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How We Got Social Media All Wrong
It was supposed to be for somebody, now it’s for everybody.
I was listening to some music the other day when I realized that we got social media all wrong. The song was Waiting for Somebody by Paul Westerberg, a song from the Singles Soundtrack and something that most people probably wouldn’t remember. It’s a good track and one that Westy reportedly wrote for someone else, which makes it all the more interesting with such an aptly named title. But it got me thinking about the difference between “Somebody” and “Some body,” and I suddenly thought I solved the problem of social media.
Social media gives us the opportunity to look into the lives of people who we wouldn’t normally have the chance to. A famous football player gives you a shot of their off-season routines, a singer shows off where they vacation or an actress gives you a glimpse of the inside of their house is the type of thing that, only a few decades ago, was nothing more than a pipe dream. Even rarer was to actually communicate directly with someone who is famous; but social media gives us that opportunity. But when you ask people why they have social media, they hardly ever say that this is the reason they are social media users.
