I don't know how many of you have seen this. I just want to say that I think it is ridiculous and I don't really agree with the message. While I think that this video is good in some ways I think that the argument being made is very one-sided. There are obviously so many good things about social media that this video doesn't acknowledge; people meet other people, make lasting friendships, fall in love and the like, all because of social media. It's actually pretty amazing! And what's so bad about updating your status or sharing photos with people? Everyone gets so pissed about selfies and self promotion. I could write another post just on the subject of selfies, but I'll spare you. Instead I'll leave you with a couple of quotes. The first is from Ezra Koenig, the singer of Vampire Weekend:
“I’m definitely pro-selfie. I think that anybody who’s anti-selfie is really just a hater. Because, truthfully, why shouldn’t people take pictures of themselves? When I’m on Instagram and I see that somebody took a picture of themselves, I’m like, ‘Thank you.’ I don’t need to see a picture of the sky, the trees, plants. There’s only one you. I could Google image search ‘the sky’ and I would probably see beautiful images to knock my socks off. But I can’t Google, you know, ‘What does my friend look like today?’ For you to be able to take a picture of yourself that you feel good enough about to share with the world – I think that’s a great thing.”
I posted this quote to Facebook a couple of months ago and it was pretty nice to change some people's opinions about selfies. A friend of mine responded with this genius comment:
"I really don't understand the hate for them. We spend all this time telling people to 'be who you are' and 'be different' 'believe in yourself' and the moment that someone tries to show the world what their own definition of them self is they get hated on for it? What other medium do you get to demonstrate to the world so easily, 'this is how I define myself, not how others define me'?"
Ok, so I know that some people abuse their selfie privileges, and others need to spend more time away from a screen, and kids need rules about when and how they should use electronics, but when you get past that, ain't nothin' wrong with passing the time scrolling through your phone while you're on the bus or waiting for class to begin or on your lunch break. And even when you're with friends/family I think it's A-OK to whip out your phone to document, as long as you're not being completely anti-social. It bothers me when people automatically assume that someone is completely disinterested if they're on their phone when out with a group. Usually when I'm with friends/family we're showing each other photos or videos or games when we pull out our phones, so it can be a really neat tool to strike up conversations. This commercial is spot on.
Anyway. I'm obviously a child of the internet and I love it.
How about you?
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