Want to know why you like social media?
It’s not about personal brading. Most people ruin theirs.
It’s not about networking or making friends. Real life’s matter more.
It’s not about making money or being popular either. Most people never achieve either.
No, it’s about superheroes.
You have a normal life, with a normal job. You deal with human problems like making rent, putting up with your boss, and driving through traffic. Your powers are great cooking skills, awesome mom speed, and super sales intelligence.
But when no one’s looking, you become “writerbabe”, or “meloncamp”.
Why is this so appealing?
Because you choose what your powers are.
You get to be super-friendly, super-insightful, super-social, super-funny or super-sexy. Even if you’re not in real life.
Keep showing your powers, we’ll play along as long as you’re authentic.
Bottom line: You decide what you think it’s best about you. That’s a lot of you’s. No wonder we like it.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Carlos. When you take a step back and think about it – social media is pretty (extremely vain). Like you said, ‘there are a lot of you’s’ – it’s ALL about you. The challenge is, making the stuff about you not about you. Turning your experiences, your ideas, your insight, into something of value to the community – turning ME into WE.
The thing that kept me away from Twitter for so long was that my entire thought process was ‘who cares what everyone is doing all the time’ – and I still think that, I don’t care what you’re doing all the time, just like you don’t care about my daily routine. But when social media is really used the ‘right’ way (if there is a right way) – your able to relate personal thoughts and ideas to the community – you become an expert even when you technically aren’t, as you put it, you become SUPER.
This is an awesome comment as well. I agree with you, but I have to clarify, this isn’t a post about the “usefulness” of social media. It’s just about feelings. What we all feel sometimes when we can’t wait to get back into Twitter or blogging where we can say what we think it’s best about us.
PS: Twitter kept me away for a long time because of that same reason too
This is terrific post. I love the idea of superheroes. I love the idea that there are people pursuing passions and fighting for what they believe in. And you’re right — maybe we all are superheroes, behind the mask that is social media. But that’s also I think where the idea of dual identities come into play.
I really do believe that you get a deeper look at a person through social media — on twitter, through a blog post, you get to know the person’s deeper thoughts, what they love, what motivates them, and why they do what they do. Instead of just seeing them, you find out the “why” behind it. That’s what I love — that connecting on a deeper level.
But I don’t think that this is all there is to a person; I think that the person they are online — as wonderful as it is — it’s only part of them. There’s that other part that, as you say, leads that “other life,” that “normal life,” with social media maybe enhancing the better qualities. I don’t mean to say that I think there are two separate people — one online and one offline — not at all. I just think that there are layers to a person and I’m not entirely convinced you can really know a person as only one or the other.
Sorry for the tangent, but your post really got me thinking. Thanks for another great post, Carlos!
Wow Susan, thanks a lot for your comment. It’s jusat as you say. This is just a layer, only one side.
I believe that the connections you, me and every other awesome person from this microcommunity that we belong to (we all know which people I’m talking about) are incredible, in the way that we all pursue the same objective: to grow. That’s an objective I don’t share with any other group of people in my life.
It’s our own little League of Growth if you will.
Thanks for your comment Susan, it was awesome.
As I was reading this post, I found myself nodding in agreement with everything you said. Social media allows us to be the things we can’t be in real life. It’s kind of like moving somewhere new where nobody knows you. If you really want to, you can completely change and no one will know. You can become a better version of yourself. The Internet provides us with a similar opportunity. Who we present to the digital world is mostly up to us.
For me, it’s also about personal fulfillment. To be able to write and have people read what I have to say and connect with it is something I would love to do in real life. I’m not at that place yet, but my blog is allowing me to experience those things in the digital world. So yeah, it’s nice to become our superhero selves for a while, as long as we’re still ourselves, and as long as we don’t lose touch with reality. Great post Carlos!
This comment is the bomb. I love the analogy with moving to a new place. It’s exactly that. Also I never thought about social media as a place to “experience” things we wouldn’t be able to in real life. You’re so insightful Sam, I’m glad to have met you. Thanks for your words!
Carlos this is an interesting idea. It’s as though we almost have an ‘alter ego’ online or that we can be superheroes–take away from the regular mundane and schedule of everyday life. However, does this mean that we’re not authentic online? The people I choose to interact with online, I know it’s close to who they are. However, it’s true that they may not reveal all their deepest secrets or talk with them face-to-face (sometimes) to see their mannerisms and characteristics. Both of which I think really help define a person.
Does being a superhero online take away authenticity? Do some people use their online identity to escape? Can we ever know or validate this?
{Food for Thought}
Oh, most people are authentic online. At least that’s what people that don’t try to brand themselves too much, come off as.
The thing is that we can’t be judged in the online world the same way we’re on the offline world. Since we choose what to say about us, we can show all those things about us that we feel the people in the real world are missing.
It’s all authentic. But with a little more time to choose.
Thanks for this, I’ll continue to think about it!
Interesting post! Great how you create so much debate with such a short post
I love it. I think you are definitely right and some people like to make themselves seem like a “superhero” online and through their “personal brand.” I wrote a post on this – is personal branding really authentic? Or are you just getting to see what they want to show, the best side of them, or what they consider themselves to be an expert in? I think, though, I read somewhere: social media exposes what you ARE. If you aren’t being authentic, eventually it will show through…it’s hard to keep up a facade like that.
Absolutely. Your atuthenticity, as well as your unauthenticity, will eventually show through. Always.
Brand yourself as anything you want, we are the judges in the end. And we’ll believe you only when that’s actually true. We can tell.
Thanks for the compliments! Love your comments Akhila!
I’m a bit torn by all this b/c I’d like to think I use social media primarily as a tool to network and build my personal brand authentically. I also really like Matt’s insights with respect to taking our own content and turning the lens so that it can potentially enable others to experience this learning process with us, and in doing so hopefully think about things that help them evaluate their own lives.
I think if I really wanted to be a superhero or someone I’m not I’d join an e-wrestling federation –> http://community.primetimecentral.net/ (try those on for size
)
Maybe I’m in the minority or maybe my own vision and narcissism make me incapable of seeing the truth. Like Akhila alluded to, I think you have a real gift that you can inspire such insightful commentary and discussion with so few words. Keep rockin’ it Carlos!
Ryan,
I’m not saying we can’t network or improve our personal brand. I know you do both very well. But let’s be honest. Not everyone uses Twitter, blogs or Facebook the way you and me do. It’s just another side of their social life, it’s just another hobby.
I think you show your best powers in social media. Or at least you don’t show all of them in real life. Hey, I’m there too.
Like I said above, it’s all about feelings. Giving someone that what you think people in your life are missing from you.
Thanks for not agreeing Ryan. We all grow that way.
The absence of expectations or our past becomes appealing in social media. Offline, we can be read like an open book, sometimes feeling limited in our ways to break out of what we’re expected to be.
Online, it’s not exactly a mask, but it’s something like that. We get to be who we want to be. Question is: why can’t we do that in our real lives? Why do we assume we can’t be real life sexy, real life insightful, real life witty? We just assume we can’t and move on.
If we stay authentic and people think we’re insightful, sexy, and witty online, then we have it in us. What’s stopping us from being that way offline? Hm.
Let me disagree, or maybe just explain why we can’t and will never be that way in real life.
Social media shows only one side of us, and not only that, it shows a premeditated one. The reason why we can’t expect to be in real life the same way we’re online, is because we are constantly saying things about ourselves, with the way we dress, the way we move, the way we talk, with our past (first impressions are too powerful).
What stops us is the improvisation. We don’t ahve time to be anything but oruselves. We may, and we will, show our super powers offline too. But that’s never the only side that we’ll show. Our humanity, our normality and flaws will always show up too. And it’s ok. you can’t be Superman all day long.
Funny, because I never thought of being a superhero or portraying myself as anything but me. I would say that the only difference between the me on twitter and the me in real life is that if you were to put me in a room full of people I don’t know I would be a wallflower. But, on Twitter, hiding behind my computer I can skip the wallflower part and go straight to the bubbly me you would see after you get to know me. I don’t think of myself as being a superhero. I’m just me.
But, given what you’ve said, I think social media still allows you to be your BEST you – the bubbly friendly outgoing you – the one ‘people would know if they GOT to know you’. Social media allows for that transparency, you can be more open because there is a lack of judgment – so in a way, I think the web allows you to be your most SUPER self.
Now carrying that over to the ‘real world’ – there in lies the real challenge. For example, I can talk about change for a month on my blog, but that’s only the first step, what’s next? What will we do in our real off-the-web lies to make a difference? Just something to think about.
It is you! Of course it’s you. But just by having the chance to proofread before you comment, before you tweet, gives you the power to choose your words carefully, to show an improved version of yourself. It gives you those superpowers.
No one goes around in social media showing what they don’t want to. But they do in real life.
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I think being a superhero online, helps you be a better person in real life.
Sure, you have hundreds of great connections and “friends” online, but the real test is when you take the persona that you’ve created online and plop it smack dab in the middle of reality.
Are you who you say you are? Are you just as funny? Just as insightful?
Or are you a scam? a schmuck? completely fake?
Yes, social media allows us to be, “to be super-friendly, super-insightful, super-social, super-funny or super-sexy. Even if you’re not in real life” but this won’t get you anywhere in real life if who you are online doesn’t mirror who you are in reality.
If the internet comes crashing down and you have to face these people in real life, are you going to be who they expect you to be/how you’ve portrayed yourself?
I loved this comment. Your approach is so smart, and I totally agree.
I don’t think people are fake online. But I think we all would like for people in our real life to see all these “powers” we have, that they sometimes overlook. That’s why social media sometimes has this therapeutic effect. For example, we can show the world that we are not “just” a common employee that can follow orders. We have so much more, and through social media, you get to put it out there right away.