Episode 24: Rage, Powerlessness, & The Internet 2: How Many Likes Is Your Life Worth?

"Feed yourself with my life's work/how many likes is my life worth?"

                                     -The Chainsmokers, "Sick Boy"

    If you've read episode 17, you've seen many crack at social media and the internet in general and what it does to people. How it changes them and puts their flaws under a spotlight, and exacerbates them. I recently had an idea, inspired by the lyric above, that I thought constituted a whole sequel blog episode. Here at Mr. Hardy Saves The World, I pride myself on my ability to criticize society and speak about things people often don't talk about or really think about even though they're all around us. So, I guess the main meat of this blog episode will be using that lyric to drive my point around.

Feed yourself with my life's work

    The internet has put media and art on a pedestal it had never prior experienced in human history. Things like that are a click away, and entertainment has never been easier.  

    People center their whole lives, their whole professional careers, over an art form. And that's not a new thing. There have always been actors, artists, authors, musicians, etc. But in the past, the work these people made was only accessible in certain ways. Now, with the internet and other stuff, it's everywhere.

    You don't have to go to a play to see an actor. Just turn on the TV. You don't need to go to a museum to see some art, just Google it. You don't need to go to a library or bookstore to get a book, just get it on your phone or order it online - you can even listen to a book if you want. You don't have to go to a concert to hear musicians, just go to Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, or one of many other platforms that host music.

     Feeding yourself with someone's life's work - that alone isn't the issue. People make art for it to be enjoyed. The problem is feeding yourself for free - because the advent of the internet also meant the advent of a new form of piracy.

    Piracy is such a widely spread thing, and I'm sure we've all taken part in it in some way or another. You've probably watched a a movie on some sketchy site, downloaded music from some kind of downloader, or gotten some kind of bootleg game so you didn't have to pay for the real deal.

   This is the bad aspect of feeding yourself with someone's life's work. They didn't pour their efforts into their work for you to steal it. But the internet makes it so easy to make loot of someone's passion.

How many likes is my life worth?

    Social media also makes us crave attention. Across all kinds of networks, people can give you likes and reactions to what you post. You feel good when you get a good amount of likes and reactions and feel bad when you don't get much or any. People build influencer careers over the whole idea of getting big attention. They literally get paid for people seeing them.

    Social media makes people depend on this attention. It can hurt when you don't get it. I even feel bad when one of my posts doesn't get noticed, especially if I think it was a pretty good one. I even find that the reactions of some people mean more to me than those of others. I click on my reactions to see who is reacting and how they're reacting.

    I don't like that I do this. I don't like the need for validation of a few colorful dots on a phone screen. It speaks to nothing about who I am as a person. It is an incredibly superficial thing, and it sucks to me that our society puts so much stock into how we perform on the internet.

     I've had people who know me decline friend requests. I've had people I admire and respect ignore me. I've had friends block me or unfriend me completely out of the blue. Social media makes things hurt worse, and presents new problems into our social lives, which especially hurts to people who already have a hard time with their social life as it is.

Anyway, see you next week!