QUANTITY KILLED QUALITY
Post-modern pop-cultural preconceptions of post theory and other social media mumblings.
Is it just me, or has the quantity of social media content these days become so much more important to us than the quality of it, that it seems like we’re just two unfollows away from adding the line “Post 10 selfies by THIS Friday!” to our list of things we can’t forget to do if our fucking house is ever on fire? Number 1: Grab our toasted-caramel colored maltipoos Khaleesi and John Snow out of their respective bamboo habitats. Number 2: Remember to take that old photo of Nana and Grampa out of the desk drawer (note: all social media logins are written on the back). Number 3: Make sure to take a picture of that PB&J you were making when all the smoke alarms went off and post it to Facebook with the hashtags ‘Hungerpangs’, ‘Blessed’ and ‘HouseFyre’.
Nana hates what you’ve become btw. God rest her soul.
The tweets, pics and mindless blurbs that dominate our feeds, stories and DMs these days can aptly be described as substance abuse. Which in a weird way explains why we’re so addicted to it. We’re so strung out on dopamine, instant gratification and constant distraction that we’ve completely neglected the baby in the other room for the past week and now it’s literally climbing the walls around us. Don’t worry Sick Boy, all I’m trying to do is help you understand that The Name of the Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Look, don’t get me wrong folks, I get it. I do. Coming up with quality content to post everyday is hard. If Michelangelo had an instagram account, he could put up an absolute fucking masterpiece once every other month and still only see a fraction of the likes, follows, and mentions bestowed upon any 20 something who ever posted a picture of her and her bestiiiiiees at the beach. #BeachLife #SpringBreak
We glorify wealth and idealize celebrity and then forget that having either does not necessarily mean you have any actual value. In fact, a bit more on the money would be to say that the assholes with all the wealth, typically traded their self-worth to get it in the first place.#Meta I mean, take at Donald Trump(please ameright?). To paraphrase one of my favorite writers, ‘when you go that far out of your way to advertise the fact that you’re a billionaire, well, you’re obviously bankrupt in all the ways that really matter.’
Look, there are those who would argue this country was built on dreams, and so illusion is its legacy. Fine, but there must be a middle ground between self-promotion and self-respect right? Let’s just all just collectively acknowledge that what we wanted was an enjoyable, brief diversion from reality and a means to sell some hand-made trinkets, but what we got was a FourLoco fueled, 24/7 meme and tweet competition got the bottom between us and every attention-starved twitter bot coming outa Russia with love. It’s too hard a battle and frankly, I just haven’t got the time… It’s Friday night and I still have to dial in all my auto-posts for next week before I update my blog and check today’s hashtag trends. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
– Jash
