I'd like to preface this article by saying that social media has done a lot of good. It has brought people together and furthered important conversations. With that said, it has been a game-changer for how we see ourselves and others. People share the best and worst of their lives, and our culture preys on the resulting envy and drama.
In reality, everyone leads a relatively normal life. We are all just human, we all have ups and downs. Social media has warped this perception. In fact, there have been links to heavy Facebook usage with depression due to the fact that we see others posting highly-idealized versions of themselves.
As a result of our social media obsession, there are now pop culture figures that are worshiped for spending a ton of money and complaining about their first world problems. Their lives are seemingly perfect, but we can’t really know these people based on their Instagram or what we see of them on TV. We are comparing our own experience to something that has been manufactured. The "reality" we see of them is heavily edited in order to mask what lies beneath.
The problem is, when we idolize people who act entitled and obnoxious, we believe that can translate to our lives and bring us the same success. Then, our own resulting behavior perpetuates the acceptance of these people as normal, and so the cycle continues.
As human beings living in the real world, we still have to hold ourselves to standards of respect, loyalty and honesty. Values which are virtually absent from anything that would qualify as “reality” television.
There is more to life than striving to be cool: a word which in practice ends up losing all meaning.
We are starting to lose the distinction between our real selves and our virtual selves. In doing this, we’ve lost touch with the fact that “cool” is the result of something intrinsic, rather than a state by itself.
As a result, we end up with people who are trying to maintain an image on the surface by imitating the behavior of those they idolize. They try to copy something on a superficial level without putting in the effort to better their more important qualities, such as humility and ambition.
When we all try to be the same version of "cool", we lose the one thing that actually makes something interesting and unique: originality.
Everything is not always as it seems on the outside. By looking at the world in such a shallow way, we are cutting life-changing opportunities without as much as a second thought.
The prospect of being cool is a powerful force for people, and it is one that inhibits our society in a major way. Think of all the stifled self-expression that has taken place in order to preserve some image.
When we let go of this meaningless behavioral standard as a society, we let go of a huge part of our egos with it.
On a daily basis, people place the majority of their focus on their image. However, there is so much more we could be doing as people to contribute to the world.
As George Orwell said, “society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.”
We have the power to change our own ideals. We have the power to idolize those who are kind, forward-thinking, and smart over those who have a lot of followers on social media.
By refusing to value the things that are fed to us by the mainstream, we can change society, and in turn, we will change the media.
