Young Women Were Not Built for Social Media
Gonzo content is hurting our psyche
Being a young woman with access to the eyes and ears of billions of strangers is a very dangerous predicament. But not for the reason you might expect.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic after the West Elm Caleb story went viral last week. If you’re not filled in, that reflects well on you. But if you’re perpetually online like me and many other sickos on Twitter, you would have heard about these young, single women in NYC who were all ghosted by the same love rat, Caleb. Instead of talking to him about it, they decided to post about it on their TikToks, and before too long, all 3 (or more?) women discovered they all had stories to tell about Caleb.
While I was completely unsurprised by their willful and nonchalant doxxing of a presumably innocent young dude, I was reminded of something very bizarre, but so ubiquitous that it goes unnoticed every day; something that is undoubtedly having an effect on our culture, our relationships and our psyche.
Up, close and personal
If you watch the videos of the girls in question, you’ll notice that they’re all speaking very intimately with the camera. Watching them speak, I feel like I do with any other girlfriend when they’re telling me about their private life. They’re close to the camera, casual, seemingly at ease. I’m hooked by their story: “OMG, I can’t believe he did that! WTF!”. (That’s the common response women are looking for when we tell you our ‘horror’ stories with men.
This type of selfie video is reminiscent of gonzo journalism, or even gonzo porn, in which the consumer is made to feel like they’re directly involved in the story. We consume content like this on a daily basis and rarely bat an eyelid. One of my favourite YouTubers, the Texan dermatologist Andrea Suarez, AKA Dr Dray, apart from filing highly informative skincare videos, films POV videos of her doing inane tasks such as going to the shops to buy groceries, or even shopping for sweatpants (as the Yanks call them).
'Day in the Life’ videos, or ‘What I Eat In a Day’ videos are very popular, especially with women, and to understand why we need to learn a little bit about female friendships and the distinct ways in which we interact with each other. To do so, we need to get binary. It’s not a very hot term right now, but it’s an inevitable part of being a human. Men and women are different, and male-on-male friendships are different from female-on-female ones.
Female nature
Firstly, women form bonds by sharing intimate details about their personal lives.1 Yes, we sometimes talk about your dick size. But even worse, we analyse your every flaw: you lack drive, you leave your undies on the bathroom floor, your ego is blimp-like, you have issues with your mum. Yes, it’s terrifying.
I’m not saying that every woman is like this, some are very private. But in general, oversharing is in our DNA. Traditionally, this wasn’t such a big issue. Back in the day, when some exciting or upsetting event happened in a woman’s life she would share the intimate details with her friend in person or over a phone call (or even… a “letter” or email). The friend would give her feedback, and perhaps the friend would go on to divulge some info to another friend, but that was about the extent of the communication.
Now, when something exciting (or even quite trivial) happens in a young woman’s life, we have the same desire to share it, but that sharing is done more often on social media. While we do have IRL2 friends that follow us on IG, Twitter or TikTok, it’s common to have, especially in the case of Twitter, tens of thousands of people who don’t know us IRL following our posts.
However, our reptilian brains don’t do the math very well, and at times it feels like all of this sharing to people who interact with our content is similar to sharing with friends in person. But it’s far from similar, and it opens them up to aggressive pile-ons (not in a sexy way) and abject mockery. Of course, women need to take responsibility for their actions, and everyone should know that everything you post online is there for the taking and joke-making, but do think we should be more mindful of the fact that women are natural oversharers, and that part of the way we communicate is by sharing intimate details.
This part of our nature is not ideal considering the world we live in right now, where so much communication is happening online. Tweets, FB updates, Instagram stories and TikTok videos lull young women into a false sense of security. By sharing intimate details, in such a personal fashion (i.e. selfie videos) they’re tricking both themselves and their viewers into thinking that they have a real bond when they don't.
This phenomenon is complicated by the fact that many of these content creators are getting paid to create this sort of content because it is so popular and the algorithm likes it. They are essentially being paid to create false intimate bonds with strangers, in a form of watered-down prostitution. And of course, when we talk about intimate online content we can’t look past ASMR… but that’s a whole other can of worms.
In my opinion, the increasing popularity of this content shows that people are lacking intimacy in their personal lives and substituting it online. This is the case now more than ever due to people having their social lives restricted and thus communicating more online, and face-to-face contact being mitigated with masks and other intervening factors.
Aside from that, I believe that people; especially young women like myself who are prone to wanting to share online every trial and tribulation, or any funny story that happens with their partner, friend or colleague; are draining parts of their soul by participating in these pseudo connections. I say ‘draining’ in the sense that they are leaching energy, attention and love away from real-life connections.
In the end, this is a self-drag. Ever since I created a MySpace page in 2007 at the ripe old age of 12, then a Facebook and a Tumblr page at 13, then Instagram at 14, and Twitter at 23, I have been consistently sharing at times intimate parts of my life with people who barely, if at all, know me. I’ve spent hours wondering why I have this innate desire to share, to post, to comment, to communicate, and despite repressing it, it always comes back. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learnt that this is due to a mix of my being an extrovert, a product of my time and place, but also, that I’m a woman, and I just really love to chat and share my stories.
Thankfully, over time, I’ve learnt to be more careful with what I share. Not only for my physical safety, or for my job or social prospects, but to protect my soul. While I don’t necessarily believe we have a soul, I believe we, or at least I, have something essential to my being that I want to shroud from strangers. I don’t want to air my dirty laundry, and I don’t want to share intimate stories with people who could easily misconstrue or mock me.
Sharing online is fun, and I do it… a lot. But I urge people, especially women, to reflect on the relationship they have with certain platforms or users on those platforms, as the lines between real intimacy and pseudo intimacy are very easily blurred.
Sincerely,
An Online Oversharer
https://psychcentral.com/blog/relationship-corner/2018/01/female-vs-male-friendships-10-key-differences#1
While writing this the author is amused by the term IRL (in real life), a term that suggests that interaction online is not part of real life.