THE SOCIAL MEDIA BRAG:

We Are All Stuart Smalley Now

By Tess Mullins | Remnant Staff Writer

Status Update: I’m about to rip on social media.

But before I begin, let me take a selfie so you all can visualize my angst… Remember when bragging was bad form? Whatever happened to that?

We all like it when people notice, I suppose, when you have to tell them to notice, doesn't it get just a little awkward?

My grandfather called them blowhards; today they’re respected bloggers.

Anyway, it used to be socially awkward when people went fishing for compliments. Now it’s what we do...

one, long fishing trip after another. And when the fish stop biting, just change the bait! Post another profile pic—and start all over again.

It’s a 24/7 competition for attention on social media, there’s no denying that fact. It ranges from the mundane to the positively ludicrous, and maybe the following exercise will highlight the difference: Imagine sitting down opposite your friend at a restaurant and saying: "Today I was watering the garden and the hose sprung a leak all over my pants!"

That’s one thing. It’s a self-deprecating little anecdote and if it ends up online, whatever. Still might be a little cry for attention if you feel the need to post that sort of thing online, but that status update is not why I’m writing this.

I’m writing about the following: Imagine now you sat down with your friend and suddenly blurted out: "My Faith absolutely defines me because I’m nearing the seventh castle of spirituality, but I also need to let my creative streak shine!"

What the…? Imagine the look on your friend’s face. "Umkay… you do you, Pumpkin."

You would have utterly embarrassed yourself.

So how come when we post the same sentence online, we’re not embarrassed? We’re arguably the most selfconscious people in history, but we can’t cyber-blush.

We all know the girl in the second scenario. In fact, we know many; our feeds are littered with posts like this: "I just realized during this journey that with all my philanthropic writing and posting I forgot to make time for myself. I matter, even though I put my needs aside at all times in order to be a force for good, but… maybe it’s time, for your benefit as well as mine, of course, that I carve out some me time. In 2019, I’m going to take more meaningful swims in Lake Me!"

Her "About Me" goes something like: "I like movies! And walks in the rain!

My friends call me spunky, sassy and glamorous lolz! I enrich the lives of those around me by doing hair and makeup tutorials on my vlog! I’m a ‘Beau-tuber’ because I YouTube beauty Lol!"

She’s even got the results of one of those personality quizzes that were so popular in the early 2000s: "I’m loving, complex, and amazing! I’m also most like the Disney character Belle because I’m extremely susceptible to Stockholm syndrome LOL!"

Oh boy. Line up if you want to hear more from Spunky on a daily basis, because she never stops.

My generation calls this girl "basic b*tch", which aside from being depressingly apropos, may be the most astute observation we’ve come up with so far.

And LOL simply follows pretty much everything we chat, tweet and post. It has replaced the period, in fact. Why?

Because way down deep inside we know we’re acting like a basic…well, we’re acting, and so we need the LOL to provide cover. "If you call out my BS I will fall back on my LOL. Just kidding. You know I’m self-indulging like a drunk bohemian so I must be LOLing like any normal person should." It really is LOL, though, when a 28-year-old’s resume can be mistaken for a 13-year-old’s Myspace page.

We’ve become a caricature and, for that matter, a SNL character: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6ldAQ6Rh5ZI For those who can't click the link,

it's 'Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley'; a skit in which the character tells himself in the mirror, 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!'

It was comedy back then. Today it’s Facebook.

I guess we think we’re "worth it", but it really wasn’t that long ago when people used to LOL at delusional folks who thought they were so "worth it" that they could tell it to the world.

For those of you who still laugh at Stuart, here’s a serious question: When was the last time you commented favorably on a friend’s status update, and meant it? When your basic, um, gal pal posted that before-and-after hair pic, or the song lyrics that were supposed to make her seem deep, or the life goals that included ‘hugging puppies more’— When you saw that post, did you even sort of care?

How about when your guy friend tried to wax poetic about the smell of the great outdoors, or prove his macho cred by taking a cigar selfie, or when his Twitter bio read as follows: "Artist. Author. Philanthropist... Self.

Me. I."

Did you mean it when you hit the Like Button and called him "Bro"? If you did, well, I fear it’s worse now than Orwell ever thought it would get.

We all know it’s not really deep, Bro. So, why do so many comments on Facebook and Instagram read something like this: "You’re just so AMAZING. And so lovably random! You’re a dreamer and you will follow those dreams wherever your giant heart takes you! Let’s celebrate you!"

And not more like: "Listen, while you’re trying desperately to remind us all how precious you are, some people are dying of cancer…" Sometimes it’s not the original post that freaks me out as much as the comments do. Why do we respond like we’re buying all that vanity on e-steroids?

Maybe we should think about not enabling this kind of psychotic behavior and call it out instead.

What’s most frightening is that people who seem intelligent and accomplished fall just as hard as anyone else. And they slowly morph into "Spunky who is random" without even realizing it. Which is kind of funny, because you’d think if we’re already creating imaginary personas on social media, we wouldn’t choose to go the ultimate ditz route. Why do we have to care about hair color and pumpkin spice lattes just because we’re on social media?

Yet "Spunky who is random" is what most full-grown humans are achieving right now. Why? Tell him, Stu: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ZVA-Bx4rNc0 'So today, I decided to take a risk, and wear: A new sweater!'

Does it get any more self-obsessed?

Selfishness is a terrible thing. It makes people untrustworthy. When everything a person does has an obviously selfish motive, how do we know they won’t throw us under the bus whenever they want a spike in their likes?

We see it all the time. Good friends one moment, mortal enemies the next. It’s nothing personal, just clickbait.

So, an online persona defined by superficiality and selfishness? How can that be a good thing?

That’s what I see when I poke around in the self-promotion theme park that is Facebook; a whole lot of self-absorbed individuals who can’t be trusted with real-life relationships... They don’t know what it means to be loyal to anything but their own image.

It’s literally Narcissus at his pool; everyone’s obsessed with the projected version of themselves that they’ve

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