A Very Very Mad World
A Very Very Mad World
Depending on your vantage point, social media is either a blessing or a curse; Plus thoughts on purpose, and the hard journey of discovering one.
As a podcast host myself, I have an admission to make. I don’t actually listen to a lot of them.
One among the two that I actually listen to is a science podcast called Huberman Lab, hosted by a Standfor Uni professor of Neuroscience.
It was during one of his episodes that I first heard about the book Dopamine Nation, written by Dr. Anna Lembke, Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University.
With one-click access to the book, over the next four days, I devoured a non-fiction book that often felt like it had been written just for me. I have a strong suspicion it was written just for you, too.
We’re all addicted to social media with varying degrees of intensity.
A friend once asked me why it is that my ‘last seen’ status on Instagram is never longer than 15 minutes, also quipping, “I know you’re asleep when your last seen status crosses an hour.”
I spent a great deal of time and argumentative power explaining to him that I run marketing for several companies, and all of these accounts are on Instagram, etc., etc.
The truth, however, is that I am addicted to social media- it is a form of connection with people and worlds that are too far away physically for me to access.
Coupled with the fact that I am a bit of a recluse in the real world, Instagram is the window through which the world is shown to me.
Dopamine: A Sanitizer For The Human Brain
Depp v. Heard, Netflix’s newest docuseries, isn’t actually about either of the two celebrities.
Even if we live under a rock, we probably heard about this defamation case, and there is a reason why.
An illustration of the series’ true purpose happens somewhere in episode 3. After the case is dissected in the court of public opinion much more than it is in the actual courtroom, one content creator says, “Can you believe they’d close the arguments just before a long weekend?? I’m seriously dying of anxiety right now!”
Why wouldn’t they, when every day of covering a celebrity case was garnering them a few thousand new followers (and the associated ad revenue)?
The series, then, is a brutal look at our own willingness to give up all agency when it comes to what we see as gospel truth, especially when it is espoused by our favorite creator.
Only, the lines seem to blur when we are the content creators. Two instances this past weekend, both personal experiences, might help demonstrate this better.
On LinkedIn, Byron Sharp, brand expert and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is under a heavy amount of fire for calling Brand Differentiation an unnecessary frivolity in a world where brands are being created every day.
I have no problem with him voicing his opinion, in that it is well-researched and makes for a compelling argument.
What’s interesting is the 300-400 word essays on LinkedIn trying and failing to make their counterpoint.
It’s like being asked to defend your Ph.D. thesis in a 90-second TikTok. Maybe the day is already here because I just received a WhatsApp forward from a Gen-Z cousin asking us to vote for them in an upcoming singing contest because, “As you know, winning a competition is all about the votes.”One of our clients whose strategy was ‘exclusively post on LinkedIn twice a week until they see results’, finally saw results. It takes a special amount of dedication to discuss various branches of a single topic nearly 70 times before it produces an outcome. Which is why they did the smart thing and outsourced the activity.
On Instagram, meanwhile, I have successfully engineered my feed to show 70% of diving content and 30% of memes. I vaguely remember a time when food reels were present, but that is no longer the case.
I know more about Lolita, the Orca that died in captivity than I do about what to make for lunch.
Interestingly, in this week’s edition of Mint, Nisha Susan, an author whose writing I usually enjoy, wrote about a topic she doesn’t quite understand- ocean animals and their behavior.
I could feel a certain anger rising in me as I read her perspective- that while some of us might be celebrating a certain unruly Orca pod’s behavior as righteous revenge, others are terrified at the prospect of being a wild animal’s plaything.
How could she, presumably a non-diver, ever understand Orca behavior?
And then, I realized, my partner in professional crime is terrified of water. A four-foot swimming pool would cause her to faint.
While she kindly listens to my diving stories, she simply cannot visualize what I’m talking about.
And that’s okay.
The world is richer when perspectives are abundant. I wouldn’t mind a food reel once in a while.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have my own biases questioned from time to time. May we not curate our feeds to the point where our word is the only law.
Who We Are, On Social Media
The purpose of this article is not to diss on social media.
After all, it has been used to galvanize support and action in viral ways. Without social media, we might live in perpetual ignorance of some of the most pressing problems of our generation.
The issue, I think, lies in where that fine line is between doing something worthwhile and sharing it on social media, vs. doing something in order to share on social media.
I believe that this comes down to finding our purpose.
And finding that damn thing is exceptionally time-consuming, unglamorous, and isolating. I have a suspicion it involves being out in the real world, and it certainly doesn’t give us a lot of social media fodder.
I’ll leave you with a conversation I had with an aspiring marine conservationist.
At the very beginning of their journey, they chose to set up an Instagram page that stubbornly got stuck in the ‘friends and family’ category. At this time, they approached us to ask how they might increase their follower count.
“Why do you want to increase your follower count?”
“More followers means more brand partnerships, and I can get paid to dive, so I can then click pictures and share them with more people.”
Fair enough, diving is a wildly expensive hobby and I too would give anything to have my trips sponsored by someone else.
“And what kinds of stories would you like to tell about the ocean?”
“For now I just want to share the pictures. I’m sure people will come to their own conclusions and I will know what to say in due time.”
Hmm.
”And why should anyone follow your page, especially when there are award-winning creators with a massive following already?”
“I am still at the beginning of the journey. It is a chance to experience firsthand the journey of a conservationist, and what challenges they encounter.”
“And what challenges are you currently encountering?”
“You know, no one wants to sponsor me to dive…I want to improve my buoyancy, learn how to take pictures, buy a camera setup, quit my full-time job, become a full-time influencer….”
Logical Fallacy, you flighty temptress!
After this conversation, I never heard from this aspiring influencer again. And their page remains, rather irritatingly I presume, stuck at 826 followers.