Social media is one of those things, of which, there is a rather large dividing line between those that are absolutely transfixed and engaged with social media of all types, and those that don’t really pay much attention to it. Those then, that are intimately involved with social media, are often caught up in seeing other people’s lives being presented in a way and manner to them, in which, these particular people seem to have the best of the best of it, in regards to nightlife venues, material accouterments that represent success, and in the knowing of and in the hanging out with the right people. Further to the point, the top influential people on social media, appear to not only dress the part, but to live the part, as well.
Perhaps then, that’s a good thing, and to the degree that this brings comfort, appreciation, and perhaps some vicarious pleasure in the peering into of other people’s successful lives, so much to the good. However, the truth of the matter is, besides the overall deception which often is part and parcel of so many social media posts, which try so hard to sell the illusion that all is an endless parade of fun and games – is the inconvenient fact that many of those that follow people that are perceived as living a very good and enviable life through following their social media posts, are themselves personally caught in this dilemma of wanting what these social media success stories apparently have, while recognizing that for them, in their more honest moments, that they aren’t going to ever achieve or get close to such.
We find then that the shortcut to having a successful life, or a perceived successful life, doesn’t really lie actually in achieving the goals that would legitimately represent such, but rather has a lot more to do then with obtaining the symbols of what that successful life is being portrayed as. This thus means, in the social media world, the trick to keeping up with the Joneses is to present one’s own story in a similar way to what has already been viewed – which means, that half of the battle is in the presentation of our own lives, carefully constructed to give the appearance that we are, in our own way, having the best of it, as well.
In other words, back in the day, the objective of the exercise was to keep up with the Joneses, that were primarily in our neighborhood, or were part of our general milieu – but, in recognition that social media, has literally a global reach, we now have to keep up with the Joneses, that could be just about anywhere, which provides us then with the advantage of understanding that it doesn’t much matter what our neighbor does or does not know about us or thinks about us -- what really matters, is only those that we have connected with through social media, of which, our objective for that audience, is to manipulate our social media persona that thus will make us appear to be something grand, ourselves.