I had a conversation with a friend a few months ago about how he was noticing how he was becoming more and more like his parents as he aged, for better or worse. I've been thinking about how we all, consciously or not, model our lives off of our family, peers and role models. Our aims and trajectories are products of our social nature. A lot of how I place my checkpoints (satisfaction in career, relationships, moving away, school, etc.) are in relation to how my parents as well as other personal influential figures lived their lives. These factors make up what I will call the “blueprint.”
Maybe some of this problem of motivationally "lost" young people is due to how we now acquire many role models digitally and thus parasocially. As evidenced by phenomenons like the "youtube accent", the influence of internet content creators can never be understated. I watched so much youtube as a kid and the life that is present via vlogs and let's plays are not reflective of real lifestyles and human relationships. However, they still illogically have an impact on how I see my relatively less picturesque life. As social media evolves, we chase new levels of feigned personability. Tiktok and new waves of Instagram show celebrities acting just like us. Celebrities with greater means are now operating on the exact same platforms as consumers. Gone are the days where we're separated from a Beyonce or a Britney Spears by the tv screen. Now, we're stuck in there with them. This new relatability hurts us because now there is an implication that maybe we're supposed to be a little more like them (but we never will). This, of course, doesn't just apply to the uber-famous but also influential youtube gamers, travel influencers, facebook political commentators, and the like.
This chasing of fame is baked into these platforms. Small, sustainable, close knit circles are directly contrasted with an artificially idyllic counterpart. Money is also what is awarded to those with more fame here either directly through the platform, or from advertising. This leads to kids watching hours of youtube a day looking up to people who are, at least in part, driven to maintain a level of celebrity or to chase higher levels of fame. Other social media platforms also tend to incentivize trying to celebritize yourself. What is left is a landscape where success and fame are intertwined in areas that it previously was not. Growing our audience and connections on Instagram is seen as a good thing, especially as it and other platforms are used for business as well. Our social lives as expressed through the growth economy.
Sidenote: Part of me deciding to make this site is to deal with the ideological forces present in our media environment as a way to deal with my content addiction. I wish I could just remove myself from Web 2.0 but it has just seeped into every facet of culture. Unless we move to a point where we start to reject or outsmart malicious media, my current plan is to establish roadblocks to moderate my content intake.