Disclaimer:
I am all for social media and the draw card for myself; especially with running the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign via all social platforms is CONNECTION.
It would be hypocritical of me to write this piece and slam these platforms as I do believe a lot of good comes from them. For those following my campaign on raising more awareness around mental health and suicide prevention, I chose to use these platforms for the campaign from seeing a continual decline in that very thing I have being trying to pull back in people and that is social connection, and the impact it is having on peoples mental wellbeing with us seeing depression, anxiety rates increasing due to the impact social media was and continues to play in our lives.
‘Much like a lot of the social media platforms now, I wanted to draw the attention to this obsession of attaining the ‘blue tick’ which is used or said to be used to show that an account has been personally verified by the platform as being the real account. Yet if you want one of those ticks you would have to wait for these platforms to decide if you are deemed ‘important’ enough to have one.
So are we lead to believe, that someone, really is sitting behind a desk going through our lives as a mean to determine whether ‘they’ consider us to be worthy of a bloody tick to be ‘real.’
Initially we were lead to believe highly influential public figures were considered important enough to be verified as to ascertain it was that very ‘public figure / or celebrity who owned the account and with so many imitating accounts, copy and pasting their images for whatever means or gains they wanted, I suppose it could’ve been justified.
But….somewhere along the way… social media got squiffed and trying to gain a blue tick to be important came into play and became anyones game. Anyone could potentially be an “ influencer”.
The intended purpose of connecting people worldwide now became almost the competition of life or lifestyle with ‘thy neighbour’. Whose life was better, who wore it better and who could prove they were living the ultimate life through filters and applications, and it sadly continues today.
To add icing to the cake, the blue tick verification brought a sense of superiority in people that by having one meant you actually considered yourself as someone of importance, you were ‘deemed’ worthy or justified enough to be included into the almost ‘inner’ circle and to some extent gave some people a further accolade of narcissism.
Then came the moment it was opened to everyone to be able to apply for verification status regardless of how many followers an account had. You merely ‘requested verification on most platforms. Asked to provide details, ID’s then comes a waiting game whilst these ‘platforms’ determine authenticity and notability of your account to deem whether you are eligible to join the ‘elite’ or not.
Don’t get me wrong, understanding the verification process for legitimate accounts such as for actual influential people, organisations or celebrities, that we see get imitated often, we can see it makes sense.
But often to outlay the ‘status’ of being verified to anyone and everyone to the point that social media becomes a competition between people, friendships and an unhealthy relationship with ones self becomes scary. This has and continues to make an impact onto people’s mental well-being and mental health in at times negative ways. Is this truly what the world needed or still needs?
The process of being verified also posed and still does so many loop holes and people falling through the gaps of not being verified when by all means they are in the public eye, they are deemed of influential status, they are in the press weekly, they do charity work, they own businesses and more yet are still not having a blue tick. Does this mean by a platform’s standard they are not deemed authentic or the real person of the account or even important enough, all while have more than enough accolades, evidence of who they are...
I mean, who is controlling this? Really.
What truly does it take to be deemed worthy?
Take for example; two of Britains biggest names in that of Tamara Beckwith and Lady Victoria Hervey. Both highly publicised influential ladies, each in the public eye and the media weekly, they are in the biggest publications, both attend the most prestigious events and gala’s, fundraise for charities, and are activists and own well known British businesses.
Yet one is verified, and one isn’t.
Make sense to anyone?
Does this mean one is less worthy or deemed less important than the other by... what; a social media platform standard?
Does this mean one is getting far more work than the other or people no longer think one is eligible to be invited to these gala’s or events, or be featured heavily in the press because she isn’t deemed eligible for a blue tick on ‘these’ platforms.
Looking into both these highly influential ladies as well as many more, quite frankly it hasn’t hindered or impacted their careers at all.
I have highly successful friends who are the real ‘influencers’ in life who make an impact on society and leave marks on the world and are heavily featured in the press for their work, whom have all at one time or another fell victim themselves to requesting verification on these platforms as a way to justify themselves or who people see them as more worthy by a tick or important and even been advised by others to do so.
The Imperfectly Perfect campaign itself, within only a year has gained international attention and press and is linked to one person running it,and has so much evidential status of who runs it, even being advised I fell victim in that I needed to get verified in order to give the campaign more authority.
Twice I tried but apparently the campaign nor myself were deemed important enough or ‘real’.
Has it hindered its progress to reach the masses or make a difference in changing the face of mental health? No.
Has it not hit mainstream media each month in Australia, or gained attention internationally? No.
Have my friends who have successful careers in their field been effected by merely turned down on receiving a blue tick? No.
Has it closed that many doors for them, for these public figures across the world? No.
Has not being verified stopped users whom have a high rate of followers or engagement not made money from companies seeing their reach to attract attention to their goods or services? No.
So why are people still putting their mental well-being to the back and moving this ideal status as a way to justify who they are to the world?
Have some companies aimed at capitalising off the blue tick? Of course.
If you don’t ascertain to have this many followers or be verified especially in the entertainment industry, you won’t gain an ‘in’ for an audition or a gig. The result as we see, is the effects on people’s self worth and people scrambling to build an online presence in an unhealthy manner.
Are we becoming a little naive ourselves at times, in thinking that these platforms don’t have one thing on their mind from a business stand point in how they keep us engaged to their platform or how do we keep people putting content on our platforms.
Could we attribute the denial of a blue tick merely as a way to get people more consumed, to engage more, post more all to get the prize; being that of the blue tick.
I I mentioned it earlier, but I love social media, I do, the world loves social media and in that they do have their positives, they really do.
I mentioned it earlier, but I love social media, I do, the world loves social media and in that they do have their positives, they really do.
These are actually incredible free resources to connect and unite people worldwide, keep in touch with those you may not live near and a way to build friendships and connections globally.
In saying this what we do need to do is educate ourselves and others on the use of them and teaching not only our minds but those of the younger generations coming into this world getting social media savvy from as young as 5 to merely take them for what they are - a tool to connect and be social.
Most importantly social media is not a tool to almost slam your mind from buying into the constant barrage of perfectly filtered photos that appear on platforms, competitiveness, showcasing the perfect life, the perfect career, the perfect vacations, and more.
We are seeing social media as a drug and we are not only getting addicted to it, we are letting our mental health and quality of life get destroyed in the process.
In 2018 alone, it was reported that more than a third of Generation Z from a survey of 1,000 individuals stated that they were quitting social media for good as 41 per cent stated that social media platforms make them feel anxious, sad or depressed.
That was 2018!
2019 saw a further increase on social media related mental health issues.
So all that said and drawing back to being deemed ‘important’ enough by a platform...Are we to believe that the real influencers in life, the people who are making an impact in society and building the future are then not important enough for these platforms? Will we continue seeing a trend in more social media mental health related issues going up, will we continue seeing connection further being interrupted by people competing for status on a mere social media platform that was suppose to bring them closer OR will we be able to salvage what has happened to us, disrupt social media by uniting as one, utilising them as a mere tool to connect and educate and turn things around for the sake of our mental wellbeing.
I believe we have that time, I believe we can turn things around and by using our voices, our own platforms we have created on ‘these’ platforms we can do. We can also showcase that a mere ‘blue’ tick across any platform should not nor does not justify who we are by not giving into the sheer race of requesting or being bothered by the sight of one.
Glenn Marsden
