Social Media and Relationships...

First of all...I'd like everyone who knows this guy Trey Moe that didn't tell me about him to kiss my ashy black ass....WHY YA'LL DIDN'T TELL ME THIS DUDE WAS SO DAMN FUNNY!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ya'll know I'm always looking for funny stuff. To hell wit ya'll for not putting me on sooner! This cat got talent. A lot of it.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...

A major part of my job function over here in Iraq is dealing with Social Media. I've become my unit's "go-to" guy for Social Media Functionality. I've got presentations, research, marketing plans/strategies, and a buttload of firsthand knowledge regarding social media and promotion strategies. (Ironically, I can do it well for a large entity but I'm waaaaay too brash and unfriendly to make it work for me. I digress though...)

Of course though, when the entire world is connected through social media, sometimes your business life and personal life can mesh...

This post is about my personal life...

I basically said all that B.S. about work to justify me being on Facebook and Twitter in the middle of my damn workday...(Don't Judge Me...because you're probably at work reading right now...GET BACK TO THEM DAMN TPS REPORTS!!!!)

Ever since the advent of social media, people have been ruining relationships based on something that's (if you ask them) "not a big deal."

Really?

Not a big deal huh?

More after the break...













So, lets take it back to when you first started your journey through the world of social media coupled with real world interaction. Some of you started with AOL, maybe BlackPlanet. Some of you kicked off with CollegeClub. Some of you more adventurous (read: nerdy) types probably had a Friendster page.

The vast majority of people I know fully immersed themselves in social media though with the advent of Facebook. Since then, many have branched out to Twitter. Even though no one wants to admit it now, alot of us had MySpace pages...in fact, I just completely deleted mine a few months ago. I'd forgotten it existed to be perfectly honest...

Either way, we're all victims of the mass appeal of social media.

Social media has changed the way we communicate and, by proxy, our relationships with one another.

Let me ask you a question...

How many of you have dated or been talking to somebody that confronted you about something you had on a social networking website?

I know a whole bunch of people raised their hands.

I've been confronted about stuff I put on CollegeClub back in the day. I had a girlfriend LITERALLY cuss me out about a pic I had on MySpace. I know I've been confronted MULTIPLE times by what's popped up on my Facebook. Twitter is a whole different universe...

Social Media has become so deeply ingrained into our daily existence that we've substituted it for meaningful gestures and thought provoking actions.

People read more into your "relationship status" than they do what you tell them with your OWN MOUTH.

Its weird to me...

I would much rather you just ask me what you want to know rather than base your expectations/ideas/beliefs about me on a social network. That's not the way things work though in 2011. We've become enslaved to our own perceptions of self and others...

I can prove it through twitter...

Watch...

More after the break...













140 characters...

On Twitter, that's all that stands between your mind and the world...140 characters. Just enough words to make the world laugh, make the world think, or make your reputation die...

Personally, I use Twitter for entertainment purposes. Occasionally though, like most people, I will blurt out what's truly on my mind. Sometimes its an emotion filled knee jerk reaction, other times...its probably a disturbingly weird observation I've made. Just like with words that are spoken, once its out there...you can't take it back. You've given that thought energy and life by speaking it...well...in Twitter's case, typing it.

I truly take Twitter with a grain of salt most of the time, but I do actually throw things out there that I feel from time to time and I do ask for/expect a response on occasion. None the less, the problem therein lies when people who know you, along with people that think they know you, begin to base their perception of you based solely on your Twitter persona or your social media presence as a whole.

I'm guilty of it...

I've judged someone I cared about based on a tweet they said in a moment of frustration...

I've been judged based on a tweet I posted in a moment of frustration...

Hell, I've been judged based on a blog or two I've written in the 8 years or so I've been blogging...

Why though?

Why do we allow our perceptions, shaped by social media, to become that person's REAL personality?

9 times out of 10, if I said it then I meant it and I'll gladly stand beside what I said. Occasionally though, I get angry, frustrated, or downright pissed off...and I'd hate to be judged entirely based on a few angry words or a moment of indiscretion.

Now...take all of what I said about perceptions based on social media activity...and apply it to your significant other/boothang/boyfriend/girlfriend/cut buddy...

Kind of changes things huh...maybe not to some people...but I know there are a couple of folks out there like, "Wow...I really let (insert social media site here) ruin my relationship..."

Just a little food for thought...

Ya'll take it easy...

--Bleek G.