Recently I was a part of a web design course. The instructor, a young lady who is a lifestyle blogger, was very much into social media and kept stressing its importance at every possible stage; how important it is to get ‘likes’ and for people to comment, how crucial it is for SEO that we post multiple times a day, how many words etc. etc. As always, since I don’t accept anything very easily without questioning it [people love me or hate me for that], it got me constantly contemplating as to how important it really is or would be to the larger scheme of things.
On the last day of class, we had to present our sites. A lovely older lady, who had a very quiet and mild demeanour throughout the term, was the last one up. After energetic, vibrant and loud sites ranging from music, ballet, design, real estate, fashion and lifestyle etc. she showed us her web blog, based on theology and how God can be found where least expected. She was greeted with some criticism based on how she is not driving traffic to her page and how she is not doing anything to keep the people who visit her site there and lack of focus to do so. To which she very meekly tried to explain that it did not bother her. She wanted her site to be a channel and lead her viewers wherever they wanted to go. She did not care if they decided not to stay longer on her site or come back to it.
Most people including the instructor did not get it and this started a really lively dialogue on how important it is for us to follow every trend thrown our way. Do we need to get that company in Timbuktu to churn out our Instagram likes? Is it not more important to rather have a few meaningful comments and conversations? Is it not better to post when we really have something to say rather than forcing some garbage out every day, or multiple times a day? Like everything this made me question what we have become as a people, our authenticity as to who we really are and how important it has become for us to get on to any bandwagon that comes our way, without giving it due thought and consideration.
No offense meant to any Social Media geek out there or any blogger who celebrates his 1,000 or 100,000 page likes on FB or Instagram, but as far as it goes for me, you will only hear from me when I have something to share or say; because I want to and not because I have to. I will not celebrate mere numbers but people and great conversations or collaborations I get out of it. I will post as many words as I feel appropriate and not 300+ because Google likes it [btw this post is 500+]. And I will only ‘like’ or ‘love’ when I actually feel that way.
I like my social media interactions, I have started to enjoy sharing my thoughts on my blog, I am loving working on my site, which is like a visual narrative for me, and I am not going to let stats and that ‘bandwagon effect’ steal that joy away from me.
