THE SOCIAL MEDIA SUB-CULTURE

                                       

The so-called Social Media is here to stay. It is not just a part of our lives anymore; it is a way of life for most people. Be honest.

You have said “what is on your mind” countless times, re-tweeted every little burp of your favourite “personalities” a million times, instagrammed the story of your life away and it doesn’t stop there, does it? I am old school so I can’t keep up with the newest forms of social networking. It is life a full time job now trying to stay abreast with the slightly veiled forms such as LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogspots, Tumblr etc. (What the hell happened to the trail blazers like hi5 and Pingu? What? Was it their names that let them down?)

Anyway, the first thing people do now when they wake up from the mat is to check Social Media especially Facebook and Twitter. I am not making that up, I read that somewhere but don’t ask because I can’t remember.

Back in the day, people checked missed calls and text messages. Before that era, people prayed, had their ‘Quiet Time’, read their Bibles, recited the Quran, performed incantations or libations, said their canticles, and chanted or whatever else, first thing in the morning. Not anymore.

I am not saying Social Media is becoming a religion for many, but we are not too far from that, are we? If football clubs with ever disloyal and money-hungry players can become religions, why can’t Facebook, be? The network is said to be the third largest “nation” in the world after only China and India.

YouTube, Google, Thisis50.com and a thousand others are now jumping on the whole friends/subscription hype too. What it means is; the larger your network, the more connected you are. Hence, the more popular you seem to think you are. A video with a million views on YouTube is rated over a video with ten views. The artiste in the video with a million views is likely to be more recognized than the other. Last time I checked LinkUp TV was being penalised by YouTube for being dishonest with their page views. Yes, LinkUp TV found it necessary to alter their view counts to make them larger than they actually are. Imagine.

A Twitter handle with 3 million followers is likely to be more famous than one with 3 followers. What’s the point? There’s none, dare I say. To me, having 600 solid contacts on your Blackberry does not necessarily mean you get more business done than a person with 70 contacts. Elton John had no mobile phone last time, I heard. Yet, he undeniably gets his stuff done alright. Kreayshawn, a recording artiste, has over a million followers on Twitter but her record sold the least ever in the history of big label-backed performers.

Now, if you checked Facebook every few minutes on your phone so that you accrued two hours of Facebook time in a day, that means that in a 12 days, you would have spent 24 hours (1 day out of 12) on Facebook. Doing what? LIKE-ing a few pictures, chatting some rubbish, poking people you think are ignoring you, commenting on the pictures of friends and enemies alike, pressing play on some videos, playing Farmville and spying what is on other people’s minds. 24 hours of doing that? Addictive as it is, it’s hard to see the usefulness of all that.

After connecting with a few old friends and family from back in the day, what else do you do?

Do you realize Social Media could be a free way of advertising new businesses or promoting existing ones and therefore take advantage of that?

Also, it could be a way accessing “breaking news”(remember the demise of Osama Bin Laden?) or fake news (multiple deaths of Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby etc). Information online and especially via social media is probably one of the reasons big time publications such as Newsweek are going online only now.

 So back to the issue – what do you really do with your thousand social media personal pages? Do you just come on there to show the world how beautiful and perfect your life is? Or to show the number of Ace of Spade, Alize and Moet you held and probably didn’t even drink at the nightclub? Or to show the world the sexy, exotic girls that you hang with? Or to show that tiny weeny flimsy black dress you bought from Dior in Paris?

If we are going to “waste” time then we may as well “waste” it properly. Now allow me to go update my Facebook status and all that #shit…….