Most of my life from the time I was introduced to the internet to now, I've always wanted to gain a lot of followers. I always wanted to get more than 100 likes on a post or picture. Then I stopped and asked myself why I wanted this. You do not gain much from being social media "famous". Sometimes it ruins your image.
Starting Off
It's the same as gaining friends throughout middle and high-school. You start up your Facebook and or Instagram account hoping to just stay in touch with friends. You post corny things here and there and get anywhere from 2-20 likes. Somewhere along the road you end up deciding that 20 likes isnt enough for you. You end up wanting to be like those you follow gaining anywhere feom 70-200 likes. The real question is, is that picture you just took of the doughnut with rainbow sprinkles with the caption "I'm fat" really worth it? Is it really ever worth the 200 likes you'll end up getting in the end?
Your Image
If fame on social media does anything, is it ruins your image. Now maybe that's not the case most times, but 95% of the time it is the case. Let's go with the females. Someone who's smart and young at the age of 17 has a lot going for her. You look her up on Instagram and all you see down her timeline is half naked pictures, if not fully naked pictures of herself that she's posted. Scroll down and see that she's got 1k plus likes. You revolve your likes around your image. Wether you post half naked pictures, or post up riding in a flashy Mercedes Benz that your parents bought. Either way you're showing off the things you think people are going to want to see. I also guarantee that half of the likes you just got on that half naked picture of yours are guys from around the world that you do not even know. What makes it worse is the people who haven't met you in person are on the other side of that phone screen calling you names such as a "slut" or saying you get around just because of the types of pictures you post. When in all reality you are a down to earth, and really smart person.
Role Models
If you have younger brothers or sisters you know how important it is to be the person they look up too. I, for one, do not post anything provocative online because my little sister follows me on every social media platform. I want my little sister looking up to me and saying she wants to be like me and not like the girls who base their popularity off of followers and likes on social media. You do not want the younger generation of children running around saying "I did it for the likes", like you once did yourself. People literally go out of their way to take the greatest picture and then find the most irrelevant caption that has nothing to do with their post. Be a leader in the right ways, not through social media fame.
Social Drama
It's one thing to be bullied by those in your school and or family. The thing is when you gain more than 1k followers now you have over 1,000 other people that end up saying rude things to you online. People end up being cyberbullied over posts that were put up. If we, as the future generation, continue to harass others online because of what they post and or say that doesn't make us any better. Social media fame can be stressful. The day to day struggle to find the right picture to post to keep your followers, can be hard. It's not worth it in the end. You run the risk of getting body shamed and called bad names on your posts. Fame is not worth it when it changes who you are and what people think about you. So please, Let's all go back to when social media fame wasn't a thing! Let's have real conversations.
