1:00PM
I really appreciate when someone is good at what they do. I was just reading an essay about social networks and the inherent status-seeking competition that the popular ones create and I just kept feeling so much admiration for the author who wrote it. It felt as if sentence after sentence I was hitting a new epiphany. I also enjoyed reading the way the author strung the words together, with the syntax, cadence, and cultural references. In a way, it challenged me and soothed me at the same time.
I think how sometimes when someone does something well, I shake my head and bask in the glow of a genius at work. I think how other times I will stew, grumble, and ruminate on the jealousy that I feel but don’t admit. I wonder sometimes why it’s one way or the other.
Regardless, how this person wrote had me glued to the seat (as if I would be doing anything else sitting behind a computer?). It really opened my eyes to how social networks are places for social competition, for status seeking, for proving to other how good one is at a particular task. Twitter’s task is crafting witty 140-280 character messages. TikTok’s task is crafting playful and creative lip-synching videos. Vine’s task (back in the day) was creating short, often comical, videos. Podcast’s task is to create, I believe, profound, funny, and/or raw long-form audio.
Perhaps, as the author says, status seeking is just part of being a human and that it will happen no matter where we go. A part of me really feels tired when I think about playing these games online, or the adult versions where we boast about our jobs, houses, awards, etc. I feel annoyed when I think about bragging to the world about how many places I’ve worked, how many countries I’ve seen, how many widgets I’ve produced. I kind of shrug my shoulders and don’t see the point. And yet, I love when I come across someone who is very good at what they do, and admittedly, sometimes use those third-party credentials as a way to verify their skills and trustworthiness.
I’m likely to follow this author and read a lot more of their stuff. In that way, perhaps I boost their social status, adding them another follower. Maybe social status and the game for it is not a bad thing, it’s just a thing, and we can see it as good or bad, when really it’s good and bad. That’s a topic for another day.
1:10PM
