitter for more than 20 seconds recently, then you will have found Gary Lineker’s’ name appear somewhere on your feed. Essentially, Lineker used social media to share an opinion about the current issues around immigration, and the BBC felt that this breached the conditions of his contract. Whether you agree with his opinion or not, or whether you agree with the BBC’s rules for impartiality, is not important. The main problem here is social media. I believe the current state of social media, and the turd storms that often accompany posts in modern times, simply show us that there is no point in using social media for the reason it was intended anymore.
Any little peanut thought we have; we feel the need to share it. We take a photo of ourselves, and for whatever reason we think other people might want to see it. We have an opinion, and we look for people who disagree with it to start a fight. This is social media. When we do these things, they usually result in a need for instant gratification, body dysmorphia and image issues, and people being fired, sacked, and criticised by everyone and their dad when they say something ‘wrong’. So… What’s the point?
I am not going to sit here and submit to the common mantra people like to shout — “SOCIAL MEDIA BAD.” — no. It was a tool at one point and can still be used as one. And of course, it can connect others and bring us closer. But I will say that it would be fruitless to attempt to reclaim it at this stage. The media (I’m looking at you the not-so-independent) are now spewing out articles about the location Prince Harry lost his virginity. Or about how some celebrity got a facelift. Nobody really cares about the Ukraine conflict like we should anymore. Lift your chin back up from your chest and close your mouth. It isn’t shocking. It’s true and we all know it. It isn’t trendy anymore. The problem is social media. We consume news through social media now, and broadsheet newspapers are having to adapt to our drastically declining attention span, and the silly peanut thoughts that we are fed through TikTok and Instagram are far more forefront and likely to be read. They look at what is trending on twitter, Facebook etc… and write about that because they know people will click it. When you turn on the TV and see Andrew Tate’s mug as a headline, that’s when you know we are heading for H.G Wells levels of devolution.
How does this link to Gary Lineker? Well, there are so many limitations and rules, and a series of risk assessments that need to be carried out for anyone of influence to write anything on social media anymore. This is why there is little to no point in bothering. He would have had to go through lawyers, long meetings, and media suffocation after he posted, and probably still had to talk to lawyers to see if it was a good idea to post it in the first place. Well with all this effort, censorship and issues that comes with it, what is the point. Without sharing a personal opinion about the matter at hand, I do find it strange that his post gained more media attention, outrage and coverage than the actual event he was posting about — as if to illustrate my point. He’s a celebrity, its much better press to hone in on him.
People tell you that you can do anything now. Social media has allowed us to be able to start business’ and sell things, promote music etc… They sell it to you that social media is the only way to ‘make it’ now. This is, of course, is inane horse-sh*t. If you can get 60 followers on your music page in two weeks, all before you even play a gig, then have a real think about what’s going on here. Following someone is easy. You can tap a button in less than a second and it looks like you gained fans. Before you are given unfair false hope, why don’t you also remember how many times you spend mindlessly doom scrolling through your feed and ignore the pages you follow. At the time of discovery, you may have thought, “WOW! This page looks awesome! I’ll follow them!”, but then after a couple of minutes you saw a video of a man getting his face battered in by a rogue swing.
There is so much stuff on the internet, all of which requires immediate gratification and attention to be considered worth something. The worst part? For venues to notice these musicians who are trying to build an audience and get a gig, they need to see enough social media presence, and some evidence that they are active. So, you ask your friends and family to like and comment, maybe some others with a genuine interest in your project do too, and then as if by magic, the venue is now interested in hiring you.
Fake.
You changed nothing, your band is still as good as they were before they got 60 people to follow you, but now you have a gig. And that gig is where you are going to build a REAL following of people. Promote your social media there, people will be interested, and you’ll have a real audience. You earned that.
Otherwise, you will be stuck being one of those influencers that fell victim to a fake following and began believing they are famous. Yes, they may have 100,000 followers that given them 30 seconds of their life watching their reel they spent weeks to come up with, but if you saw them walking down the road, the chances are, most people wouldn’t have a clue who they were. People cannot just enjoy pursuing their passion. We now need thousands of people to give us attention, and we need something bigger. Isn’t doing what you love big enough, even if it’s in front of 10 people, 100 or a million? Have a dream, work for it. Start with small objectives. Once you reach that objective, set another one. You can watch yourself grow and grow, and at some point, you can do it for a living. If your only dream is to be famous and have millions of followers, and there is no exception, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Don’t let fake posts about people ‘living their best lives’ make you believe your goals and achievements are worth any less. You don’t know these people; they don’t know you. You might not even really know the people you call friends because you never met them.
As Steel Panther said in their latest song, 1987, “back then all the friends we had were real, and we saw them every day.” Sounds like something you would read in an Orwellian dystopian tale.
Now this may all seem very misanthropic, cynical, angry and patronising. I know this. If I read this article, I would also feel annoyed. You’re right, social media can be bad, but it can also be an incredible tool. I agree. I would start reading, I’d get angry, I’d go to the comments section, and then I’d say something! Then I’d get my friends to read it, and they would also engage with it…
You see where I’m going with this? I’m human. Now a days, being a human means wanting that gratification and notice. I am a human with the same sad infliction.
So, to conclude. Social media is for idiots.
