The Lasting Impact of Online Impressions

I was watching a video about content creation/influencing today, and I heard something that threw me off. One of the speakers was talking about how to announce your presence on social media.

She narrated how she came into the social media space, and to summarize everything, someone faked a scandal about her, which became viral. And then people started watching her a lot on social media, so she used the numbers to her advantage.

Honestly, that was a very smart thing to do, and I’m glad she turned her numbers into money. But she started saying if people want to get into the social media space and stay relevant, they should sometimes start drama or do something controversial that would make people talk about them. So basically, do things that could cause people to troll them for a while.

When I heard that, my face changed a bit because I thought about the so many ways that could go wrong for people. I understand that she might be a very strong person, but then there are people who aren’t so strong like that.

For example, just some months ago, a boy killed himself because his girlfriend left him. If you ask me, he probably was already suffering from some serious mental crisis, which led him to do that. Because I’m sure that’s definitely not his first breakup. So imagine telling someone like that to do bad things to announce his presence on social media, he definitely won’t be able to take the trolling.

One thing about this generation is how they are so knowledgeable about digitalization but also seem to forget that nothing goes missing in this digital era, or let me just simply say the internet never forgets.

People do all sorts of things for social media to become relevant, and the cool part is they do become relevant. But the scary part is how it all comes crumbling down when the same thing that got them relevant resurfaces on the internet and takes them down.

I get that most people want to be so influential on social media and would do whatever it takes to get there. I just have one thing to say: whatever you do on social media to stay relevant, make sure it’s not something you are going to regret in years to come.

Because trust me, in those years, after that thing you did to stay relevant has resurfaced to destroy your years of hard work, staying relevant would be the least on your mind. I believe that just as people do so many bad things just to be seen on the internet, you could also do good things to stay relevant and announce your presence as well so why not focus on that?