Blogging and The Future of Social Media

Blogging in 2023 feels... weird.

I know, I'm a millennial--all this Information Age/social media shit should come naturally to me, and it does--too naturally.

I used to write and publish chapters of my childhood fantasy novels on blogs. I used to write and publish fan art of my own original characters on blogs (as a writer, you got to be your own biggest fan sometimes.) Myspace was overflowing with my adolescent poetry. Early Facebook blogs housed shrines to my anime character crushes and stylishly disheveled scene kid idols.

Yes, I was aware people used blogs to sell products and promote companies--but those practices were not a part of my American teenage world. To this day, they feel a little like unrelated product placement in a therapy session: viable, but not quite right.

In a broader sense, what I'm getting at is more of the disappearing boundary between the personal and professional online. Social media can now be a career not just in terms of promoting goods and services of companies online, but in terms of individuals living their lives on display. Influencing is now (and has been) a viable career option for many.

As an artist and a consumer, I'm torn about this.

On the one hand, everyone has their own platform and can create whatever they please.

On the other hand, everyone has their own platform and can create whatever they please.

It's not just that I'm salty I went to art school and paid good money to work on my craft while youtubers sold their soul to the internet and got a book deal (okay, fine, I'm a little salty), it's also that popularity is now equivalent to wealth. Fashion is now equivalent to wealth. Emo is now literally a lifestyle--especially if that's one of your main hashtags!

Naturally, the attractive and the stylish have always had an advantage throughout history long before the internet--what's good, Natural Selection?!--but, this appears to be the case now more than ever.

People have careers based entirely on lip-synching and contouring--and I'm happy for them, but what's next?

What of the countless inconvenient truths not just of the individuals we idolize one day and burn at the stake the next, but of human nature? What of greed? What of the hero complex? What of honesty?

Who are we, who are we trying to be, and where are we going?