Thursday, February 16, 2012

Portrayals of the Utopian Social Media Life

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Every day human beings wake up and live two separate lives; the one they portray it to be and the one that is the reality. It could be as little as you responding to a co-worker "I'm good" when asked how you are doing...but in actuality you are miserable because you just got into a huge fight with your significant other. Or perhaps it's something more severe, such as a financial crisis or a death of a loved one. I believe people do it, whether subconscious or not, to always seem that they are "happy". Sometimes it's really no one else's business, and let's be honest, we don't need to be "hanging out our dirty laundry to dry". Most of the time it's easier to fit into the mold of this cookie cutter life that "everyone else" seems to be living than to explain otherwise.

With the 21st century, brought new and exciting technology of being able to connect socially with friends, family, and co-workers through social media outlets (anyone heard of Facebook or Twitter?) that allowed you to share and communicate on a much more personal level than ever before. How great to be able to share photos, updates, and life events with a mass group of people without having to put much effort into it?

Social media has become the quick and effortless way to share parts of your life that would otherwise not be shared (or at least not within a tenth of a second.) This is the part I love about social media. I'm all about instant gratification...(I AM a Generation Y baby after all) and getting information as quickly and easily as I possibly can.

With the little to no effort social media created, it has allowed the passing of information to spread, with the simple "I'm fine" answer becoming exaggerated. Not only can you portray you are "fine", you can now share with hundreds or thousands of people that you are "GREAT!". Individuals are allowed to shape their social media life in ways that has never been done before. 

We're all guilty of it in some way or another...wanting to share all the best of our lives, and leaving out the worst. It's human nature to want to portray our life in the best light while leaving out the darkness. But with social media, it's not real life. No one's life has all the ups but no downs...no one's life is random updates with only good news to share. 

Social media has began to allow people to idolize this "perfect" utopian life that just isn't real. We all wish for the utopian life, where life is perfect, and perfect is real. But I believe in the beauty of flaws and imperfections, because it is real...and real is beautiful.


2 comments:

  1. I love this post, I'm totally guilty of being happy on my social media today when I'm actually not having a good day at all.

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  2. Like I said, we're all guilty of it in some way or another. And hang in there hun...it'll always get better. :)

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