Our Ratings

Almost all of us at one time or another have been guilty of trying way too hard on social media to be funny, witty and smart to gain likes, hearts, retweets, followers and what not. Way too hard. The reason I am bringing this up is because I was deeply influenced by a single episode of a TV series. Now usually my social commentary about TV and movies is usually limited to discussion with friends and a mere single tweet at the max. But this time it was different. I watched the first episode of Season 3 of Black Mirror last night and honestly, it hit really close to heart. It was the story of a young woman who lived in a society where social media popularity or “rating” was something that had real world implications. Your interactions with the physical world affected your ratings and your ratings affected how the world interacted with you. I don’t think we are that far from this future. Today no matter what the event is, good or bad, the first thing that comes to mind is what witty post can be shared on social media to garner social clout. Minds start racing to think of that one witty tweet that will get all the RTs in the world. Taking selfies for Instagram and Facebook takes precedence over actually making that moment worth it. The amount of effort that goes in keeping up and maintaining this facade could easily be diverted into actually building character and hobbies. But who does not know all this? We are like any other kind of addicts. Smokers know that the cigarette is killing them, so do drug abusers. Yet somehow constantly looking into that 5” screen has become socially acceptable. I am in no authority to point fingers or preach any cure for I too am one of the addicts. A self-aware addict who knows that every single funny Reddit post is 2 minutes I will never get back and yet here I go swiping away to the next post. I know the solution. We all do. Yet. Maybe we love our ratings more than we know.