Prisons, Fear, and Personal Branding

Let’s skip all the positive things about social media that have been mentioned countless times, and criticize it for a change:

Social media is a prison.

It’s unnatural, we are not supposed to like everyone.

But we are trying.

The more you get involved in things like Twitter or Facebook, the more people you connect with, the more polite you have to be. Now, politeness is reaching a ridiculous level, where everything is awesome and everyone is cool.

You can’t tell someone you don’t like them or what they do.

One of the reasons for this, is the word “Friend.” Are we really buying that? Are we really considering everyone as a friend?

The problem with being “friends” with everyone you connect with, is that it makes you a prisoner. Everyone knows that “breaking up” with a real friend in real life, is not easy. Not impossible, but definitely not easy. Usually it happens over time.

But social media friends are not real friends. People shouldn’t feel obliged to keep that act going. People shouldn’t even give explanations. It shouldn’t be that hard.

I blame all those Personal Branding blogs.

Because of them, we are afraid.

Afraid of being honest and direct. Afraid of being human.

God forbid if we say or do something someone doesn’t like and then we are ridiculed by millions.

God forbid if we actually embrace conflict, one of the most natural aspects of man.

God forbid if we actually show ourselves how we really are.

We are lying to ourselves.

We are pretending to care more about the social part than the business/networking part.

Losing readership, customers, followers is not a social fear. It’s a fear of interests, of politics.

True relationships are not about politics.

Social media is all about politics.