WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Fact of Life: Beyond the Feed - The Facade of Social Media

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Is it bad that social media is a highlight reel? Should we be fighting to break that trend? Join Chloe Noller and Mattingly Watson as they dive deeper into how individuals hide under the facade of social media.

Hey, Chloe, is social media real? You know what? That's a great question. Let's talk about it. Hello and welcome back to Fact of Life. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are excited about this episode that we have, our second segment of this series about social media.

Today we're diving into the facade of social media on an individual level. So next week we're going to explore kind of that intellectual, ideological level that that social media poses of this facade. And then after that, we're going to do an interview with some special guests about social media. And that's going to be a great, great episode. But today, we're really talking about what this means that social media is a facade. And we're really going to explore what this means. Mighty Grace, tell us how we're going to do it. So first off, we, I guess a lot of people have experienced social media nowadays. And I think there's this common, common thread of calling social media, oh, like, your highlight real, your highlight real. And sometimes it's a negative

connotation and sometimes a positive connotation. But I think that that is kind of what it all kind of starts off. You know, are people lying on that highlight reel? Are they telling the truth on it? And if they're lying on it, then we can get into some real, real dangers, especially when it gets into young people on social media, whether it's just comparison or whether it's true like exploitation and things like that. But first off, we just kind of want to discuss a little bit, you know, social media being a highlight reel for people. And at least personally, I hear this term highlight reel more often in the negative connotation than I do in the positive connotation. But I think the problem isn't necessarily with the fact that it's people's highlight reels.

But I don't know. I think that maybe could it be that is long. that the problem is that people don't understand that their highlight reels. They don't let that apply to their lives. They understand theirs is a highlight reel, but they don't understand others are. But I don't know. What do you think, Chloe? It's an interesting question because, like, we talked about last week, like, we both definitely view our social media as a highlight reel. You know, like, we love looking back at seeing all, like, these great events. But also, it's interesting, too, because I'm well, in, in essence, it's still a little. a highlight reel, but a lot of times people nowadays are posting just random content from their

lives and stuff. But again, like it's all super aesthetic, you know, like they're like, oh, just little bits of life recently. And it's, it's all like, you know, like the baguette that I ate at this like bakery and, you know, like this beautiful flower garden and long walks in the evening. Right. Like these are all good things. But like, again, it's very curated. I think that's kind of a key there too. It's like it's curated. It's not real. It's not without like choice and selection. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And I almost think that with this new push for social media to be more real and less of a highlight reel, I think that might even pose a bigger threat. Because. Then you can't tell. Exactly. Because you're like, oh, like this is people's real life. Like what?

But it's still their highlight. reel. It may be like a less, it may not be, oh, at a specific event, or it may not be a specifically curated picture backdrop, but it's still a specifically curated post. Right. Well, and then you see, you see posts all the time of like these girls are like, oh, just to get ready with me in the morning and they just like walk through their morning routine. And it's like super, like they have like the times right there, you know, and it's like they're doing everything. They're getting all their skin care and they're like food. And it's like how do you do that that fast? No, exactly. Like, there's no way. But even so, like, they pose it as like, oh, like, let's be more vulnerable and real

with each other on social media. And sometimes you run across posts that are, like, women are like, you know, here's like my natural skin or here's like my natural body or something like that. You know, nothing is, nothing is happening. Like, I'm not, I don't have any makeup on or something. And it's like, you'll see people in the comments that are like, yes, like, this is so good. Like, thank you for being so real with us and stuff. Like, I don't know, like you go back to the purpose of social media. Like, what is the purpose of social media? I don't know.

It's a tough thing because on one hand, it's really fun to have like a personal highlight reel, look back at it, whatever, and kind of share those moments with other people. But when you start blurring the lines between like, okay, is it all highlight real? Is it all, you know, marketing? Is it all like, you know, you're selling. I mean, in an essence, you're just curating an image of yourself on social media. And I think that's the problem there is like no matter what you do with it, whether it's a highlight real or not, everything that you decide to share, whether it be vulnerable or not, whether it be a highlight real or not, it's all curated. It's not necessarily real. You're choosing it very carefully. Everyone, you know, puts their pictures in super carefully for their posts. And it's like, oh, which order do you do it in? Oh, maybe I like have a cute little goofy one at the end because like I'm quirky or something. You know, and it's like, we all do that. Like, we all have those types of things. But it's like people are trying to deny the fact that social media is a highlight real.

Yeah. And because you can't know everything about the person. All you see are those 10 pictures or maybe a video or a reel or something. But that's all you see. You see nothing else of the person except that. Exactly. I think we have to like we have to embrace the idea for social media to be a good thing in your individual life or just like in general.

You have to embrace the fact that it's a highlight real. And I don't care what you post it like it is. It is. Like even if it's in the name of being real, it's a highlight reel. And because the real danger that social media does pose is whenever you try to disregard the fact that it is. But social media can be a good thing if you just accept it for what it is. I mean, it is a highlight reel. You're not going to see the ins and outs of every person's life.

you're not going to see the ins and outs of every person's life whether social media exists or not. You're just not going to. But if you try, but if we all as a society just accept the fact that it's not a place to tell everyone the in the behind the scenes of how your life works. Like, come on, you're telling me that the morning routine you feel. I think morning routines are cool. Like, they're not bad things. But you also have to realize that, you're not. You have to realize that, there's still highlight reals. Like the morning routine you film for TikTok or Instagram or whatever may be is not the same. Like it may be your intended morning routine.

But as someone who has an intended morning routine, sometimes you wake up late. Yeah. Like that's what like real days are. Yeah. And that's fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just accepting the fact that yours and everyone else's Instagram. it is it is a surface it is surface level but it's not intended to be anything past that

because it is an online form of media like like right there's just not you can't know yeah everything going on and yeah it's it's interesting too because I think you can also use it as an example for real life because people will you know they will share with you certain things about their life or you know you'll see them in a certain way only typically like one one way or you'll see someone in class or like something like that you know like you see people um and especially in a in a scenario where like you're not like maybe at work or you know some where like they're they're always there they're always looking their best they're always you know wearing nice clothes something like that like yeah you can get a certain idea of who they are in your head but that's not exactly that's not

at all who the person is in real life yeah and it's like you know if you go into work and you have one and there's like really professional, like, that co-worker that you really look up to and really, like, that's what you want to strive to be. You're seeing their professional highlight reel. It's not the perfectly curated pictures on Instagram, but it's the perfectly curated business attitude they have in the way they approach things, which is a great thing. That would be a great thing to model. Like, that's not bad.

But also realize that that doesn't mean that their life is put together. It doesn't mean that that is the person you want to become. But those are goals you want to attain. I mean, I know people who love making fun Instagram posts and, like, doing, like, graphics on them and, like, writing and, like, making it, like, fun, like, with filters and stuff, like, just for, like, the fun of the art of it. Not changing, not, like, editing the pictures to make them look different than they are and anything like that.

But it's, like, making them more artsy because they see it as, like, an art. And that's awesome. That's super cute. But you also have to realize, like, you're seeing their, like, their artistic highlight. real. You're not seeing the behind the scenes of their life. You're not like, that's not like, oh, I want to be that person. You may want to like strive to like, like, emulate them in their artistic talent or their business talent, but also having to realize that that is not that person. Right. And I think the lesson to be learned from this is no matter if you're seeing someone on

social media or if you're seeing someone, you know, every day in class or something, like, you don't know anything about that person, really. You. You. You know, You know who they are in class or you know who they are on social media, but you know nothing about that person. And so I think oftentimes you can become super judgmental of people. We can make judgments about their personality, who they are as a person very quickly without knowing anything about them. And also, like, I remember one of my mom's friends, like she used to be on Facebook and then she got off of it. She's like, I one time ran into someone at the grocery store. And it's like, I knew everything about their life, but he had no idea who I was.

It's like that's what you can do on social media. Like you can know everything about somebody or what they put. post basically on their social media because you're just you scroll through it every day or you could actually like intentionally get to know somebody you know and go talk to them and go actually get to know their person you know and so like I think it's a lesson to be learned here like social media can be used in a good sense where you're getting to know people um or like you like with our friends like we have a lot of friends that are our home that we don't get to see very often like it's a good way to catch up and like see their pictures see what they're doing whatever but like

like you have to remember that like you're not getting to know the person you're just getting to know the specific aspects of life that they've chosen to show you yeah you know and and even with even with people from day to day when you have interactions with someone at a specific spot every time if you don't know them you know you just see how they how they look in class or how they act in class or at lunch or in the library or something like that you know i mean i guess i'm thinking as i still still student right now but like you know if you see someone at work something like that like that's who they are in that moment but you have no idea the kind of person they are in real life. And so it's like, it's a check on yourself.

It's like, okay, I might know so much about them, but like I actually don't know them as a person. And so you should get to know them, not their image. Exactly. Yeah. Any moment you interact with someone, you're seeing them for a moment. Whether that be good or bad, think about social media is it's specifically chosen moments. You're still seeing them in a moment like you would in the library or at lunch or at work. but they've just chosen the moments.

And those don't make those moments any less valid as long as they're, you know, not like lying about them, which we'll get into a minute, but it's still just like a moment. And so I think maybe instead of the movement to try to make, you know, Instagram or whatever social media be not a highlight real, I think maybe it should be a movement to just accept the fact that it is and how do you handle that? How do you approach it differently? Yeah.

Because there is no way to make social media not a highlight reel. No, because, yeah, just by definition, it is. Like, you only share the stuff you want other people to see. Yes, exactly. It doesn't matter what that is. It could be you being vulnerable or whatever, you know, you want to call it. But you're still choosing that. Like, it's still a choice.

And you could choose not to post that video or you could choose to post that video. Exactly. It's all, it all comes down to that. Even, like, on our spam accounts, you know what I mean? Like, they're the stupidest pictures ever. But, like. They're the stupid pictures you've. chosen to share because you think they're the most funny yeah like that's the thing you know people

make spam accounts to try to like be funny and like make jokes and they have a different intent than the quote unquote highlight reel you're putting on like a main account but it's still like your cute funny quirky personality highlight real yes exactly you know like it's still stuff that you've chosen like everyone no one posts everything on their spam like that would be like that random screenshot or the blurry picture that you accidentally took when you were like trying to unlock your car. Like, nobody's going to post that because nobody wants to see that. Nobody cares. Right. If I just started posting the random pictures, that I mean, actually would be kind of funny. It would be. Like for one post, right. Because it would be like humorous. Right. Not because of what

the individual pictures were, but because of what the intent of the post was. Right. And so again, there's like still its intent. It's like almost a science behind it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, then and then, and then you get to the other part of this where it's like, sure, maybe maybe you could take a face value. Like, talking about this, like we're just taking, taking at face value that, like, that social media is true. Like, we're having this discussion with a premise that social media actually is true and that what people are posting is real about their lives. However, that is not the case. Because because of video and photo editing apps, so much of what you see on social media is not real. It's a lie or it's like quite literally a facade. Like women's body, I mean, it's crazy, like the video editing

that can happen. Like, you would never know. It doesn't look different. It doesn't look bad or anything. But they can make their body skinnier. They can make their face clear without making it look over the top. Like, it's crazy what they can do with apps these days. But so often we can get so cut up and like, wow, this is a perfect image. They have a perfect body. Like they have exactly what they need, you know, or what they want. And then like, I don't have that. So I must be failing at life, you know. That's not real. Like actually literally no one lives like that. Like some people work very, very, hard to, you know, have the toned bodies that they want or like, you know, to be healthy, people work really hard for that. I'm not discounting the people that do work for that on

Instagram. Like, you know, they want to share these tips with people. They want to share like how you can be well. Like that's, that's totally good. But so many times it's coming from the like super opposite direction where it's not real. They're lying to you completely. And that's where social media can get insanely harmful. And for those of you just now tuning in, We are talking about social media and it's how it can be like a facade, but really on the individual level right now and how, you know, can you lie? Is it a highlight real? That kind of thing.

This is a fact of life. I'm Maddingly Watson. I'm here with Chloe Nuller and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. But right, like Chloe was saying, this temptation to lie is very concerning. You know, even if you recognize it's a highlight real or not, we're in its best form. Yes, everyone recognizes a highlight real, but also in its best form, people are not lying on it. They're being truthful about it. But it is so concerning because there's so many features nowadays, whether it be on specific apps, like there's so many different ways to post.

On Instagram, you can save stories that you really like into highlights and name them and create like a little like picture. for them, which I always love to do, because I just think it's fun to look back on them like that. But then you can post normally, you can post as a real, even on your like stories. You can apply filters and words and like drawn and like all like stickers and things like that. The filters are crazy too because some of them are so good that you really don't even notice. You might just think it's like a like a filter like for the, you know, for the image itself. Like but no, it's like actually a mask on your face. Oh yeah. So you look like you're wearing, you know, like, you know, like minimal makeup, but you look amazing.

You know, it's crazy. Like, I've noticed that. People will be using those filters and you're like, wait a second. That's not what you're real. And those are just like, a lot of those are even just like the free ones you would find on the social media app itself. That's not even including the ones you find on apps specifically curated for that purpose. That you pay for. That you pay for.

And it's like the more, the more apps you get, the more times you pay for things. Like, the better those get the less. Because you used to, you're like, oh, it's a funny, like, full face of makeup filter, but you can tell it to filter. Right. We're getting to the point now where you cannot tell it to filter. And the ones that are really concerning aren't even the ones that are full face of makeup, but like you just said, the ones that make it look like you're wearing very, very, very,

very minimal makeup, but still make it look really, really, really good. Yeah. And it's like clear skin, whatever. And as a woman, like, that's hard to see. Because, like, I don't care, like, who you are. Like, we all think about that. And I like, it's all a struggle that we fit. Like, all of us struggle with it.

Whether you wear makeup or not. Like, you want to be presentable, right? And you, you, like, your confidence automatically goes down when you feel like you do not have clear skin. Like, that's just, that's just what happened. Some people care more about it than others. But, like, that's something that we all face. And so if, if women are posting all the time, you know, even in their messy buns

in their, like, pajamas, they're like, yeah, just book up, you know, whatever. Just, just, like, going to go, like, walk the dogs. They look amazing. And you're like, okay, I don't look like that when I wake up. No one does. That's because it's not real. Yeah, exactly. And with each of these things, like, filters are not inherently a bad thing, but, like, they're going to be funny filters. There could be, like, I don't know, the back years ago when it was just, like, dog ear filters or, like, funny glasses on your, like, fun filters. Like, so having a filter isn't necessarily a bad thing,

but it's when the filter is making you seem like something that you're not. Like when you're claiming that it's something that you're not. Exactly. And like even if you're using the filter just because, you know, you want to post a story about something and you just don't have the time to like put your makeup on or like look good or whatever. Not that you need to do that anyways. But say that that's the truth. Like you just don't, you want to just be presentable really quick for a video.

Like I get that. But at the same time, it's still misleading people. Yes. That's what it is. it's all deception, it's misleading people. Like, oh, she just filmed a video really quick in between things. How does she look that good right now? She doesn't.

She doesn't. She's great, but she's not, like, that's not what she looks like in that moment. Allie Beth Stucky actually posted about this because she used to do, she does stuff like this all the time where someone will be commenting about something or like asking her question. She's like, yeah, really quick. Just want to hop on and like talk about this really quick. And she might be running errands. She might be in the middle of like recording a podcast, whatever. But I've seen her.

Like sometimes she's wearing makeup. Sometimes she's not. But she used to always use filters, which I was like, okay, like I get it because, you know, you know you don't look good, whatever, so you want to use a filter. And then she posted and she's like, I've actually been convicted about this because no matter what my intent was with it, it's still misleading people. So she doesn't use filters anymore. She just bare face, whatever she's doing, whatever she's wearing, that's what she does. And I actually really appreciate that because, again, regardless of your intent with using the filter, it's still misleading people. misleading the jury. Agreed. Agreed. And I think, yeah, it's just, it's crazy. It really is scary to me that, like, you can't even tell nowadays. Like, it really is getting to the point where you cannot tell the people have filters on.

Yeah. And that's scary. And, I mean, even just, there's so many different things at people's disposals. I mean. Well, and then also people can straight up lie. Like, what's preventing them from doing that? I mean, their consciousness clearly aren't. But, like, you know, like, they can.

They can lie about who they are, what they do, what their jobs are. Their name is. No, exactly. Like, just because someone says they are something or posts a picture of something they do does not mean it's real. And that's where you can get into trafficking. And that's a really, really detrimental and harmful aspect of social media, which greatly affects the younger generations. I mean, not that people can't be taking advantage of nowadays, too, but like, or like, you know, older age groups. But, you know, if you're in a vulnerable situation, things like that.

I think as a young person, you whenever, like, you don't fully understand the concept of, like, the big picture concept. One second. You were saying something. Oh, I thought we were. Like, I mean, we do. We need to, you need to say something, but we need to wrap it up. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think that being, I think that for young people, they don't fully understand the concept of, like, a big, what the big picture is.

And not that people do as adults, but you really just don't then. And so there's so many different dangers, whether it's comparing, like starting a trend of comparing yourselves to others or not knowing who to trust online and that can lead to trafficking and exploitation. And that's, there's just so many dangers to getting on social media young. Yeah. And that's something we're definitely going to be diving into and exploring a lot more next week on this, you know, these harms and this facade on like an ideological level. So we're really going to talk about that next week. Thank you so much for joining us today. As always, my name is Chloe Nuller. And I'm Mattingly Watson. And this is fact of life.