June, how I've waited for you! 23 days down with 30 minutes to spew out my thoughts to the world. Here we go...
I never like to talk about my life in here, instead I only add the bits I feel would implicate me less in this era of 'hey guys, welcome to my channel'. As much as I want to keep things mysterious to spice up my online persona, I feel like a lot can go wrong with an audience that hides behind screens. I would rather take my chances on being as evasive as possible. Yes, I'm admitting to my cowardice. However, I will defend my stance by saying that whatever thoughts I type in here, are rarely inspired by my own life. Rather, they have everything to do with how I perceive the world (people/places/things/ANYTHING) around me. That's the inspiration. What I hide is under lock and key in a mind vault labelled "PRIVATE, for Yvette's crazy thoughts only". The world around me and how I would like to change it through the words I share is what matters most.
With that misleading segue, let me point out that sometimes I do like to make it a bit personal. Especially when I need to express my frustration on the things I can't change even with my thoughts.
This will take me back to the audience behind the screens, which we all fall under. Our virtual social lives have become part of our real lives, making us targets to the laziest form of human compassion. I'm guilty of it and so are millions of social media users. We see people getting killed and we create hashtags, we see effects of global warming and change our profile colours, we see children suffering and tweet out "sending love and light/prayers." Is it really helping? Maybe. As humans we need that solidarity but how would the people we are supposedly supporting know that we are there for them, when they hardly have any internet connection? Will they look for a phone or look for food? Will they scroll through their feeds or take cover from shots?
Don't get me wrong, all these displays of compassion do go a long way in informing the masses and getting attention. Both relevant and irrelevant attention. However, what comes next? How do we move from solidarity to action?
Our efforts to change bad situations with social media has made me more frustrated because we give more attention to useless trends. It becomes even worse, when people endorse these trends for commercial gain. In my own capacity as a tiny speck in a population of 7 billion people, I may not have the means to change real global crises. However, I never want to put a post up on Facebook and forget that in my own little world/community, I could turn that solidarity into action without having to tweet about it or annoyingly change my profile picture. All I can hope for is that the right people, with the means and power, do MORE for our troubled world.
From a hypocritical perspective, all I can say is, I'm sending my prayers and love to the world. We need them #startactingstoptyping
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