I can’t stop thinking about how we are the first social
media generation. The first ever Youtube stars were born. Sitting at home and
talking to a camera became a profitable career in our lifetime. I think it’s
so, so cool that we’re the first ones here. Can you imagine, one hundred years
down the line, your great great grandkids are doing a school project about the
history of social media, and how it started with texting and 240p selfies, and you’re just
like, “oh yeah I was there.” How. Freaking. Awesome. I don’t know how many
people have noticed this, but we are here at the beginning of something EPIC. It’s
like all those stories that your parents tell you about cave people in the time
before internet. One day we will be cave people saying, “a million subscribers
was a big deal, okay?”
Now is when you can
finally make money by doing nothing. (Okay, not nothing, but comparatively lesser
than what you would have had to do forty years ago.) Upload some ootd posts to Instagram.
Get popular. Clothing brands will literally send you clothes and pay you to
post pictures. Not only that, we’re probably about one step away from just
completely wordless communication. Like today all you have to do is pick up
your phone and type, right? What if someday it’s just like, close your eyes,
reach out for your friend with your mind, she gets a notification in her head,
boom, connection. If that happens in my lifetime I will die happy. A world
where you never have to interact with other people. *sigh*
What other cool things have we witnessed? Okay, so we were
the first ever creators of memes. Vines. GIFs. Photobombs. Can I just say, that
is something that I will always be proud of? I mean, look at this stuff:
I don’t think they laughed this much in the 90s. (I mean idk
I wasn’t there, obvi. But I’m just guessing.) Other cool things happening is
that the world is becoming smaller than ever. We pretty much know everything
about people from everywhere. And it helps to get rid of the idea that people
are different. Now that you know they have ‘eyebrow goals’ and ‘best cat vines’
in India, Egypt, Kenya, Norway, etc, how different could it really be?
Actually I don’t know…… I was a part of this exchange
program with students from Belgium and they didn’t know we had roads in India, let alone internet, so
maybe it isn’t such a small world after all. (Honestly though? India is the
world’s fastest growing economy? Obviously we have roads? What do they even do
at your school….) Okay back to what I was talking about.
My favourite things about this internet boom revolution
thing are that 1) You can express your opinion freely. This might be a bad
thing, because people’s opinions are annoying (sometimes) but at least we have
a voice now! Unless, like, the Shiv Sena arrests you. Ahem. Also, if you do
have a lot of followers who look up to you, please, please use your power for
something important. Don’t just post stupid selfies and tell them to bring you
m&ms at fan meetups *cough*Nash Grier*cough*. So much shade being thrown in this post,
damn.
2) The birth of the hashtag. Anything can become a huge
movement with the right #. Like, after the Paris attacks, #porteouverte (open
door) was trending. People would use the hashtag on twitter to tell people
their home could be used as shelter. I love that. I love people helping other
people. Speaking of safety, after the Chennai floods, there was like zero
communication, and then Facebook stepped in and started marking people ‘safe’. Basically,
through the government rescue effort, residents of Chennai were being labelled safe
one by one, and facebook would send a notification to all their friends because
phone lines were down. Two of my friends finally got news about their families
in this way.
Hashtags can be used for other wonderful things, like #WasteHisTime2016.
This is my personal favourite. Girls are finally coming together to call out
all those stupid ass boys who will treat you like crap. Sorrz bro, if you’re a
fuckboy, you’re going down. (Metaphorically. Maybe even literally. I support
that.)
3) My absolute favourite thing is the birth of the fangirl. Tumblr.
Fanfiction. Fanart. Cosplaying. YES. There are so many adults for whom Harry
Potter ended with the last book/ movie. But then there is my entire generation
for whom it. Will. Never. End. To this day, I spend most of my time reading Harry
Potter fanfiction. It’s still my whole life. And I am not ashamed of that
(okay, maybe a little.) Now you can buy wands and potions on Etsy. What a time
to be alive.
