I have made some amazing connections on social media and some of those connections have blossomed into friendships. I am grateful for those.
I also have a been thrown away by a bunch of people I used to consider friends, they still stay connected to me via social media. They might comment on or like my posts but really don't have a word to say to me in real life. This makes me feel a little weird cause I am not exactly sure where I stand with them.
Parasocial relationships will always be toxic, on both sides.
I feel like social media has ruined the way humans interact with each other in many ways but in some ways it has also helped because it offers socially awkward people like me a low stakes alternative way of sharing ourselves and interacting with other people.
Social media brought me closer to high school and old coworker, associates whom I never thought I would have any relationship with. I enjoy engaging with many of these people and basically we give each other advice. I have literally helped people save marriages, buy homes, solve 2nd grade math problems and etc. They've helped me with my health issues, teenage mood swings, and encouraged me to keep striving. Honestly without social media I would never have known how much I have in common with these individuals. I can't think of a way that social media harmed my friendships. To be quite honest I do not think I allow people to get that close.
I'm from the midwest originally but have been a New Yorker for almost 8 years. Since moving here, my career as a makeup artist has been fruitful. And of course, I've learned how to pick the ripest fruits for social media posts. Because of this presence via my socials, some of my friends have most definitely felt a disconnection. Even though it is real, I feel they really equate my life to what they see on my profiles, not remembering that it's a job to be posting and quite frankly, posting most of the good shit. It's definitely driven a wedge but one that would probably be there either way.
This yt girl who I actually became really close friends with came into my dm offended and even with rational explanation why it bothered me to have these intrusive questions coming at me all the time she thought I should be flattered. She unfollowed me and that was the end on that.
I lost a friendship from second grade and we are now both in our seventies!! Yes seventies,!! WHY, because she came out of mouth wrong not once but twice and I thought we had gotten over the first mishap we had, only to find out she's still holding on to some inconsequential bullshit from two years ago about me not coming to her event and she came to mine.??? REALLY??? We are both in what I like to call the fourth quarter of our lives, and if holding grudges makes you feel better have at it! I'm over it!
First and foremost.. thank you Jet for sharing, opening forum for the rest of us to share our stories as well.
It was four years in from being acquainted to this person when I shared on a post I was going on vacation to their native birth place, they would also be there visiting during that time so they offered to show me around. We had never met irl and they were eager to meet me. Keeping the story short, I did something that in the eyes of this person was morally reprehensible and instead of approaching me to discuss, it was shared publicly on a social media platform. From then on it was a series of indirect comments aimed at me on social. Immediately I realized this wasn’t a safe person to share with. My experience with connecting with folks on social hasn’t been the best, there are many other stories of folks showing their arse out of left field and many times I’ve done some introspection to investigate if it’s me. We have to be knee deep in sharing each other’s lives, a sense of trust, honesty and loyalty (something quite rare nowadays) for me to even call someone a friend. It changed me, what I share for the most part is surface level and carefully crafted now.
Social media has recently helped me reconnect with my middle school best friend and I hope this time we'll keep in touch more and not let our friendship 'expire'.
It has helped me stay connected to my other friends during my year abroad but has also harmed me in the sense that I sometimes felt like I had to share every cool new thing I was experiencing instead of just enjoying them to the fullest.
I think I naively thought that my friends at least shared similar thoughts on political and social issues. What SM has made very clear, especially during the pandemic, is that people perform queer and abolitionist aesthetics (not politics) online. I think to some extent we are all performing for some level of acceptance, but it was really heartbreaking to see how many folks I knew were pro Trump, didn't believe Covid is real, and a bunch of other disappointments.
I'm mostly here for the memes and doom scrolling through the apocalypse.
I lost two friends over the course of the pandemic. SPECIFICALLY because of social media.
The first: I was unceremoniously dumped and ghosted because I dared to ask for more "romance" from my friends. My then friend took it as a personal slight and decided she no longer wanted to be my friend. I felt like I had been thrown away. At the height of the pandemic and in what felt like an indomitable wave of loss, I couldn't understand or accept that this person didn't want me because I asked for what I needed. Grand opening, and closing, off an ig story.
The Second: I shared with a friend that I had become very close with (think, bringing each other meals and meeting family) some frightening details about a man I'd slept with. I made it clear that he wasn't a good person /predatory and that I would no longer be in communication with him. She understood and agreed. that was until a photo of us together surfaced on the Internet and said man,that I no longer wanted to speak to, began showering her with a lot of attention. I should probably mention that this person was a very visible artist/personality.
Suddenly our mutual disgust for this individual became a party of one when interestingly he began showering her with attention and she fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. In the interest of being transparent I expressed that this was disappointing and I did not like it. Afterall, the friend of my enemy is my op.
She didn’t yield and as a matter of fact laughed it off as me being a bit too sensitive. “It’s not like I’m sleeping with a guy“. That was the end of my friendship as I knew it. And for what? A blue checkmark and a couple hearts.
From time to time I still feel the phantom pain at the wound site. The dull memory of pain under the scar if you will. But then I think about the friendships that have stayed. The ones that started off with a simple "I think you're really cool" and have ended up in lifting me up from the pits of my own despair to witnessing births, life dreams and holding hands in the most difficult moments.
It's a reminder that for as scary as the internet can be, it can be equally beautiful if you let it.
It has helped mine by staying in contact to share lighthearted content with my friends that I don’t see often. However, these are also friends that I talk to for hours when I see them even if it’s been months since we’ve last seen each other or had a deep convo and I love that.
It has also helped my friendships and created new ones by me sharing things like my struggles with anxiety and being on a spiritual journey. This has allowed me to connect with more of my friends on a different level.
It has harmed “friendships” because it’s gives people who aren’t really my friends the space to judge and assume things about my life. My real friends know it’s just social media and know my real life but can appreciate all the fun parts I post for everyone.
im not on fasbuk
I have made some amazing connections on social media and some of those connections have blossomed into friendships. I am grateful for those.
I also have a been thrown away by a bunch of people I used to consider friends, they still stay connected to me via social media. They might comment on or like my posts but really don't have a word to say to me in real life. This makes me feel a little weird cause I am not exactly sure where I stand with them.
Parasocial relationships will always be toxic, on both sides.
I feel like social media has ruined the way humans interact with each other in many ways but in some ways it has also helped because it offers socially awkward people like me a low stakes alternative way of sharing ourselves and interacting with other people.
Social media brought me closer to high school and old coworker, associates whom I never thought I would have any relationship with. I enjoy engaging with many of these people and basically we give each other advice. I have literally helped people save marriages, buy homes, solve 2nd grade math problems and etc. They've helped me with my health issues, teenage mood swings, and encouraged me to keep striving. Honestly without social media I would never have known how much I have in common with these individuals. I can't think of a way that social media harmed my friendships. To be quite honest I do not think I allow people to get that close.
I'm from the midwest originally but have been a New Yorker for almost 8 years. Since moving here, my career as a makeup artist has been fruitful. And of course, I've learned how to pick the ripest fruits for social media posts. Because of this presence via my socials, some of my friends have most definitely felt a disconnection. Even though it is real, I feel they really equate my life to what they see on my profiles, not remembering that it's a job to be posting and quite frankly, posting most of the good shit. It's definitely driven a wedge but one that would probably be there either way.
I made a meme which read something like -
Them: Omg what ARE YOU?
Me: what are you???
[photo of the mystery white Air Heads]
This yt girl who I actually became really close friends with came into my dm offended and even with rational explanation why it bothered me to have these intrusive questions coming at me all the time she thought I should be flattered. She unfollowed me and that was the end on that.
I lost a friendship from second grade and we are now both in our seventies!! Yes seventies,!! WHY, because she came out of mouth wrong not once but twice and I thought we had gotten over the first mishap we had, only to find out she's still holding on to some inconsequential bullshit from two years ago about me not coming to her event and she came to mine.??? REALLY??? We are both in what I like to call the fourth quarter of our lives, and if holding grudges makes you feel better have at it! I'm over it!
First and foremost.. thank you Jet for sharing, opening forum for the rest of us to share our stories as well.
It was four years in from being acquainted to this person when I shared on a post I was going on vacation to their native birth place, they would also be there visiting during that time so they offered to show me around. We had never met irl and they were eager to meet me. Keeping the story short, I did something that in the eyes of this person was morally reprehensible and instead of approaching me to discuss, it was shared publicly on a social media platform. From then on it was a series of indirect comments aimed at me on social. Immediately I realized this wasn’t a safe person to share with. My experience with connecting with folks on social hasn’t been the best, there are many other stories of folks showing their arse out of left field and many times I’ve done some introspection to investigate if it’s me. We have to be knee deep in sharing each other’s lives, a sense of trust, honesty and loyalty (something quite rare nowadays) for me to even call someone a friend. It changed me, what I share for the most part is surface level and carefully crafted now.
Social media has recently helped me reconnect with my middle school best friend and I hope this time we'll keep in touch more and not let our friendship 'expire'.
It has helped me stay connected to my other friends during my year abroad but has also harmed me in the sense that I sometimes felt like I had to share every cool new thing I was experiencing instead of just enjoying them to the fullest.
I think I naively thought that my friends at least shared similar thoughts on political and social issues. What SM has made very clear, especially during the pandemic, is that people perform queer and abolitionist aesthetics (not politics) online. I think to some extent we are all performing for some level of acceptance, but it was really heartbreaking to see how many folks I knew were pro Trump, didn't believe Covid is real, and a bunch of other disappointments.
I'm mostly here for the memes and doom scrolling through the apocalypse.
I lost two friends over the course of the pandemic. SPECIFICALLY because of social media.
The first: I was unceremoniously dumped and ghosted because I dared to ask for more "romance" from my friends. My then friend took it as a personal slight and decided she no longer wanted to be my friend. I felt like I had been thrown away. At the height of the pandemic and in what felt like an indomitable wave of loss, I couldn't understand or accept that this person didn't want me because I asked for what I needed. Grand opening, and closing, off an ig story.
The Second: I shared with a friend that I had become very close with (think, bringing each other meals and meeting family) some frightening details about a man I'd slept with. I made it clear that he wasn't a good person /predatory and that I would no longer be in communication with him. She understood and agreed. that was until a photo of us together surfaced on the Internet and said man,that I no longer wanted to speak to, began showering her with a lot of attention. I should probably mention that this person was a very visible artist/personality.
Suddenly our mutual disgust for this individual became a party of one when interestingly he began showering her with attention and she fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. In the interest of being transparent I expressed that this was disappointing and I did not like it. Afterall, the friend of my enemy is my op.
She didn’t yield and as a matter of fact laughed it off as me being a bit too sensitive. “It’s not like I’m sleeping with a guy“. That was the end of my friendship as I knew it. And for what? A blue checkmark and a couple hearts.
From time to time I still feel the phantom pain at the wound site. The dull memory of pain under the scar if you will. But then I think about the friendships that have stayed. The ones that started off with a simple "I think you're really cool" and have ended up in lifting me up from the pits of my own despair to witnessing births, life dreams and holding hands in the most difficult moments.
It's a reminder that for as scary as the internet can be, it can be equally beautiful if you let it.
It has helped mine by staying in contact to share lighthearted content with my friends that I don’t see often. However, these are also friends that I talk to for hours when I see them even if it’s been months since we’ve last seen each other or had a deep convo and I love that.
It has also helped my friendships and created new ones by me sharing things like my struggles with anxiety and being on a spiritual journey. This has allowed me to connect with more of my friends on a different level.
It has harmed “friendships” because it’s gives people who aren’t really my friends the space to judge and assume things about my life. My real friends know it’s just social media and know my real life but can appreciate all the fun parts I post for everyone.
Do you think we’ll ever be friends that talk on the phone? I have a landline. Hit me ☎️
Hey girl hey!
IG story sharing & DMing has helped my friendship because it helps us stay connected.