9) Social Media Abuse
Before I begin, I’d like to be perfectly transparent and address my massive and adoring audience consisting solely of my grandma, my mom (hey Yeya, hey Mami!), and about three of my friends:
I am a social media addict.
Perhaps, addict may be too strong of a word, in comparison to the rest of my 996 friends on Facebook, which (guaranteed,) I only know about a sixteenth in a personal, heartfelt, way; a series of amiable relationships that extend their roots deeper than likes on a status, shares of a post, and double-taps on pictures. We keep up with each other through social media, no matter the distance between each other’s keyboards- and that’s the sheer beauty and feasibility of social media. But I wish I could say that’s where my addiction stems from, but it’s not. Not even close. Okay, maybe a small percentage, I honestly do love joking around with my peers at Haverford, spazzing over the accomplishments of my Sista Sistahs (shout out to the seventy-two beautiful ladies I graduated with,) and seeing what my cousins are up to.
But the addiction mainly lies in the scandal, the romance, the gossip, the mystery that lies in store in social media. Your Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter are all portals into a soap opera that has more twists than Days Of Our Lives, All My Children, and General Hospital combined. The best part? The soap opera consists of not faraway actors and actresses, they consist of you, me, that person that judged you hard in sixth grade because you didn’t know anything about anime, that person sporting the sensual monobrow you shared a sloppy first kiss with, and that person you always secretly wanted to punch in the face (and still maybe kinda do.) Knowing what everybody is up via a screen has to be one of my most shameless pleasures, and I’m not afraid to say that I know everything there is to know about a person by what they allow on their profiles.
The previous assertion I just made should have troubled you. And, for the record, I may creep on a lot of people on social media- check your pictures, you’ve probably got a like or twenty from me- but I’d never go as far as say that I know everything there is to know about a person based off of their profile, because nobody should be able to outright say that they know somebody just by their profile.
Or, at least that’s what the idyllic world with idyllic civilians would think. However, with this new wave of technology, it seems like people are caring less and less about judging a person by their character, the small random acts of kindness that are done by people that transcend the virtual world and can only be witnessed in the every day, or by the wit, charm, and compassion in a person that cannot be translated accurately through comment threads. Frankly, my dears, they don’t give a damn. Which leads to the number one reason why you should stop abusing your social media: your profile has become your label, your “identity.” Do you really want the world understanding (or, more likely misunderstanding) everything about you? .
The number two reason to stop abusing social media is that its just plain obnoxious. Contrary to what you may have heard, nobody is interested in knowing which character you got on the four Buzzfeed quizzes you took in a thirty-minute sitting- I know, not even the Disney Villains, 90s Cartoon Characters, or my personal favorite, Celebrity Butt, quiz. Nor do they care to know every minute detail of your life on Twitter- and this definitely includes 140 character TMI’s- because social media is not a diary.
I repeat: SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT A DIARY. Although we are consistently pressured to post the most glamorous, filtered, and enhanced pictures and videos in order to create the online façade of a more glamorous, filtered, and enhanced life, it’s not a competition. It’s certainly no excuse for over-sharing and over-posting. You don’t need thirty public Kodak moments in one day in order to show the world your worth. Nor do you need to be consistently clever (which lets be real, most of your clever tweets or Facebook posts are some form of a joke you stole from a sassy twelve-year old on Tumblr am I right, or am I right?) And you definitely don’t need to share ten posts a day declaring to your friends all of your political, religious, or activist stances. Please.
Your worth is not measured from the amount of reblogs your selfie on Tumblr received, or how many people send you Snapchats. It cannot be measured in amounts of retweets or Facebook friends. I promise if you miss the weekly Insta. #mcm, #transformationtuesday, #wcw, #tbt, #etc., you still matter. You’re still beautiful. You’re still rad as heck. Stop abusing social media, because social media begins to abuse you.
10) The Doge Meme
(With the death of the Doge Meme, please retire the usage of the font Comic Sans. Stop trying to make Comic Sans happen. It’s not going to happen.)