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Image: – © AFP/File DENIS CHARLET
Australian national mental health organization Headspace conducted a survey that puts holes in a lot of marketing assumptions. This might finally penetrate the insufferable smug indifference of social media.
The survey demographic covers the key age brackets 12 to 25. It’s a true middle-class market, too, right in the big dollars zone. This age spectrum is the primary target of just about every type of marketing and advertising.
The message from the survey is that about half of them want to get off social media, but they’re worried they might miss out on something. Just read that link. It’s informative. It’s interesting. Despite that, you might learn something.
Back on topic – Fear of missing out, aka FOMO, was a huge thing some years ago. Back then, it was proof of the invincibility of social media. Your advertising dollars were well spent on this trapped group of social media users.
It didn’t last. The built-in fallacies about FOMO in social media weren’t hard to find. Of course, you want to be sold a car while getting trolled and bullied 24/7. People are more likely to buy houses under severe emotional stress, right? Nothing like extreme insecurity and misery to get you to subscribe, yeah?
The sheer hellishness of the actual social media environment is a no-go zone for commentary. Occasionally something oozes out under the packaging, like moderators getting PTSD, but that must be OK, too, right? In Kenya, that happy place, they say social media moderation “is no job for humans”. Humans? Are they still around? How quaint.
I’ve been watching social media sourly for decades. I’ve been watching suicide clubs in the UK, and the usual trashy stuff worldwide. It’s not exactly hard to find news on the dangers of social media. It’s an endless feed of sleaze and suffering. From sexual violence to stupid things on videos, it’s continuous.
It’s easy for older people to be cynical about the sheer naivete of anyone seriously believing they’re missing out on such utter garbage. For younger people, it’s a survival skill they don’t yet have.
From FOMO to “Oh, no!” isn’t far. This is the menu – Click, look, disaster. It takes a minute or so. What if you missed that really cool thing about self-decapitation with a sesame seed? Everyone’s talking about it. You’d look a fool, wouldn’t you?
Dumb it is, dumb it was, and dumb it always will be, but you have to be part of it, don’t you? You genius, you.
Yet, somehow, this is the demographic that wants out. What a coincidence. Better hold some of those-there high-powered executive meetings and find out what’s a-goin’ on in the Beatific Barnyard of BS we call social media, you think?
No, you don’t think. In a culture where morons rule, morons decide. Morons usually decide to do nothing about any sort of crisis. It’s a tradition. The sheer irresponsibility of media culture hardly needs explaining. Mindless fly larvae lead the way. …And you follow.
Note: I’m trying to emulate the bizarre censorship on YouTube and Facebook where even the subjects of the posts are blanked out. “Fly larvae” sounds so much better, doesn’t it? Strangely, fly larvae are usually found in similar environments to social media.
Maybe there’s a better way of explaining the situation:
- Social media is a functional party to a lot of these disasters.
- You can’t deny it.
- You provide the communications for the train wrecks.
- You enable whatever happens.
- You profit from it.
- Legally, you don’t have a toenail clipping to stand on.
Scaring half your audience out of using your products isn’t necessarily a great move. Nor is tolerating what’s driving them away. There are consequences.
You could be sued back into the Stone Age by anyone on Earth. You could be regulated to death. You wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would you?
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
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