Remember when social media used to be fun? Are you old enough for that?? I am, and it is sad to look back at it. So, I will start with some of my social media history. As is typical, it hit America first. Then it soaked into the east and Ontario. A friend out there invited me to Facebook; that was the first big one, but we can go back even further to MySpace days. I didn't really get into that one, but I did some reading, and it blew my mind at one time over 300,000 million users and valued at $12 billion. I remember that one as being music and some pictures. It was enjoyable, or at least that's what I remember. Nothing serious, no politics, but goofing around. Then there was Nexopia... I should have seen the toxic internet culture coming from there. For anyone who may need to learn what Nexopia, it was a smaller social media community started in Edmonton that is/was 95% Canadian users. When we signed up, I said we because it was myself, and a couple of roommates found out about it and signed up. It was a preview of how toxic social media was going to become. I can remember right off the bat, someone wanted to meet and fight on Jasper Ave over a comment I made. They had a sub-thread for "flamebait" where people could have online beef. I met a person who ended up being a moderator there who previewed pics people wanted to post. It was insane; the shit people wanted to post or the profile pics females wanted to post. Many are not 18 yet. We got banned in a few weeks, and it was probably a good thing; it was a sewer. I searched, and it is still around; maybe it has gotten much better. I don't know, I didn't resign up. I saw it supposedly shut down, but the site showed people as active today, so I wonder if it is still around.
So Facebook, I got invited by a friend from Ontario. I set up a fake profile as I thought it was just another MySpace or, worse, Nexopia, but after a couple of days, I made an authentic profile, and it blew my mind. People from school I didn't talk to anymore or even back then wanted to be friends. Long-lost cousins started popping up, and Facebook was neat and fun. People posted legit pics, just dumb ones of life. We all played games online, and many years ago, Facebook was probably the best it ever would be. I am not sure when but humans, humaned and took shit too far. I can't say when FB became full of ads and "news," that was bullshit, but it did happen over time. For example, I just opened FB up, and in the first 20 things I scrolled past, 7 were ads, 8 were random groups I have joined, and I saw three posts by friends. 3, that's all. We can blame capitalism for this. FB has become just a place for consumers who occasionally see a friend's post. I use lots of other social media. FB and Instagram I keep pretty locked up for friends and family only. Feel free to follow me on Twitter, Yelp, Letterbox, and Reddit; they are open. There are many others I don't know but have heard people talk about. I haven't even gotten into TikTok, but it is MASSIVE. I have heard of Hive and Bluesky, but they don't have much. Tumblr is still around. I looked into it after learning about Lisa Lam, and I can't say it kept my attention. Trump has his app Truth, and I am not sure what Discord is, but I keep hearing that name on a podcast I am listening to. When I look into pop culture stuff like gaming, I hear of Twitch, and that one I haven't even looked into at all. Youtube even is flooded with shit; what started as kind of a handy webpage now has a million rabbit holes people can fall into. The point is that social media has soaked itself into our daily lives, and we need to look at that.
Primary among the dangers of social media is false information. I hate the phrase, but it is true, fake news. The more significant sites all have "fact checkers," which is a start, but it doesn't do much in reality. If an account has reach, it can post something and be viewed, shared, and reshared by thousands or millions before it is caught. The damage is already done. Some people already believe it, and even worse, when you correct it, people claim it is being silenced, and it leads to a conspiracy theory. This is the information age; the more false information out there, the worse it gets. Follow that up with one-sided media / so-called journalists. Anyone with a camera and an opinion now is a journalist. Many journalists get fired or quit their companies and then go online and try to make a living there. Now, the right is just as bad; they have a million personalities online as well, and some of them seem supported by news outlets like Fox. Or opinion polls and facts online. Can we believe any polls? Not even the ones people run but the "facts." For example, I can see a poll that the conservatives will make up the next government, then 10 minutes later another is posted saying the first is wrong. In my first year of journalism, in one of my first classes, the teacher said polls mean nothing; they are a tool to catch the eye and sell papers. Now, they catch the eye and grow views. I won't say facts aren't facts, but they are part of the story. It is so easy to post a simple fact and then run with it as gospel WHEN there is usually more to it we should be looking at. That's the last point to put on here: social media is only giving you the facts that prove their point. It isn't balanced media; it's a point being pushed.
Influencers are awful. We have entered an era where people with no talent become famous and make money for just existing. Did it start with Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian? They were the early part of influencers, and social media exploded that. Now we have things like TikTok, where people do dances and become famous. I have stated I love capitalism, and if you can make a living doing that, power to you, but should that be the goal? Maybe there is something else we should be hoping people want to take a crack at. I can even give Rock stars, actors, and athletes some credit or more than influencers. They have some work and bring some value and entertainment to the world. On top of that, look at these influencers. For females, they set crazy standards. Everyone has to be beautiful or society's version of beauty. Filters make fake people famous. I was on Snapchat and used a few different filters, I was damn handsome, but it was all fake, and that is what we are telling young girls they need to be. I am not going to get into Onlyfans right now, but really? This is an industry now?? Or, for boys, we have Andrew Tate. This guy is an admitted rapist (Or he denies it, but there is audio where he admitted it). A human trafficker and a pedophile, and young men are flocking to him? A man of no discernable talent has been made rich. He has thousands of followers because he is social media savvy. This is what we want to influence our youth? I get it every generation looks at the youth and say damn, they are following the wrong people. Usually, the wrong people are the punks of the 70s, the rappers of the 80s, and the grunge rockers of the 90s. Ya, they were all edgy in their time, but they were all fighting for change and societal improvement. Now we have people telling girls they need to be prettier and boys they need to be more "alpha."
I never believed bullying could be cured by wearing pink shirts; I don't ever believe it will go away, and to a certain extent, it is a life lesson: even once people get out of school, you going to have to learn to deal with bullies, that was back in my day. Kids could go home, hang out with friends, and not be bullied. Those days are gone; social media means kids can be cyberbullied. Even when they are away from bullies, it can still happen. There is no end to it, and that isn't good. It has to be draining and awful for a child's mental health. It's easy to look at people struggling and wonder why their lives are so "good" that it goes for children; what do they have to care about? Well, honestly, it's this. Teen suicides are up 62% - from 2007 thru 2022. If another tragedy was up 62%, would we not be all over trying to fix it? Say drunk driving rose 62%, check stops would be all over, and we would have media campaigns. If crime rose 62%, you can be sure a new top cop would be appointed, and there would be task forces, but we just let this slide.
This one might be a shorter entry. I had thought of going into regular media and the internet, but if I put them in here, it will be too long, so I will wrap up social media. I don't know how to fix it, but the Truth is it has become a curse. Most of us are addicted to it, myself included. We all need to put our phones down. Also, we need to learn that it honestly doesn't matter. If something is offensive to you on social media, it doesn't matter. Social media isn't a real place; it does not matter! Share positivity; so much I see online is negative. People try to bring light to issues they care about, not on purpose, but it has a negative tone. I don't want to see starving children and abused dogs. I know these issues exist; when I want to log on to social media, I want to be happy, not to be brought down. I want to get back to social media just to be happy. Also, let's stop making stupid people famous. This falls flat into the laps of parents. Know what your kids are doing! Talk to them, and don't just sit them in front of a screen! I get it; it's the GTA video game context. Parents didn't want kids playing a violent, nasty game like that, and many wouldn't buy it for their kids. Kids just went down the street and played it at Little Timmys. That's the way the world works. Find out what's going on instead of burying your head in the sand. Discuss it; don't let Kim Kardashian or Andrew Tate raise your kids. Also, don't raise little bullies. I already stated that most people don't know exactly what is going on with their children all the time, but you have an idea. Don't let your kid get into cyberbullying; if they are getting bullied, teach them how to deal with it. I know this is hypocritical, and I know I need to do it myself, but in general, we all just need to log off for a bit.
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