For the past three plus year I've been
blogging about my life with Zach and Sami, our adventures, my career changes, new business and travel adventures. I find that it’s so easy to
take a completely introspective view of the world, but this week I began taking
stock of all the other things that I've noticed going on around me especially
on the social media front. Let’s start
with the usual suspects shall we?
It’s surprising but, Facebook is, for me
becoming more irrelevant than ever! I
find that rather than an intimate group of friends keeping in touch and
celebrating each others up and downs in life there seems to be more “pulp” than
ever before being broadcast which tends to clog the experience I’m looking for
on a personal connection front. Whether its
advertising or pseudo advertising its annoying!
To give you a tangible example last year
when the ice bucket challenge was at the zenith of its reign of popularity I
was ready to chuck it all in. I get that
it was a great way to raise money, but for the most part it got a little
crazy with the never ending video's and challenges, from the famous to the ordinary once you'd seen it once that was pretty much it, yet after the 500th time not so much. I'm not sure about you but more recently I've been inundated
with a plethora of cute animal videos, to be clear, they drive me crazy. I can hear you all now, so cold hearted, what
a grinch! C’mon what could be more
adorable than a kitten falling asleep into
his food bowl, or a dog that rides a bike...
Yep, to be clear I'm over it people! ☺ Just sayin...
Not only is Facebook on the wane for me
personally, but let me be the first to say that Twitter has completely lost the
plot! I experienced this first hand
when as I crossed the invisible threshold and followed more than the
un-documented 2000 people divide. Now even though my following is close to 1200
apparently it was far from acceptable for me to choose anyone else to follow beyond the magical 2000 or
reciprocate if they followed me. As soon
as I try to add another person it’s blocked with a rather curt little note. It's been two
months that I've been frozen on 2000…can you say "oi vey mate?!"
So not to be disillusioned I tried to find
out why, easier said than done my friends.
There is no clear explanation as to why there is hidden threshold to
pass before you’re allowed to enter the “magic kingdom” of Twitterville. Why does it feel as though I’m playing a
video game with regard to this? All I
know is that where ever I looked to Twitter for an explanation it quickly
turned into a what I’d call a “complete bun fight”, to use the Australian vernacular.
Not only is this immensely annoying but
really the more I looked at the content the more I’m feeling disillusioned with it
(read crap with a capital C). Maybe I should have known better but I
continue to be inundated with people on Twitter trying to sell me an instant
following – “get 20,000 followers for $29.99…really??? So how exactly do you do this if I’m already
blocked? I smell scam all the way!
Perhaps it always as shallow and irrelevant
to the world, but I just didn’t stop and take my time to really see it for what
it really is…a fad. No doubt the next
big thing will supersede it, I guess I have to wait patiently until that comes
to fruition.
My final social media channel is Google+ and
to be fair they’re joined at the hip with my Blog account so perhaps I
shouldn’t be too critical, however, that being said my bugbear with them is
that I can only follow three new people, communities or sites per day. Why the constant barriers? Clearly its to limit the minimize the people
who go and follow the world…no literally, the world all at once just for the sake of saying they did vs. any tangible value. So to some degree I get it but I do feel
controlled by the whole medium in general.
The good thing about Google + is the large base
of creative types – writers, bloggers, photographers and the like. It’s been amazing to see some of the
outstanding photos and written work from this community, and this coupled with its smaller and more niche community I sort of prefer it to the others.
Fortunately for me I have the new Indelible Adventures Inc. website which is where I want to channel people anyway,
although unsure that it’s as compelling as the apps I've talked about tonight, only in my wildest dreams.
Interestingly, Zach has never had an
interest in using any social media channels and I mean ever. A bit of a rarity I would imagine, although I
hear from more and more of the kids friends that these particular social media
sites are just not that cool. Sami and her
friends are fully immersed and use Snapchat and Instagram non-stop, so perhaps
it’s a boy – girl thing? Or perhaps the two-year
gap in ages is really a much greater divide than I could ever of imagined.
Not sure why I've been on a rant tonight
other than this week I've definitely felt a little more feisty than normal.
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you have outdone yourself with the photos this week! nicely done
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