People call stuff like Lemmy, 4chan or Reddit social media too but to me it's always these Facebook or Instagram style self-presentation platforms. All of them suck ass.
But that's not what most social media facilitates. The mainstream platforms were about staying in touch with friends and family, once, but now they are about parasocial celebrity worship and broadcasting your life in a fake light of endless positivity. All the while secretly hating the habit of feigned contentment, never realising everyone else is doing the same.
Social media could be about sharing our passions, forming real and meaningful connections with other individuals around the world, as well as truly coming to know ourselves as a species on a global scale.
Some small parts of it are exactly that.
Those are the parts I'm trying to perpetuate and nurture, and though they are a tiny part of the whole thing right now, it does mean it isn't all bad.
I think this lesson can be valuable but I also feel like it can be flippant to the point of implying everyone's situation is equally bad or good, which is very dismissive of those in truly bad positions in life.
Unless you're a republican from South Dakota, then you shoot the dog and dump it in a gravel pit and publicize it so others can be envious of how truly American you are.
As someone who was poor and now is not poor, that’s bullshit. I was for sure envious of well-off folks around me. Now I absolutely don’t take it for granted.
I think its a valid example though. Sometimes poor people can save up to go out once and splurge on lobster. People tend to post the highlights of their lives on social media. I think the point here is to not buy into it so much