social media

Trying to Date as 20-Something

Mary6 Comments

Dating sucks and I hate it. I hate the start of relationships where you have to get to know someone and trying to figure out the way they think, how to understand them, and just all those little things. I can’t think of anything about dating that I like. I can’t even count the number of times in a week where I want to call my mom and ask her to just arrange my marriage.

I was recently ghosted. Or maybe that’s still an occurring thing. I don’t really know how long of a process that typically is, but all I know is that I’m pretty pissed about it. Like really, you’re in your twenties, I’m willing to have a conversation, so let’s talk about it. I find myself to be a reasonable person, and ghosting makes me totally unreasonable. So to the guy that’s ghosting/ghosted me, if you’re reading this, I’m a catch and because of your unwillingness to have a conversation with me, you’re missing out boy. Also mom and dad- I don’t want to talk about it. I would be lying if I said I’ve never ghosted anyone, I mean I tried. I was unsuccessful because I feel like shit leaving someone in the dark like that.

I know that I’m a relatively easy person to date (at least in my opinion). I don’t require fancy dates (my favorite places are IHOP and Target) or even that much attention, a text a day suffices for me. However, I never seem to be enough for the boys that  pay attention to me, or I require too much. Honestly, the last guy who was actually my boyfriend couldn’t do enough for me so I broke up with him. That sounds really shitty, but he complained if I asked to go on a walk around the park, not even if we could get a coffee.

So I don’t understand why I find dating so complicated. I sometimes feel as if I have convoluted ideas behind dating. I can be quoted of saying “Did I miss the day in school where everyone learned to talk to people they’re attracted to?” Other than my lack of flirtation skills, I can’t get a guy to notice me. Well, I can, just not the ones that I want to, and I don’t know why that is.

I feel like I’m starting to get a little side-tracked (naturally) in this post. Really, the thing is, there is not one good thing about dating in your twenties. Tinder sucks and it’s how to meet some really shitty people. I would be curious to know if anyone has actually had good, continued success on the app, because I would say I had brief and okay success but now I will never use it again.

I’m not one to blame things on social media because I love it more than most other things. However, it does make dating harder. It makes reading into someone’s personal life a lot easier and actually talking to someone a lot more difficult. Like, if I just start seeing someone I am not about to tweet some T-Swift lyrics because that’s unfortunately the kind of thing that freaks guys out whether or not it has anything to do with them. They might not even follow me on social media yet and I won’t tweet it just in case they decide to creep. Fortunately, I’m not the type to get mad if a guy likes another girl’s picture, or retweets something, but there are people that get into actual fights over such things. While, I may find that little bit out there, it’s a real problem. Social media might be hurting our dating lives.

On the other hand, social media has done this awesome thing that it usually does, which is bring people together. I am curious to know if that works for people. I know a girl who started dating someone on Instagram, like they had mutual friends (I think) and they hit it off through comments. To me, that’s kinda crazy and I don’t think that happens a lot, but maybe I’m wrong. My goal is that an attractive man will see how hilarious I am on Twitter and slide into my DMs, I doubt it will happen but a girl can dream.

At the end of the day, my thoughts behind dating is that it sucks and I want an arranged marriage. No, not really, but it does suck. They’re are too many ways for it to go downhill. For someone like me, that is a tough thing to grasp sometimes. Post-graduation I would really like to have a steady man in my life that likes me and treats me well. Preferably, he has aspirations of things and goals he will obtain. Obviously, I’ll keep you posted on any male suiters (only after they know about the blog and they stick around past the “dating” phase of things).

What do you think about dating as a twenty-something?

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My Reaction to Essena O’Neill

Mary3 Comments

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In case you haven’t yet heard about Essena O’Neill, here is a BuzzFeed article that has all of the information collectively, or at least the best collective article I’ve seen.  If you don’t want to read it, she was an Australian beauty vlogger/model/Instagram personality who has recently “quit” social media, however, she is now running a blog, and has changed several of her Instagram captions to better explain what was happening in the picture, whether it was branding or how long it took her to pose for what was supposed to be a candid shot.

O’Neill wrote on several of her captions that she was paid to wear clothes and put them on Instagram but would never wear them out of the house. A lot of it went back to how she was almost sexualizing herself as a 15-16 year old girl. In her video she talks about how upset she was as a 12 year old, seeing people with thousands of followers and that’s what she wanted to be so she started cutting down on her size, measuring herself, doing what it took to be those people, at just twelve years old. This is so sad and scary to me, as my youngest sister is just 14 and I hate hearing things like that. I think it is almost because of this that she started to overly edit and pose for her photos. She created an image to be #goals and the person she always wanted to be, however it was entirely manipulated to become that person, it was never actually her.

To me, this idea is so interesting. I love social media, I love to research about it, I love how it connects people and how it is used for advertising. It’s fascinating.  The numbers also intrigue me, but it’s the meaning of the numbers that I find interesting. Each of those numbers is 1. a person, 2. add up to establish the “reputation” of the blogger/YouTuber/other social media “celebrity”.  It’s crazy to me how much of this could be manipulated, how many of these people we look at on Instagram/ YouTube/ blogs are faking it, or at least faking part of it.

I had heard that Dodie from doddleoodle posted a video response on her vlog channel, doddlevloggle about the subject, where she essentially said that you need to find the balance of who you are and branding yourself  and you  need to stay true to yourself, because you will not be able to live up to it, and I totally agree with that. My brand, if you can call it that, is me, one-hundred percent me, and my thoughts. Whenever I do something that’s not me,  I have to fix it because it makes me insanely anxious that  I am not being myself online. Like Dodie, I am an oversharer, so this is the perfect platform. She also went on to talk about how O’Neill is still going to be using social media as well, which isn’t bad, but she’s also not quitting.

I’m finding this whole discussion that social media is “bad” silly.  Social media is driving change throughout the advertising and marketing industry. You are ignorant to believe that if Zoella recommends a very specific store or if Bethany Mota promotes a product that hundreds upon hundreds of teenaged girls aren’t going out to buy it, why do you think so many YouTubers are now on the New York Times Bestsellers list? They have more influence than mainstream media cares to admit.  We live in a digital culture, social media has to be used, companies are going to thrive off of the “Insta-Famous” to promote their products and what it comes down to is the person who is doing the promoting and how they care to do it. If someone ever decides to pay me for a blog post, it will be clear that is a promotional post for a company, you don’t have to pretend it’s not a promotional things, people like it more when you’re upfront. Then you won’t have this anxiety that you aren’t being yourself and you are pretending to be the perfect person.

Since starting this post, her Instagram has been deleted. Maybe she is really trying to get rid of all social media, but her blog is still up. I don’t know. I understand where she is coming from, but social media will never go away. I feel bad that she struggled so much from her experiences with social media, but it will never go away. She wants people to connect over global issues rather than likes/followers/subscribers which makes sense, but I think you can do that without the worrying. She really emphasized the point that social media isn’t real, well I can’t say that I agree with that. It’s all how you decide to put words out and share yourself. I choose to be me, maybe I embellish my instagram captions (“lost in london” I wasn’t actually lost) but really the reality of social media is here to stay. While yes, we should put our phones away, trust me, it drives me crazy how attached I am to my phone as well as everyone else, but, we have them, we are on them, and it is part of our lives that will be here to stay.

Choose who you are going to be online, don’t be fake if it’s going to force you to internally combust. Take control of your life and who you are online.

Let me know your opinions in the comments, I look forward to reading them! Are you going to quit social media? I’m not, we are a generation of the internet, enjoy it, or don’t. That’s  your choice.

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Dead Conversations: Social Media and Personability.

Mary4 Comments

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I feel as if with social media there are so many dead conversations and empty days. While yes when you sit on your phone when you’re out to dinner you could very well be communicating with a whole slew of people, but what about the people who are right in front of you?

Something that always bothers me is when I go out with a group of friends and everyone is just on their phones, but I also know that I can be an offender of this as well, but I’m trying not to be. We get so caught up in what we might be missing that we forget to look at what’s right in front of us. Sometimes I feel like when I’m out with a group of people they’re looking for what’s better and that’s what they’re going to find on their phones. You’re with a whole group of people, why do you need to talk to more? What about the people right in front of you?

I think as Millennials there is that constant need to be connected, and I think that can get mixed up by what a connection is. A connection can be more than through a phone or computer, it’s even more personal in person which seems to have been forgotten a lot of the time. We become less of a person online and in return less present to those who are right in front of us, so we just keep becoming lesser and lesser. People bully online because they can’t physically see the consequences, they don’t think of the person on the receiving end as a person. It’s not the same as communicating face to face, it’s not a bad way of communicating, I know it’s actually a great way. However, not when there are other people that you are supposed to be engaging with around.

Since I’ve been away I’ve noticed that people are less attached to the phones, especially the people who didn’t pay for data here. While, yes sometimes there is that search for wifi a lot of the time, when it’s not immediately available people are connect with what’s around them rather than what’s on the screen in front of them.

It’s important to use this new technology and talk to people, however, it’s also important to remember those who are right in front of us.  Remember to put down the phone, put away the laptops and tablets, and connect with everyone around you. Whether that’s a night out with friends or just a quick coffee, those connections are just as important as the ones you’re making on the phone. Now, I’m not saying, never use your phone in public, I would be a hypocrite to say that. I’m not saying make a connection with every person you encounter, I’m just saying make time with the people around you count.  This is something I need to get better with myself too. I know that I have a habit of being on my phone way too much, and it’s something I need to try and stop too, but I think this needs to be a group effort, something everyone is working towards.

The Technology Revolution

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As a millennial technology is obviously a part of my everyday life and unless there is some sort of internet shutdown (like the government shutdown last year haha) it always will be a part of my life. To me the lack of understanding to why technology and social media in the older generations is almost becoming unacceptable.

Recently I’ve been working back at the internship I had over the summer so I’ve been listening to podcasts because it does get boring sitting at a cubicle doing little jobs people just need done while I’m here until tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been listening to Ear Biscuits with Rhett and Link who are two YouTubers of the original generation as in YouTubers who started before the partnership program and you could make a good deal of money from it. I had never watched their videos but I’ve heard of their podcast and it features a lot of ones I watch or heard of so I thought I would listen and it’s very interesting. They talk in depth not only about each person’s life but they talk about the lack of understanding of the media and YouTube and I just don’t understand how traditional media is not embracing this. Yes, these people are actually a threat to them because they do appeal to a younger audience but that doesn’t mean that they can be ignored.

Traditional media hates a threat which is what social media is becoming to them, they can’t keep up. There is this threat that these young people who they suddenly can’t relate to and they don’t know how to handle it. Not only can you reach the news in a matter of seconds, I won’t turn on the news to learn anything I’ll go see the live coverage on Google News from twenty different news sites at once. No one is addressing this change, I’m studying communications and I haven’t learned anything about social media or how to handle it other than don’t put anything bad on it. Sure I’m two years in but you think more than an online journalism class this should be way more prevalent from the start.

The fact that the first thing I do in the morning is check twitter and read theSkimm and maybe check instagram or Timehop, I don’t worry about turning on the TV or finding a newspaper to read. Sure those are great forms of information but that’s not how the world is going to be ten years from now, hell maybe even five. The physical news is a dying form of news and as a communications major that’s really scary especially since no one is preparing us for the changing world. I started writing this today at lunch after listening to all these podcasts and I cannot believe how ignorant traditional media is towards these new forms. A society is ever changing and with the new technology that we are being offered we should learn these new forms and use them to the best of our ability. Rather than ignoring and trying to resist these changes take them and face them head one.

Logan tweeted this evening about how one of her newspaper textbooks is from 1998 (I might have the same one, I haven’t looked closely enough) and this is just ridiculous. They aren’t even in the same century as us, the book is 17 years old and it’s supposed to be good enough to still teach us today. The X Generation is so afraid of this change and how it’s making everything change so quickly that they are depriving us from learning properly. This is a generation that is discovering how to use things like twitter and tumblr and even YouTube as a news resource and the threat alone scares those who are in a place of position now where they have to criticize it. It’s sad to see things like this not being utilized but that something that we are going to change and embrace and if they can’t join us they are going to be left in the dust due to their inability to keep up with the times. I guess I can’t complain though, I hope that means more job opportunities for me.

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Kids of the Internet

MaryLeave a comment

It’s 11:20 pm and I am just now starting today’s blog post and as I write this sentence I have no idea what direction or topic this blog post will gravitate towards, I’m just hoping my fingers find a topic pretty quickly. Okay got it.

Today we have what I like to call the kids of the internet. This is more than the Shaytard children, the singing duo of Sophia Grace and Rosie, Baby Glitter, or even Chloe the face of meme’s everywhere, but we have everyone’s child. I am not saying this is wrong at all, it’s just very different. Right now for my #tbt or throwback Thursdays for those of you who don’t use Instagram, but they’re from like last year, tops they’re from two years ago. I don’t have baby pictures readily available for me to post every week, however if that’s still a trend when these kids are older all they’ll have to do is log on to their mom’s/dad’s/any family member’s Facebook, Instagram, or twitter and they’ll have a plethora to choose from.

I think it’s interesting that most kids born today and from now on most of their lives will be documented on the internet. From first words, to steps, to first day of school, to last day of school, every second that could possibly be documented will be. I think this is great for memories. I can’t go back and look on my first steps (at least not that I know of), I only know my first words because my mom told me, I think it’s great that all of that information will be readily available for kids to find when they want to know it, however I don’t think we are valuing moments because of this new ability to record everything.

Do you have a memory from your childhood that you just cherish? There’s no photo evidence of it, but it’s just one of those things that you will always remember, kids now will have less of those. I know my parents forgot the camera a lot of the time, but I don’t think negatively impacted my experience doing things. I was always relieved that my parents weren’t the ones flashing the camera all the time obnoxiously obstructing everyone else’s views at elementary school concerts.  Now that’s every parent because there’s such a good camera on a cell phone and that’s always with them.

I’m interested to see how social media impacts today’s children when they’re older mostly just because it’s all right there for anyone to see already, what about when everything you post right now is readily available for them to see?

Social Media’s Affect on Society

MaryLeave a comment

Well the title makes this sound like a research paper, it’s not. I’m not googling anything unless I have to.

First and foremost this is the video that inspired me to do this post so go check that out first please: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

Anway, social media has a huge impact on everyone’s daily life, if you’re reading this social media impacts you, don’t try and deny it. Social media has allowed us to connect with people that normally we would never be able to. Looking at this week alone there are people reading from six different countries on three different continents, all time statistics are even crazier, twenty-six different countries, six continents. I don’t know people from all over the world, I don’t even know people on the other side of the country! It’s amazing what the internet can do, I’ve talked to people from all around the world on here and on tumblr. It amazes me. Social media and technology also give us the ability to communicate with loved ones whenever we choose. I can get on a Google Hangout with my friends in four different states and we can all talk to each other at the same time. My mom can read this in Pennsylvania and that won’t change when I go for a semester abroad my junior year.

On the other hand social media is destroying our world. I hate it. It’s hard to go out to a dinner without having people texting, checking twitter/facebook/instagram, replying to emails, or even talking on the phone. I know I’m guilty of this too, but I’m really trying to stop. It’s gotten to the point now where I go to church and see this happening and I’m just disappointed, it can really wait. We can’t even sit in front of the tv with our families and be antisocial together anymore, instead someone has an ipad, another has a phone, another  a laptop so you’re all “watching” tv together, but who’s actually paying attention to the show let alone engaging with each other.

I can sit here check Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, my email, Twitter, anything I want to and I have yet to talk to a single person in the Starbucks I’m writing at with the exception of the man who took and made my order. Right now it’s Frappucino happy hour so there’s about 20 other people in the store but I chose the back table so I wouldn’t have to talk or make eye contact with anyone. This is terrible! On my way over I said hi to a girl, but she immediately broke eye contact and was checking her phone. We have developed this society where we aren’t supposed to talk to anyone or look at anyone and all keep to ourselves. This is so selfish! I say it to myself all the time to try and make someone’s day, but you never know if your smile can change a life.

Social media, what is supposed to help us be more social, is really making us more antisocial. You can be with your friends but instead of seeing how they’re doing and what’s new with them, you’re looking on instagram to see what’s new with your other friends. Instead of asking your significant other about their life, your stalking your ex on Facebook to see if you’re life is better without them.

I think I’m going to challenge myself this summer to take an hour of free time with someone I care about without all of these distractions. Instead, I’ll make breakfast with my sister, drink coffee with my friends, or read a book distraction free. I’ll ignore all the new engagements on Facebook and focus on my non-existent relationship. I’m tired of being antisocial because of the social media.

If anyone wants to join me maybe we can make a real challenge out of it. Let me know in the comments, also put there what you think about social media I’m curious about different opinions.

XOXO,

Mary.