7 Things I Love About Social Media
Its Valentine’s Day, and I’m doing a post on love. No, I’m not giving tips or telling you about the person I love, but I’m talking social media.
I’ve learned a lot about social media in the past year. Here are 10 things I’ve come to love about it.
1. Follow Friday
One of the best things about social media is Follow Friday. Its the day your Twitter stream gets clogged, but you get to see all the people whom you follow and show your gratitude. Social media is about giving, and Follow Friday is where it starts.
2. Accelerated Conversational Connection
In short, this is just all the people you meet. I have friends in Denver, Milwaukee, Portland, Miami and even further than that because of Twitter. You get greater conversational reach, conversational connection, and it all accelerates outward.
3. Statistical Overdrive
TweetStats. HootSuite. Bit.ly. TwitterCounter. Tweriod. The statistics are all out there, and social media puts it on overdrive. I love swimming in numbers and finding out how engaging I’ve been, and social media helps put it all in perspective.
4. Dynamicism
The industry is always changing. It doesn’t become stagnant and stay that way. With something new every day, it keeps you on your toes. There is never a dull moment.
5. Potential
Never has there ever been something with so much potential. Things can go viral almost immediately, and more people than ever can see your content. Offline marketing can’t beat online marketing in some cases.
6. Nuanced
Social media is still new, in the sense that so many businesses have yet to use the platform, and so many people are still unsure about how to apply social media to their lives. Coaching and business opportunities are plentiful.
7. Genuine and Real
Social media is about being real and genuine. If you can’t be yourself, social media will eat you up alive. Can you afford to be fake? Maybe about 30 years ago…
What do you love about social media this Valentine’s Day? Share in the comments below or send me a tweet @albertqian.
Valentines Day 2.0
Before the days of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and social media, relationships were kept offline. “You’ve Got Mail” changed that with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks forming a relationship over the Internet.
People complain today how there is a gross lack of chivalry in interpersonal relationships, that the rise of texting, email and messaging through one’s wall has dampened the concept of love, that consistently being connected and being able to scour the photo album of a loved one lessens the ability to miss. This is certainly not the Nicholas Sparks novel that we had all envisioned, that’s for sure.
Amid all this complaint is also OkCupid, the social network and free dating site that has become popular due to its social analysis of people and the relationships they carry, through their religious values, cultural upbringing, location and self description, which bring for very interesting analyses and critiques into where human society has gone, only in a brief nutshell. All this however begs the question: Where has “Will you be my Valentine?” gone in 2011?
eHarmony and its Clones
We’ve all seen the advertisement before. Two happy couples saying they got married recently, and how eHarmony helped them do it. Then CEO and founder Neil Clark Warren steps to the front of the screen touting his 29 degrees of compatibility and how this is the most comprehensive way for you to find a mate. Buying a woman a drink at the bar this is not, but rather a more efficient way to find that person so you can spend time doing other things in your life, like working your butt off to sustain the relationship you will efficiently find.
eHarmony has seen many clones since its founding. We now have Match.com, Jazzed, OkCupid, Chemistry, Zoosk and a bunch of other smaller sites with similarly focused niches that promise the person who signs up that they will be paired up with another person given a set of questions. No longer do you have to approach that woman in the park who looks cute with that dog, but rather submit to questions, a set of terms and conditions and the knowledge that those whom you filter out will be single, and that heartbreak will not be a guarantee from the start. Online dating has effectively eliminated the mystery and the thrill of handing the girl that business card of yours at the grocery checkout. Is that a good thing? I’d argue yes and no, but that’s an article for a different time for a different blog.
What social media has done for love in this space is that its already answered the questions that started out at the very beginning of a relationship prior to the existence of the Internet - Who are you? Who is your family? What do you like to do? What are your favorite movies? Music? What books do you read? Before we jump, we read, and as humans are judging creatures, the mystery is therefore eliminated and we screen out people before we even know them. Mother Teresa’s quote, “If you judge, you cannot love” screams ever true in the modern day of social media because our curiosity for others is already satisfied before we even understand what there is to even get at in the first place. Everyone under the age of 25 can admit at some point that they caught themselves stalking an interest on Facebook - its more readily accepted now because it plays into courtship.
Courtship 2.0
As social media has become to dominate the way we find our mate, courtship has festered itself into a different meaning in the 21st century. Mentioned earlier, we stalk others in an effort to get to know them from an online point of view - The “info” section on a Facebook profile as well as the Wall tell people more than ever the personality of the individual. Looking at my Facebook profile will tell you that:
1. I’m pretty sociable at 950+ friends
2. I’m kind of a sucker for social media
3. I have a large family
4. I have held many jobs in my life
5. I spend maybe a little too much time online
Those could either be turn-ons or turn-offs for the person, depending on who they are, but to be completely honest both could be pretty false advertisements. Who is to say that I collect random individuals to add to my network? That social media posts are a part of a school project? That maybe I could be lying? That maybe I am pre-scheduling my posts through HootSuite?
Basically the point here is that while social and information gathering, Courtship 2.0 is also inherently impersonal. I may spend a lot of time on the Internet, but at the very end of the day, good conversation and knowledge of others come from the ability to interact in real-time, at a coffee shop, where you can’t pre-package your statements, delete what you say and use emoticons when you really aren’t smiling or laughing your butt off on the ground.
The Future of Love
It would be silly to surmise that knights in shining armor are going to make their comeback, complete with the Mr. Darcy’s and Casablanca personalities. We can dream, but dreaming does not get you far unless you execute. As things stand, the future of love will be impersonal. Much like how most transactions on Black Friday are now done online, the future of dating is very much moving to that space too, as risk averse individuals with no time on their hands to waste move to the space in an effort to find a loved one. Love does take time to develop, and like instant coffee, instant messaging and email, people too, want love to be instant as well. Can it?
The late Paul Locatelli, S.J., urged students at the 2008 Santa Clara University commencement ceremony to “turn off their laptops, log off the Internet and make quiet time for reflection”. I have no doubt he would feel the same way about relationships, just three years later, with a sky high divorce rate and Facebook even implementing controls to prevent people formerly in a relationship to see each other’s photos post-breakup.
So what choices will you make this Valentines Day as you look for your Valentine? Will you go online or will you make the effort to break bread and understand those around you? For an individual like me who cherishes the Internet, I’d rather take the former this holiday season - for when you share your true self, that’s when you really begin to care.
Share your comments or Tweet back at me.
How can you fight the bullying culture?
Gay bullying is nothing new to this country as it’s been an issue for longer than a decade, most notably the death of Wyoming native Matthew Shepard in 1998. Times have certainly changed since then with the implementation of gay marriage laws in Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont in addition to various countries around the world but much has yet to be done, especially in California where we saw the passage of Proposition 8, a now unconstitutional law passed in 2008 that would have banned gay marriage in the Constitution of the state had it been written in.
The past month however has seen a rise in bullying in the LGBTQ community that we haven’t seen in awhile. From the death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi to 13-year old Asher Brown, people of all age have seen that the impacts of bullying affect everyone and spare the thoughts, emotions and feelings of nobody. In response, we’ve seen campaigns centered around “It Gets Better”, speeches and calls from gay and lesbian individuals who were lucky enough themselves to make it out of their tortured teenage years and live to tell their story about how they survived.
In looking at the struggles as a straight individual, I’m reminded of the scene from the film Milk (2008), where Harvey Milk in the middle of his campaign celebration fields a call from an anonymous man in Minnesota looking to come out but fearing the repercussions. I find this scene to be analogous of what is going on today — that because so many people are being bullied, hated on for their orientation, that more people will fear coming out, even though the likes of celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Anderson Cooper, Ellen DeGenres and others have shown that despite your sexual orientation, you can succeed. There are in effect, many people hiding in the closet who now will never come out for fear that people they know will kick them down the stairs, torment them psychologically and beat them to a pulp — and when you look at all this from an adolescent point of view, where those years are pervaded by confusion, misunderstanding and hatred, it only gets worse. At that age especially, people go after and try to destroy what they can’t understand. People are scared.
Thankfully to some degree, Facebook and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have teamed up to help bring light to these issues, with of course, hatred (most likely trolls) coming from all sides. The fight isn’t going to end any time soon, but one of the greatest ways to create a sense of understanding between all parties is to bring the culture to the forefront. Especially when all sides are looking for the same thing: belonging, love, and the ability to share one’s life with another individual, why not?
What can you do to bring advocacy today?
