Social Media and Reality

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Social Media and Reality
Introduction
The advent of social media was one that was met with a lot of pomp and fanfare by many people. Everyone wanted to have a Facebook account and take part in whatever discussions that were happening. People tried to upload as many pictures as possible with the sole purpose of trying to outdo each other and show others that they are indeed living their best lives. Celebrities like the famous footballer Christiano Ronaldo have garnered more following around their world, as many people want to marvel and get the inside of how he is living his life. Back in February of 2021, Christiano Ronaldo became the first person in the world to have more than 500 million social media followers across all social media platforms (Daniels). Today, such feats are exalted and more people are trying to put out content that they believe will help them get more followers. Getting more followers, likes, reactions, and comments on one's posts have gained a lot of importance, and people are investing more of their time and resources to put out 'great content.' What many people seem to ignore is the fact that the lives that they adore are quite apart from their reality. When people watch Christiano's life, their perception of what is real and how their lives should be changes. Many wish for the same lifestyle. While there is no problem with the celebrities sharing their lifestyles, the problem arises when an average follower goes ahead to "believe that these kinds of lifestyles are normal – and achievable" (Chafer). When exposed to such lifestyles every other day, people are likely to develop a liking to the lifestyles that they see on these platforms. However, the reality of life is that there can only be a few people with as much success and wealth in the world. There is a need, therefore, to sensitize people against the ideas of chasing illusions. Social media can be a great tool that fosters unity of purpose and brings people together against common societal evils. For example, Jackson, Bailey, and Welles (98) offer details of how Twitter was used to organize protests in 2009 after the death of Grant. The authors note that Twitter was used to "inform members when and where to meet for the first protest of Grant's death on January 7, 2009" (98). There is no denying the power of social media. However, its destruction or impact in disrupting reality should also not be downplayed.
The Campaign
The campaign at hand will seek to speak on the effects of social media on reality. The campaign does not seek to denounce the contribution that social media has made and how it continues to change lives with hashtags and campaigns that take the world by storm. During the Arab Spring, the world got front-row seats as the Egyptians and Tunisians used social media platforms to stage protests that led to regime changes. As Tufekci (xxii) notes, Facebook was the main engine of the Egyptian protests. Tufekci speaks of a particular Facebook page in Egypt that had become a "forum for organizing the initial Tahrir uprising and had mustered hundreds of thousands of supporters." People were only supposed to say they were attending, and they were part of the movement and revolution. Despite helping to push such protests, social media continues to fall short, especially when its effects on warping or distorting reality are assessed. Therefore, this campaign seeks to shed light on this sad reality and showcase the effects of the same to the target audience.
Audience
The target audience for this campaign is mainly the young people who happen to be readily influenced by the lives of celebrities and the influencers they follow and biblically subscribe to. While conducting a study on teens and social media, Anderson and Jiang (n.p.) discovered that a significant percentage of teens believe that social media "distorts reality and gives teens an unrealistic view of other people's lives." Thus, many teenagers strive for the same lives without the understanding that social media and reality are two wildly different universes. On social media, everyone is doing well. People have the best bodies, are following a particular regimen to get themselves to the best health possible. Others are living their best lives where they get to travel all over the world and take pictures while in all the famous places. When the majority of young people become privy to such lifestyles, they desire the same. Many start taking pictures and photos of themselves doing crazy and life-threatening stunts to try and get followers and reach the levels of influence of their idols. So, there is a need to sensitize the young people and have them lead lives that are within what they can afford.
Promotion of the Campaign on Different Social Media Platforms
For such a campaign to succeed, there is a need for proper organization. One of the major disadvantages of social media campaigns is the lack of cohesiveness on all the platforms. People could have a similar agenda but fail to attain their goals because of the message they are putting out. For example, Facebook could call for protests, and Twitter could ask people to join the movement and retweet the message being propagated. The lack of a united message could negatively influence the response people have to the movement or the campaign. Tufekci (xxiii) notes that social media platforms are limited in organizing protests. Traditional organizing boasts of having "collective decision-making capabilities" as well as a formal leadership structure. With these, it is quite easy to organize and call for meetings and protests. However, social media platforms are different mainly because of the informality with which they are conducted. Also, there are no clear-cut leadership structures for social media movements and campaigns.
However, regardless of the above challenges, social media platforms can help attain certain goals through well-organized campaigns. For example, Facebook and Instagram can be the main outlet for the videos that are associated with the campaign. Short video clips can be uploaded on Facebook and Instagram periodically to help get the young people aware of the campaign. Twitter and Pinterest could be the main outlets for images with the message of the campaign. Each platform needs to have a purpose of helping drive the message of the campaign further. Instagram, for example, is not the best platform to reach people in the technical fields. Posts on such fields w...