Today’s article is brought to you by the YouTube search algorithm. “How?” you ask. Allow me to explain.
Usually, my Sundays are spent catching up on documentaries, and one in particular caught my attention recently. It delved into the rise of single-person homesteads around the world, with a focus on Eastern Asia. This led me down a rabbit hole of similar content, but the most impactful discovery was a YouTuber who shared insights on making money by being an online friend. Naturally, I questioned whether the situation could truly be that dire. Sadly, my skepticism was proven wrong.
In our modern era, we are more connected than ever before. However, this hyperconnectedness has inadvertently given rise to an unprecedented phenomenon—a pandemic of lonely individuals. We no longer prioritize meeting up with friends, and our interactions have been reduced to mere likes and views on social media statuses. Personally, I struggle to recall the last time I met a friend for an in-person chat. While I could attribute this to my introversion, the truth is that this trend extends beyond just me. So, how did we end up here?
Firstly, we fell victim to the busyness bug. None of us seem to find the time to step back from our daily routines, which consist of work, long commutes, and everything in between. However, being busy does not necessarily equate to being productive; often, it’s merely a term we love to use. As a generation, we strive to promote work-life balance, having been led to believe that we could have it all by our elders. Yet, in reality, we became selfish with our time, and by the time we realized the importance of human connection, most people had moved on.
This realization often leads to stalkerish behavior, with social media turning us into passive scrollers rather than active engagers. A healthy use of social media entails engaging with our audience, both by commenting on their posts and creating our own content for friends to participate in. However, many of us spend our time observing what others are doing, comparing their lives to ours, and descending into a slippery slope of envy, resentment, and feeling excluded. Consequently, we withdraw further, and any social engagements we do have become retaliatory responses to perceived injustices.
Yet, the worst aspect is perhaps the cancel culture that we have become adept at. My generation is seemingly unfazed by conflict, and our response to even the smallest inconvenience is to eradicate it entirely, including other human beings. We prioritize safeguarding our own “peace” without considering that disagreements are an integral part of social interactions. We have fought for our opinions to matter to such an extent that it has come at the expense of our relationships, disregarding the consequences. We refuse to be held accountable for our shortcomings and demand that our peers meet us on our own terms. However, friendships are not autocratic, and the true losers in this scenario are us.
Choice, undoubtedly, bestows great responsibility upon us. We need to exercise wisdom when navigating the endless opportunities available to us. While everything else has evolved exponentially, our brains and psyche have not kept pace. We are not meant to exist in solitude; humanity was not built upon such isolation. We cannot escape the fundamental truth that we are interconnected beings. My advice is simple: seek out a tribe with whom you can be open and accountable, without difficulty.
If you need links to any of the documentaries I have spoken about, just leave me a message and I will send them to you.
Black by Beazi 