The trouble with snapchat stories
Note: I wrote this in 2017, go easy on me
Three hours of sweaty backs. That’s apparently what it takes to stand front row for Twenty One Pilots these days. We had all struggled to get up close. We wanted the experience of a lifetime. We wanted to experience our favorite band up close and personal, unfettered by a million heads and signs and poles around which the people in the back were trying to look. This is exactly why I was so confounded when, as soon as Josh and Tyler walked out on stage, the beautiful sea of excited faces around me turned into an INFERNAL SEA OF STUPID PHONES…. and that’s the way it was for the entire. freakin. concert. It was as if everyone had coordinated beforehand — unbelievable.
Social credit. That’s what everyone at that concert was thirsting for. It’s a commodity. It can’t be shared. It’s linked to you and you alone. A video of you at the very front of a 60k deep crowd seeing TwentyOnePilots at a huge music festival gets you a lot of social credit with whoever sees it. That’s why those videos were going straight to snapchat/instagram/facebook “stories”. That’s where most people will see them.
It seems we’ve passed a threshold where the social credit you earn among your peers from sharing an experience has higher value than the experience itself. Everyone’s forfeiting their own experience to instead show others that they were there. We’re skipping the race and grabbing for the participation medal!
Which life would you rather live: a beautiful life living your dreams where everyone thought you were totally lame; or the opposite: a totally lame life where everyone thought you were living your dream? On the meta scale, the answer becomes clear. Sacrificing our life experiences to impress our peers isn’t worth it. Watching the entire concert through the screen of your phone isn’t worth sacrificing the alternative.
Let’s go one step further — what happens when your decisions become dictated solely by their potential to earn you social credit with your peers? Instead of asking, “which would be more fun?” we ask “which would look cooler to my friends?” When we change our decision-making processes in this way, we allow other to control us.
Who was at that concert because they were a true fan of the band, and who was there because they were a fan of what their friends might think? It’s not just in these big events either, this problem exists in the everyday life of someone who shares their experiences online. For those people, “What should I do today” becomes synonymous with “What does my audience want me to do today?” Your identity converges on the identity prescribed to you by your audience.
Living life by your own preferences is much much better than living by the preferences of others. And like any currency, social credit doesn’t always have value everywhere and at all times, so let’s not stake our whole life on that.
