Note: these are some thoughts I have been working through for months and for the first time they’ve manifested into an idea that was complete enough to get onto “paper”. While the topic is loosely about social media, the concepts apply to every day life especially as the line between real life and social media continues to fade. I tried to make that as clear as possible without spending time editing something few people will probably read. These thoughts are still pretty raw and unrefined and I’m not a writer so keep that in mind. I just felt like sharing this.
Statement
To Everyone,
Whether you are obsessively following every government mandate and piece of public health advice or just adhering loosely to social distancing, all of us have switched up our daily behavior in one way or another. For most of us, it’s probably been pretty drastic. Contrary to how I typically respond to authority, I’ve stuck pretty strictly to the mandated orders. In adjusting to this new norm, for however long it is, I have focused on resurrecting my creative talents which have been neglected over the years as I worked to build a career that became less about passion and more about supporting a lifestyle. What started as a passion to build things with code led to an identity fueled by lifestyle expectations from social media. This is an observation I could have only made sitting at home for weeks and observing how we are all behaving online. I want to share these observations and propose some new ways that I believe we should conduct ourselves as we move into the first decade where the majority of our lives are likely to be carried out in the digital world.
We are at a turning point in human history where we no longer conduct ourselves solely in the physical world we inhabit. The last decade alone generated more wealth than the world has ever seen. Most of this came from new businesses which partially or entirely operate online. We share the most intimate details of our lives on global platforms which reach an unlimited audience. With every passing year, we upload more of our lives – ourselves – online. Our online identities are becoming essential to our survival in the modern world. Audience, reach, engagement. It all means something now. And that isn’t going to change. Countries like China use social scoring to determine credit-worthiness. We live online. And when we exit this decade it is likely that our minds will spend more time occupying the digital world than the physical. This bears repeating. Our consciousness, the thing that makes us human, will populate the digital world more than the physical world by the time this decade is up.
It is now true that the only thing tying our consciousness to the physical world is its need for a biological host, and that's some cool shit to think about for your 4/20.
If you don’t believe me, think about right now. You’re reading this online. You probably came here from my Instagram post. How many hours have you spent on Instagram today, by the way? What were you doing physically while you were online? Probably sitting there. Maybe walking. Hopefully not driving. In any case, most or all your attention was funneled through the online world. The fortunate among us have been able to take their work entirely online and pull in a paycheck from home. I’m not trying to make the reader feel guilty but rather to prove a point. We live online. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. We are trending towards a distant future where most of our time is spent online. In the midst of this pandemic, that is probably already true. We are migrating from the physical world to the online world year by year, like birds flying South for the winter. The COVID19 crisis has condensed what probably would have been years of migration into weeks. It is true that the only thing keeping our consciousness in the physical world is its need for a biological host, and that's some cool shit to think about for your 4/20.
This can be a good thing! Imagine a mandated stay-at-home order without our modern forms of entertainment and communication. We can’t simply go back to the days before social media and modern entertainment. We’re adapted for this world and humanity moves forward. So what am I getting at? Well, I’ve noticed two types of person online during this crisis. In some way, all of us are one of these two people.
The first is the Content Creator, the Instagram trailblazer, the person who sees an opportunity to build the largest audience they possibly can for personal or financial gain. This person may not be successful at it – yet – but they certainly conduct themselves as if they have the audience of the Content Creators they draw inspiration from. Contrarily, some are very successful, amassing fortunes with their influence. We’ve come to praise financial success and the open bragging of it. There’s no such thing as a no flex zone anymore. Flexing is the cool thing to do. The feedback loop is clear on that. It’s at the core of the Content Creator’s existence, at least for the majority of successful online personalities.
The second personality is the Creative, the person using social media as a tool to share inspiration and foster authenticity. These people come from a place of humility. They are true to themselves and engage online in a manner that is genuine and authentic. They share things which inspire them and that they hope others find valuable as well. These people have yet to see as much success on the mainstream platforms like Instagram and Twitter and so you probably only know of a few.
Many call themselves the Creative but very few actually are. The Content Creators brand themselves as Creatives. After all, they’re creating all this content! They’ve perfected the look, garnered the attention, and tens of thousands of people actually care about their COVID Survival Tips™! The key distinction between the Content Creator and the Creative is motivation. This is where the term authenticity comes in. The Content Creator is motivated by the pursuit and possession of personal gain – money, fame, power, or all of the above. The Creative is motivated by authenticity and the pursuit thereof.
One of my closest friends said it perfectly, “The content is shit right now”. The content certainly is shit. But it has been for a long time. We were just too busy eating it up.
Over the years we have come to praise the Content Creator. They capture the attention of thousands, even millions, and they have perfected the art of the online highlight reel. Everything is polished, intended to impress and drive engagement. It’s not for you. It’s not even for them past the point of success. It’s for the growth of their brand. But it’s a dishonest approach to personal scalability, one that feels increasingly meaningless and vapid as we watch the Content Creator scramble to continue generating content in this uncertain and limiting time. One of my closest friends said it perfectly, “The content is shit right now”. The content certainly is shit. But it has been for a long time. We were just too busy eating it up.
So the Content Creator is trying to keep their hard-earned identity alive while the world that nurtured it changes before their eyes. What’s the Creative doing? The Creative is observing. Getting back to basics. Tuning in to the world and searching for others who create from a place of authenticity. Maybe they’ll even have some things to share with the world along the way.
As I sit back for the fifth(?) week of meditation during this quarantine I feel as if a veil has been lifted from over my eyes. We always kinda knew when we were posting for the likes, sharing for the reactions, but did we ever consider how years of it would impact our pursuits, interests, and relationships? Have we thought about the influence that everyone we follow has on our own lives? Have we only been posting for the engagement, or have we been living for it? I don’t even have followers outside my friends and I’ll admit for the last couple years I’ve fallen into the latter group more often than not. I challenge everyone reading this to do a bit of introspection on what type of online content we should value and choose to engage with moving forward. For those of us who want to create, will we conduct ourselves as Content Creators or Creatives? And for the rest of us, will we reward production or authenticity?