Growing up without computers, smartphones, and the internet, being in the spotlight was a little different. If you had a big accomplishment or did something noteworthy, it would show up in your local newspaper. Mom would clip out the articles and put it in a scrapbook. My mom framed some and hung them on the wall.
Today we have nothing but spotlights. Popularity contests on steroids. Best of the Barn contests online. 3 or 4 different magazines or companies will put out these popularity polls to gain followers and pretend there is something magical about the selected. This is not a new practice and has been done over the decades in many forms.
It is different today with social media. We tend to bash who we don’t like and praise who we do. All from the safety of your phone or computer. We rarely want to hear criticism and when we do we can go online and complain how upset it all makes us.
This has a lot to do with narcissism, low self esteem, and even greed. With multitude of supplements, companies will do whatever is needed to promote their product. Even when plenty of people don’t use it and still end up on top.
Spotlights are important. We should always give praise where praise is due. We need to tell kids who don’t make it to the top to keep working hard and trying. We need to promote all the kids that put in the effort in their talents, theids who create better worlds by their ideas and actions.
You cannot frame a social media post and put it in a scrapbook or hang it on a wall. Next time you get a spotlight moment or asked to respond to the best of the barns in your social media feed.
Remember, being popular on social media is a lot like being popular at the lunch table in the psych ward. Everybody has a few screws loose, so take the results with a grain of salt.
“We either choose to live our life on our terms and be happy or we will end up sad, lonely, with a record number of followers on social media. Choose wisely.” – Jeremy Workman
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