Social Media is a lie

Social Media is a lie

There, I said it and you know damned well that it's true.  Popular culture has adopted the premise of social media being the new normal.  That's what people mean when they overuse the term "ubiquitous" by the way.

We're told to carefully curate our Facebook pages and polish our LinkedIn profiles to ensure that we're giving the "right" impression to any drive-by onlookers who may take a passing interest.  I mean we wouldn't want to send the wrong message would we?

Prospective employers love social media.  It's a quick and dirty way to get the goods on candidates without ever having to meet them.  In other words your social media persona might as well be another copy of your resume, dating profile and background report all in one neat multimedia package.

So best be sure it's showing you in your best light...Which defeats the purpose.

Knowing that almost everyone engaged in social media is either lying or too naive to realize the ramifications of that video from your last trip to Vegas means none of it has value.

The only people who are honest are the ones with nothing to lose which is exactly .000000001%.  Good luck finding that needle in the haystack and when you do try not to be disappointed when you find out those people aren't that interesting.

Social media is less about connecting than providing a mechanism for personal advertisement.  Which means it's about as useful as a commercial for a feminine hygiene product. 

Social media is just an outgrowth of a society built on lies.  We choose political candidates based on which one's empty promises we're most aligned with.  We associate with people that otherwise would never get the  time of day if we think they can be of use to us.  We go along with the popular groupthink for fear of repercussion should we speak our own minds.

Keep social media in the context of a public facing mask and you'll stay out of trouble.  Ignore the starry eyed optimists proclaiming how connected the world is because of it.  It's not, if you live in Nebraska the chances that you actually care about anything going on in Uzbekistan are negligible.  So long as there's that strong "media" component in social media (meaning it's fake) it's nothing more than personal marketing of a false image.

In short, keeping it real does not include being a social media maven.  Reality has nothing to do with it at all.