Margie Clayman

When I was in college, “Social Media” as it exists now didn’t really well, exist. In fact, on my very first day of college, when I sat down to email my family, I realized I really had no idea how to email people. By the time I got to be a junior and senior, pretty exciting things were going on. Livejournal was born. Amazing technology like AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ was the big rage. I mean,  I could talk to my friends over summer vacation without jogging up a big phone bill. Amazing! But Twitter, Facebook, blogging? Eh. Hadn’t really caught on, at least not in the circles I was in.

I am really thankful for that.

A lot of my time in college was spent getting to know people. We’d have long talks that would start at midnight and really get going around 3 or 4. Sometimes a person would ping me via IM or via our campus’s broadcast system and ask if I was awake. When I’d say yes I’d hear a light knock on my door and we’d start talking about whatever was bothering them.

I wonder if college kids do that as much now.

As I got to know and talk to more and more people, I realized there was a pattern that I identified as the “3 AM conversation.” After awhile going over sort of trivial things, often times, due to fatigue or who knows what else, people would suddenly start talking about things that they didn’t normally talk about. I’d find out that this person I knew had been abused as a child. Maybe they had tried to kill themselves. Maybe a past girlfriend or boyfriend had been lost due to suicide. Maybe they had had health problems when they were young. And I would share my stuff too. We’d sit there and talk about all of this pretty heavy stuff, give each other a hug, and then either finally go to sleep or decide to take a 5 AM trip to McDonalds.

Everyone, even the people who seemed the happiest, had a 3 AM conversation topic.

Nowadays, with the capacity to share everything and anything with hundreds or even thousands of people, I wonder if people still have these 3 AM conversations. I wonder if people still feel ok about sitting down with a friend and saying, “Hey, look, this is on my mind.” I wonder if people still feel like it’s cool to unburden themselves in an environment where they know the worst that will happen is they’ll be surrounded with knowing glances and possibly Chicken McNuggets.

Sure, with a blog post you can reach a lot of people, but I’ve noticed something about those really personal blog posts. No matter how much they may break my heart, no matter how much I care about the blogger, it’s not the same. Sitting there and typing how much you care about that person in a little dialog box is not the same. Even writing an email, which is more personal, is not the same. When someone is lifting up a bandaid, you don’t want to keep them waiting for 7 hours while they wait to see if anyone cares. And what is the right response, anyway? I’m never sure. Do I pour my own heart out in a comment box? Do I say everything I want to say, like, “Wow, I can’t believe that happened to you because you are so dear to me”? Do I let it pass and figure that the person probably feels better now that they got that off their backs? Do I share the post, which always seems to demean the importance of it?

Can you differentiate the really good listeners when you get comments on a blog post that is about something painful? Can you distinguish between the caring people and the people who want to get noticed on a post they feel will get a lot of attention?

Do you know that I would really listen if we were face-to-face and you were having a problem?

Technology is amazing. The blogging experience is amazing. But I’m not sure I can be happy about blogging replacing those 3 AM conversations. Even if, in my old and wizened 30s, 3 AM may now be, like, 1 AM. I worry that the authors of these personal blog posts will be left feeling empty because getting comments is not the same as getting immediate in-person feedback and understanding. I worry that I will become immune to such posts because I don’t hear the voice. I don’t see facial expressions. I just see words and whatever mood I care to reflect onto them.

I guess I just want to say that while a lot of people are using the online world to call for help, that may not be the only or the best pathway. Even though it’s hard, calling someone, skyping, “hanging out” on G+….these things may be better if you’re having a hard time. Getting that immediate response, that personal response, without all of the “social media crap” that can surround personal posts, may be better for you. Hearing legitimate care in one person’s voice may be more soothing than receiving 100 retweets. In fact, I’m rather certain of that.

Just because you *can* share your troubles online does not always mean that that will be the most helpful road. And if you are going through a hard time, I wanted to just nudge you and say, “Hey…there are other ways to reach out to people who can give you genuine and 100% legitimate care.” Reach out and revisit that 3 AM conversation.

And take care.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/franciscoiurcovich/3550150437/ via Creative Commons

Last night, a friend of mine from 12most, Keith Privette, posted a status update to Facebook. A friend of his essentially posted what appears to be a goodbye note to Facebook, and as of the time of me writing this, this friend still has yet to be found. Keith’s update directed people to his friend’s Facebook page, and as if trained, people started leaving messages for this fellow on that post. The last time I checked there were about 200 comments. All of the comments were filled with love, even though a lot of the people had no idea who this guy is. People shared their own stories of how they have struggled with depression. People reminded the fellow of the special times they had shared together, of his beautiful family, and of promised trips.

It’s still not clear how this story will go.

But it has me thinking about a lot of things.

This social media thing

Not just from a marketing perspective but from a human perspective, I think we’re getting this whole social media thing wrong in a lot of ways. The numbers don’t do a lot for us in the marketing world unless you know how to do them right. Similarly, numbers don’t really mean a whole lot in the human realm. I find joy in the online world because I get to know *people* as well, people. I don’t follow people back because they have x number of followers. In fact, a lot of people who have some 30,000 followers are often the biggest turd-nuggets I find (that’s a professional term). They aren’t engaging. They aren’t doing anything except promoting their own stuff. *yawn*

If you looked at this fellow’s social media stats, I’m sure you would say, as perhaps he himself might say, “Uh, well, he isn’t anyone important. He doesn’t have a lot of followers on Twitter. He doesn’t have a country’s worth of fans on Facebook.” But if you look at the outpouring of love and support he is getting, you’d think he was a social media superstar. And you know what, from what I can tell based on what these folks are saying and how much they care, he IS a superstar. But maybe you’d pass him by because he couldn’t get you to that next level.

What are we missing by not using this opportunity to get to know new people? What are sacrificing in the hopes of getting “bigger numbers?” It boggles my mind.

We’ve lost the capacity to see the value in ourselves

There is an epidemic of depression taking our precious friends and family members from us at an alarming rate, and I want to know why. I know way, way too many people who have tried to take their own lives, some of whom succeeded. I know far too many people who have hurt themselves. Have you thought about doing those things? Have you tried to do those things?

I know that our brains get fuzzy when our hearts muddy the waters, but maybe it is worthwhile, once a day, to think about all of the people who LOVE you, not just the people you’re grateful for. Who is that person that has called you once a week or once a month for the last 27 years? Who is that person you can talk to once a year and still have it feel like the old days? How much have you impacted the people around you? If this fellow could see how many people appreciated his smile, how many people care about him, and how many people are willing to rally around him in his time of need, I bet he’d be stunned. But maybe he doesn’t have time to think about all of that good stuff. Maybe none of us take the time to think about who we’re important to. Maybe it sounds egotistical, but I don’t think it is. Let Clarence help you out if you get stuck.

Waiting till it’s too late to say we care

Why do we have to wait until someone posts a goodbye message to say, “I love your smile”? Why does it always take a tragedy for us to say, with a strokey-beard pose, “Oh yes, we must appreciate those we love”? I know. Living with your heart on your sleeve is a scary proposition. It’s right there when you shake hands. It can get squished really easily. People can poke it with sharp objects and hurt you to your core. It’s risky.

As is walking out your door.

When was the last time you left a message for someone you care about saying something nice when it wasn’t their birthday or a holiday? When was the last time you ensured that that guy over there knows *exactly* how much you appreciate him? When was the last time you told that woman that you are so proud of everything she is doing?

Sure, you might sound corny. Sure, the person might back-pedal five steps away from you because being nice has become taboo, it seems. But do it anyway. Do you really want all of those feelings to come down to a comment on a scary Facebook post?

I don’t want to risk that. I don’t risk that. There are no guarantees. And telling someone their new avatar is lovely is so much more important than giving someone +K about lion cubs. It really is.

It’s time to weigh what matters. It’s time to remember that people are still people, even if they are 2D smiling avatars on a little screen. These people you talk to, they have their ups and downs, and you have a chance, a real chance, to reach out to all of these people.

Isn’t that what matters?

Seems so to me.

Carpe Diem

Carpe that hand. Reach out when someone says they’re feeling down. Jump for joy when someone finds success. Online and offline. Do it. Don’t save it for that moment when your heart is in your stomach wondering if you missed your chance.

Mind what matters. What REALLY matters.

OK?

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29553188@N07/3573969837/ via Creative Commons

One of my favorite movies of all time is Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. If you haven’t seen it it’s quite difficult to explain, but there is one line in particular I have always found useful in every day situations. In a gang of characters, the following dialogue takes place.

Character 1: “No, we agreed we’d have no leaders!”
Character 2: “Right! Now do as I say.”

I could be crazy, but I think this kind of mentality is standing in the way of gender equality for both men and women, but maybe particularly women. Tell me if you’ve seen or heard conversations like this before:

“Women should be allowed to do whatever they want. Women that do xyz are pretty dumb though.”

“Stop telling women what to do. They should really do this.”

“Young girls are growing up in an age when they can look forward to doing whatever they want when they’re grown up. They should really excel in science and math.”

To quote Will Ferrell’s character from Zoolander, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.”

Let’s talk about this discussion

OK, so…when you say “She can do whatever she wants,” what does that really mean? To me, and tell me if I’m way off, that means, “She can do whatever she wants.”  That means that if a woman wants to become the world’s greatest physicist, she should be able to do that. If a woman wants to stay at home and eat bon bons all day while her sugar daddy works, she should be able to do that. If a woman wants to work out of her home, she should be able to do that. And these women should be able to do these things without seeing raised eyebrows.

Raised eyebrows are creepy in large numbers.

Now, if you have opinions about how women (or men) should live their lives, more power to you. Most people have opinions about something, scientific studies show. However, voice these opinions in a truthful fashion. Instead of saying, “Don’t tell women what to do,” say something like, “If I ruled the world, this is what women would do.” Or maybe, if you’re feeling less ambitious, “Here’s how I live my life and why I think it’s good.”

Why tear people down?

What is really bothersome about these “Don’t tell women what to do” posts is that they seem to knock women off their game more than to stand up for women, but it’s all done in a very back-handed way. “Don’t tell women what to do. They should really do this.” Well, that insinuates that if you’re not doing “this” you’re doing something wrong. The same holds true for men. Why write a post saying, “Well, men need to do this that and the other thing” when really you are just verbalizing YOUR opinion about how men should live their lives? It’s rife with judgment, it doesn’t make sense, and dare I say, it’s rather much a hypocritical approach.

No one *should* do anything, really. People don’t even have to take care of themselves if they don’t want to. Until you are deemed the great ruler of the lower segment of the universe, it’s really not your business how other folks live or what other people tell those folks to do.

Am I right?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/table4five/2434005564/ via Creative Commons