Social Media has created an avenue for people to share their lives. Before we only got a glimpse of the lives of celebrities and known personalities through magazines, newspapers and TV. Now, through Social Media an average person can accrue a following and share snippets of their lives with them. Social Media gives people the power to curate their lives for a ready audience. This curation pressures people to only share their happiest or the most glamorous parts of their lives. If everyone is sharing about their seemingly fanstastic lives, it can put pressure on others to keep up. The negative consequences of Social Media are more obvious when it comes to young people.
Standards have always been set but on Social Media the standards being set are more in your face and the pressure to live up to certain expectations is more. For instance there was a conversation on Kenyan Social Media recently about how men should own a car by age 25. This is not a realistic expectation because some people don’t even have stable jobs by age 25. There was also another instance where people were dissing a guy who offered a lady pancakes and beans when she visited his house. To most people that’s probably not a good dish but what if that’s the only food he could afford at the time?
Some of the people who are setting these standards on Social Media are dishonest in that they don’t disclose their sources of wealth. While other people are struggling to create their own wealth, these people ‘ball’ with their parent’s wealth and pass it off as their own. It is much easier to be a 25 year old driving, going on exotic holidays and drinking sangrias every other day when you are from a privileged background. The average 25 year old doesn’t have access to that kind of lifestyle.
There is nothing wrong with being from a rich family and enjoying the benefits that come with it. The only problem is when young people pose as though the things they have access to, like the car they drive, neighbourhood they live in and the holidays they go on, are not benefits from family money but from personal achievement. This is misrepresentation as it paints a false picture of success that doesn’t exist. Other young people will be looking at these people and their ‘success’ and feel inferior and yet they haven’t really achieved anything.
For the average person in Kenya, being able to run a successful business, own a car or go on holiday is a pipe dream. The opportunities aren’t many and for those who make it, it takes years of hard work and perseverance to get there. Therefore, we need to start having honest conversations about what it takes to be successful and stop placing undue pressure on young people.