Why I think social media sucks from Essena O'Neill on Vimeo.

If you don't know what i'm talking about, please watch her video linked above. (Update: she took down her youtube acc so only her Vimeo account is available for viewing.)

Essena O'Neill is right to a certain extend. Some points i agree with, some, I don't.

What I agree with her is that social media is fake. Everyone who uses it will know to some extend it is fake, even "clean" accounts are fake. We all show a prettier side of ourselves on social media, like that photo you took at brunch, was it really laid out like that? Or that group selfie you took with your friends, how many did you take to get the right one? How many layers of filters did you use? It's all pretence and we know it. Humanitarian posts or videos on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. are structured as well, you have to edit a video to tug the heartstrings of your audience, or caption it right to pull in people to read your posts.

I agree that everything we post online are carefully thought out because we are wary of our audience who will be judging us through our posts. Sure it takes away, a lot of that physical connectivity we have, that "real" relationship we have with one another when we meet. But social media is not this big scary space O'Neill claims it to be.

Social media, although fake, generates real engagement. What do i mean? Well for starters, if i was not on social media, i would not have read or watched O'Neill's article and video, as a response,  i would not have written this article to share my opinion on this topic, which meant that i would not have engaged in a online conversation with my friends about this topic. Without social media, her words would not have spread, there will not have been talks of support, or disapproval from audiences, which meant that it would not have been a trending topic, which would have result in zero approach from big media outlets wanting to interview her. (I hope you can follow what i'm trying to say)

There is still real engagement with your peers, it's not like what O'Neill said in her video where you lose yourself, and devoid from conversations on "nature, love and life". You still do, in fact, social media opens a bigger network of topics on nature, love and life because you get to read people's thoughts and opinions constantly and from there, form your own conclusion on what you think nature, love and life is or should be about. It's called remixing culture and this is what we as Gen Y are doing.

For her as a social media influencer yes, there is a pressure on making sure you're picture perfect, your life is picture perfect. No one likes to see the ugly side of things and no brand wants you to promote their item in a hideous manner, it's all about perception and how you want to reach to your audience, it's exactly like advertising except on a more relatable and intimate scale.  But, this is the life of a social media influencer, that's O'Neill's career path. Sure, it's superficial, but there is so much more one can do with being an influencer, especially with that network, that amount of people looking up to a influencer. Just like how she did with showing behind the scene captions on photos, and raising awareness to not believe everything you see online.

This is what social media does, it creates REAL engagement worldwide. I doubt one can engage personally with 700,000 viewers with O'Neill's so called "real" interaction.

We now live in an age where online activity + connectivity is everything because it's how we communicate. We are constantly improving our way of life, be it from when the first electric telephone was invented, to now, social media. You cannot totally avoid, online communication for real communication, they are intertwined. What you can AVOID is those accounts that give you this fake presence of what's real. There are TONS of accounts that shows you the beauty of nature that are from countries or places you never even heard of, artists from all walks of life, take photos of their work and upload them online to allow people to appreciate and raise awareness for their presence.

Social Media, is not this big scary black hole where it sucks you in and never spits you out. Social media is a web of connections where it enhances your REAL engagement. There's always two sides to a coin, it's up to you, the audience, the receiver of information, to decide what sort of information you want to receive.