Social Media - It Could Be So Much More

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

Eygpt used social media to start a revolution that brought about change.  It was very dramatic and took off like wildfire.  It seems to pretty much end there.

I find social media sites, such as FaceBook which is the largest, to have evolved into a space for social disconnect as well as business.  It works for both of those things but I believe many, like myself, had hoped for so much more.

It seems like things happened many years ago and we've forgotten about them.  You know, things like world wars, holocausts, fascism, starvation, and hunger.   Where did those things go?  They've gone nowhere and still continue to this day.  It's as if we live in a world of fantasy and we have put those things in the closet in hopes they won't rear their ugly head again.   But, they will.

My grandparents were immigrants of the poorest kind.  Tenant farmers who had no education whatsoever spoke a dialect that was ridiculed and came to the U.S. looking for that freedom that everyone speaks so highly of.   My father started school at age 8 not speaking English and was bullied for it as well.  However, this isn't about me or what my family or many others go through.  

Facebook, with over 2.46 users, is a free social media site.  If you can connect to the internet you can become a member.   We have over 1/3 of the world posting and reading the website.  In addition, there is YouTube, Blogger, Wordpress and many others.   Just like myself, we post daily activities, pictures, and videos of places we've been to or seen.   Take a quiet scroll down your Facebook and see how many of those posts you read really have anything to do with change.   I still associate Facebook with the Austin Power's movie where he shows Beyonce arriving in the future.  He gives her a look at social media and it's a video of a monkey in a tree scratching his behind.  Isn't that cute!  But hey, that's where social media has gone.

  

It didn't take long for users to get into the business side of the website.   Now, everyone is selling or hawking something. Clothes, houses, vacations, used items, why even Facebook has MarketPlace where you can advertise just about anything new or used for sale.  It's a good thing and I'm not knocking it and I know many people who use it for advertising what they sell.

What I am knocking though, is a simple fact that we now have a global medium in which we can make a change.  Yet I see very few people post anything that is world changing.   Facebook has pretty much gone silent on the political state of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.  That should be raising an early warning flag.  It's not about bashing the politicians or countries, it's about making people aware of what is going on and the opportunity to change the world.   Remember hunger and starvation?  Maybe, just maybe, we could have an impact on some of those issues.  Then again, most people are fearful of social discourse, afraid someone might say something against them or start an intelligent conversation other than LOL, OMG, WTH.

I posted this definition the other day; 

Fascism - a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.

Either people didn't read it, are ashamed to admit that they've read it and understand it, or they simply think it will all go away.  If a person has any education at all, along with an understanding of world history, we should all know that it really is true that history is repetitive.  The U.S. may be experiencing some of this and Mexico appears to be heading in that direction.   They said after WW I it could never happen again, well, it did, WWII.  Recently, a standing president made a comment regarding the possibility of WW III.  And here we all thought it couldn't happen again.  

Isn't it strange that after WWII, a small group of my family from Europe came to visit?  Why was it such a small group?  Read your history books.

To make a long story short, this is one of the reasons why I don't post much anymore.  If it isn't all roses and happy, happy, or funny and amusing, or some sort of consumerism, no one seems to be interested anymore.  "Let's not worry about tomorrow", or, "there really isn't much I can do about it anyway", "who cares, I'm retired now and will just sit back and watch the show". 

Even though technology didn't exist back then, whichever back then you're currently thinking of, just remember that it can happen again and we can all help to make a change, any change.  Spread the word.