My Story: Understanding How Deceptive Social Media Can Be

LM continues the discussion of social media’s impact and influence.

Transcript:

LM: Then social media. That was just like a really big factor with everything I do in my life. I like to stay on social media before, like a lot, because that was like the biggest way to connect and stay, it’s like how you stay relevant. I hate using that word, but you know, you’re connected with a bunch of your friends, and especially with the pandemic now, your only subject is social media and Facetime or whatever. But even before the pandemic started, I was really obsessed with social media [laughs] and I was like trying to build like a career off of it and so, you know.

But the more I was there, the more I realize like how unrealistic people’s lives are, not just their bodies but their lives in general and you know, then I think of myself and wish I had their life and stuff like that but you know, that’s behind the scenes, that’s behind a photo, which is so one-dimensional, you know? You don’t know what’s happening behind that. You can presume they’re having a happy life but then in reality, they’re just like doing this, not because they want to but because they have to, you know? So, I just think social media for me is such a [pause] such a toxic place, which is such a cliché thing to say because a lot of people say that, but you know, I never realized like the extent to which it was because you know, I use TikTok.

Last summer, I downloaded it because everyone was doing it and then like a few of my videos blew up and you know, I was just like promoting small businesses or whatever and then, so most of the comments are great, which is awesome. They were like, oh, “Thanks for supporting.” But then you have like a bunch of haters, which I’m like, like, there’s bound to be haters, obviously there’s trolls everywhere but I think that it’s so like, how do I describe it? It’s so devastating to see just people spreading hate, you know, whatever chance they get, because there’s already so much hate in this world already, like what, kindness is freeing, I always tell myself that. And it’s like seeing these people just like hate on you and I see other haters comment on like a girl’s body or the way she looks when the intention of the video is not supposed to be that it’s just supposed to be like her like feeling confident with herself, and then you have yeah, as I said before, you have haters. And yeah, you have people that defend the girl, defend the creator but you see like the comments, and you see there’s like 10,000 likes on it. Then you’re like wow, there are 10,000 that are horrible, [laughs] you know?

So, that was basically like the main points I wanted to touch upon. Just like, social media sucks [laughs] and I like really wish that, you know, this pandemic didn’t occur because I would not be on it as much as I am now and it just really affects one’s mentality, yeah.