How social media appears to dictate our social standing.
If you even try to deny the following statement, you are lying to yourself, so don’t even bother.
How many of you have waited until a specific time to post a picture or status to rack up the maximum number of views/likes? 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday evening, or 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon?
Believe me — everyone does it. I’m even doing it here, choosing precisely the right time to post this article on my wall to catch your attention. Even if you don’t open the link to read it, I’ll get that “like” and I’m happy. In fact, I tagged one of my friends in a previous post to increase my “like” game. The tag would show up on his wall, and therefore become visible to all of his friends. Bam, I just opened up an entirely new population of ego-boosters.
Platforms of social media have become an influential factor in one’s self-esteem and their image to their peers. I’ve spent countless hours bumping posts to increase visibility or evaluating people based on the number of “likes” in their profile pictures.
>100 likes: Total scrub.
100-200 likes: Eh they’re OK, might be a chill person.
200-400 likes: Ah yes, they are worthy of the crew.
400-600 likes: Wow, this pic/person is gorgeous I’m almost a little intimidated by it.
600+ like: Not a real human, #modelstatus.
These numbers are completely arbitrary and, quite frankly, useless. How many “likes” a person has is in no way correlated to their personality; rather, it reflects how active they are on Facebook.
But still, we work to present ourselves in the best way possible. The key to increase the “like” game is choosing carefully what to post. It’s finding that healthy balance between not over-posting to the point it becomes annoying, but not posting so sporadically that your picture gets lost in the newsfeed.
And above all else, you have to pick the right picture. This could make it or break it for your social standing. The picture has to be so good that people take the extra effort to move the cursor (or their thumb) to that “like” button. Even better, they comment on it. That’s it — checkmate.
Here’s an example: My sister and I notoriously obnoxiously post on each other’s Facebook walls for our birthdays, to the point where you can scroll for two minutes straight and still just see old embarrassing pictures of us.
So for my 20th birthday this February, that was just what I expected — and she delivered. My wall was flooded with my old pictures, many of which featured Drake photoshopped to acknowledge my love for his music (don’t worry, Fetty Wap, you are equally valued #1738).
Now in these cases, most of the photos garner maybe a mere 10 to 15 likes, due to the sheer nonsense and excessive activity; it’s difficult for everyone to keep up and they begin to get annoyed. But there was one picture that managed to rack up 130 likes.
130.
Normally, that’s meh for someone with a strong “like” game such as myself. But, for a birthday post, that was impressive. So why was it so successful?
“Holy crap your prom pic *heart eyes emoji*. Ngl I didn’t recognize you at first and had to scroll back up. Just drop ASB and go to the Oscars.”
I was completely flattered when my friend texted me this. Me, Oscar worthy? 99 percent of the time, I’m the epitome of “sweatpants, hair tied, chillin’ with no makeup on.” But ah, yes, it was the clutch prom picture. This picture was so good, someone scrolled back up to like it. Wow.
Yet, what we post on social media is not in any way an accurate representation of who we really are. My aunt often teases me about how her newsfeed is filled with notifications of “Monika Jain is going to ___ event.”
“When do you have any time to study, if you’re going to events all day, and posting pictures of all these cool things?” she jokes with me. And it’s true. Nonexistent are the pictures of me pouring over my books at Fondren Library at 2 a.m., sitting in my bed under the comforter watching TV, or unattractively nomming on Taco Bell.
We are very selective in how we portray ourselves to the world through social media. For example, when I scroll through my own Facebook wall, it’s filled with basketball/sports, Odyssey articles, and photos from events such as Holi or Rondelet (Rice’s spring formal dance). From an outsider’s perspective, it looks like academics play no role in my life, when it is in fact, the exact opposite.
Everyone spotlights the best facets of their life, which is a misrepresentation of who they are and what their personality is. I’m notorious for being a camera hog at South Asian Society events (sorry, Rahul and Pranav) because I want there to be a substantial amount of evidence that I do clean up well, and can look relatively decent once in a while.
But the girl decked out in Indian clothes or fancy dresses with straight hair and makeup is not really me. I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t take everyone for how they appear or present themselves. Who they are online could be very different from who they are in person. So when we’re Facebook stalking each other and making those judgments based on the number of “likes” a post has, pause and take a second to realize there’s more to that person than their profile picture. They probably deal with the same problems and struggles that you do. They have to work through the same hardships and obstacles that you experience. And, just maybe, when you look at them a little closer at what’s happening behind the blue computer screen, you may see that their life isn’t that much better than yours.
So sure, maybe I’ll never get 851 likes on my profile picture. Or I’ll never go viral, become famous and fulfill my dreams of becoming an MD and Bollywood actress. But I was able to almost convince 130 that I went to prom with Drake. And for that, I’m way up I feel blessed.
P.S. If this article gets enough shares and somehow gets to Drake, then yes, we can actually go to prom together so I won’t have to use the Drake Shake app for our pictures.
Source: Odyssey