You can’t get 500,000 followers without making some enemies
Why are we on social media and what do we gain from it?
As somebody who is a part of a news portal on social media, I face a paradoxical dilemma.
On the one hand, I post on a platform which highlights some of the worst elements of mankind. A few minutes on the highlight page, scrolling friend’s Instagram stories and looking for what this platform priorities is enough to convince me of this.
On the other hand, the spheres I occupy and contribute to are acutely aware of this Fact. Accordingly, we try to generate an alternative, a vision of what social media ‘could be’. In doing so we are not accountable to the worst elements, and we try to exist as though they don’t exist.
So, is this a question of ends and means? If it is, the good ends (quality content and personal improvement) have to be compared with the means (use of a, quite literally, degenerative platform)
If it is, then my conscience is at stake. If social media is evil by definition, then all the good I try to further here comes after that fact.
All this weighted heavily on my mind, until I realized something utterly essential. Social media is not evil by definition, it is the battlefield of our age.
Whether we like it or not, we must accept the truth. Our social existence now begins on these platforms and flows outwards from there. If we wish to have any stake in the future, then we cannot just concede this ground.
In a sense, I and my peers have a responsibility to do battle. To present to you a totally comprehensive culture which undermines the corrosion on these platforms.
When we consider social media in this way, some positive arise. We can recall the real changes that so many people make because of their interaction with truthful, honest people on these platforms.
But we must not forget why we are here. It is not to indulge in the decadence, but to fight it, and make it our own space.
