Mythical proportions: social media

One thing I really love about social media is how I can BE little ole me.  Authenticity is the new normal.  I tend to reflect on the past year, where I am in life, and my own personal checkpoints that I've carried over the years.  Sometimes it weighs a ton, and others when I can be refreshed and exuberant at the same time.   

Last year, I reflected a lot about music.  Interesting, now I come to think of it because I would have thought books would have been my highest interests.  Yet subconsciously, while lost in reflection, my natural implosion is music.

Perhaps it shouldn't be.  I still remember figure skating ... how there was times I leaned into the music, hastened my pace based on the music, learned to jump at certain crescendos or spin at others that felt right to.  That must be what it is like to be a true artist and musician:  you simply get lost in it, unfaltering love, hidden talents that you haven't even examined, never mind let them implode.  That is what it is that allows the magnificent visionaries we think of.  When you think of a great visionary do you automatically think of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?  Or could you even possibly think of Mother Theresa?  Opposite ends of a great spectrum.

So writing has become my crescendo in life I suppose.  It is like all that build up is ready to explode ... the sad, the lonely, the ill would implode.  Cave in.  But not the visionary in life.  Thinking about JJ Rowlings ... she certainly found her greatest talent at her darkest hour.  Others may have ended up at their darkest hours.

I watched the HBO Special with Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt, who at 91 has a girlish giggle and exudes a sense that she is JUST now discovering her meaning to life.   I couldn't even fathom being a very young child and your father dies, then all the adults around you are bickering and fighting, forcing you to go to this very big building, with intimidating strangers jumping into the fold of the bickering.  Blustering to the point of spit and puffed up red faces.  Who needs to worry about the monster under the bed or in the closet when that is your real life.  I'd imagine, she would want to run to the closet and hide, to keep the real monster around her growl and push her around.

It was just amazing.  I haven't really had an idol since Princess Diana passed away::  someone my own age who lived gazillions of years away in how our lives took such different spins.

You had this incredibly beautiful, young beyond her age, vibrant, intensively passionate woman honestly say what makes her tick (her art and earlier her fashion).  I was astounded when she talked about her marriage at 17 to a man 31.  Or her marrying at 20, to a man 63.  Both masters, reveled in their respective vocations. That must be what is part of Gloria's magic, she really had found guidance in her husbands, that disguised the omission of having a father figure in her entire life.  Think of all her influencers:  darling DoDo, her nurse, mother, nanny, teacher or her grandmother who became entangled with the Whitney family.  Then her mother, hidden away in the make believe world of Hollywood.  I adored her frankness when she talked about being an actress or model:  they put makeup on her, dressed her and made her feel beautiful.

In my rambling mind, which hasn't been uncorked for a few days, either on optioneerJM or MEANDERINGSabout ... so I guess I'm letting it rip eh?

I've been so pre-occupied with life, quite frankly, I haven't been too close to the computer.  With the exception of Saturdays Polyvore marathon.  Whew, I wish I would almost, but not quite, be able to buy all those things included in my collections.    Alas, that phase I think has finally burnt out:  shop til you drop, retail therapy, shopaholic, whatever you wanna call it has fizzled out.  Amazing, I really must be coming into myself.

First up this evening was to Facebook.  Like billions others, if I'm going to have a word from my kids, it will be more likely be seeing a post and clicking a like.  Funny how the world has evolved.  A child would know:: hey, I love ya ... OR ... been thinking about you .... wondering about .... this .. or .. that.  I click a like on one of their posts and they know I've been there.

As usual, I skim through the posts on my timeline.  Smart that Facebook:  now giving me the choice as to who or what posts I want to see when I first log on.  I used to think Google had it made in spades with their intuitive predictions of sights or tidbits that may draw me in.  Now, Facebook is our friend of a different sort.  It knows who I likely view, even the mere few ads I'll click, Groups I belong to, Facebook Pages I follow that gives them a real sense of where my head may likely be at.

Lately, at the top is a memory post from a year ago.  I've never been one to get tied up over politics.  I'd far more likely watch the Stanley Cup without the Flames or Canucks than local, national or international politics would register a blip on my heart monitor.  But there I was, asked to step forward to help a former colleague, who used to report to me a life time ago forging a friendship that transcended all that career stuff to step into life stuff.  What a transformation for the both of us.  Both perceived as successful, career women, we got to see each other as a Mother and Wife, and even a Sister ... family was our cornerstone.  Even if how we met and emerged as friends would be from a likely source, some might think.    Yet some of the luckiest of us did find that click.

This wonderful, poised, polished young lady returned to Canada, after serving her country for a number of years :: at embassies and consolates (back in a min or two with the right spelling) :: decided she wanted to take her gift and dedicated talents back to her home city and run for a civic counselor post.  What a remarkable experience and insight it gave me into the world of politics.  I have only gotten into a social media spat once and it was an annoying advocate for my gal's post.    So opinionated and self-imposed on others, it was a lesson I failed to acknowledge.  I was not willing to accept that I could get into a furrow with anyone, never mind politics.  Mind you, I've cheered brothers on to hockey, and jumped up and down if either of my daughters scored a goal in soccer.  Not once, did I ever get into exchanges with the opposing team.  Then, slip into my discomfort zone, an area that was unfamiliar, the shield comes up instinctively.  I just didn't realize how sizable some think they are because of social media.  Like puffing out one's chest to be the biggest and the best ... unfortunately, more likely in their own minds.

And all the unsuspecting new social media enthusiasts who suck up all the BS just so they can feel like they're on the edge of something truly amazing.  A Justin Bieber created for the crowd of cheers from the immense audience that has no commercials, no script, no stifling.  The ego-icons are the fall out from social media, in my humble opinions.  It certainly has a dark side.

Then it popped.  There it was on my home page, top reference compliments of Facebook:  this reflection from a year ago when The Toronto Star published an article on who the highest paid Mayors are in Canada.  It obviously sent a tremor of sorts to my world because I clicked and shared it.  Our very own Mayor Nenshi was there.  It occurred to me, that I realized how important social media IS to politics but there is no follow up.  That is where the real media let us down.  One year their sending out a story, but never asked once, whether the citizens of the highest paid Mayors felt they get their money's worth.

Why shouldn't we ask?  I certainly don't think that a person who came out of obscurity, elected from Social Media campaigns, is what he may have led to people to believe they were getting.  Come on, please.  A Mayor who is single, male, never married, living in his mother's basement could be elected to head up one of the greatest cities in Canada, and often considered in the world.  What has this pinkasaurus got that Barney doesn't?  A successful social media campaign that was so great, the citizens of the great metropolis of oil barons got an impostor didn't he?  If not, tell me what he has done for the citizens who are being laid off, downsized, outsourced, offshore'd, replaced with newly onshores?  That may be a challenge to say.  The only time I hear about him is because he makes the bigger headlines that he's been voted the greatest mayor?  You're right, I didn't capitalize the story, because it wasn't a contest of greatness, it was a contest on social media campaigns which drew recognition.  

This all starts to make me crazy thinking about it.  Well, I'm not crazy, really.  I'm just pumped thinking about it.  My instinct was to ask how Nenshi ballooned to mythical proportions??  When my answer fell in front of me:  the part where MYTH enters the equation.  Which brings to realization that there are probably way way WAY more talented people out there that don't have that social media boost but would have been better trained, better qualified by active experience in representing political offices, a native who was born and educated locally, didn't have a shot because she didn't have the right boost.  My gal?  You betcha.

If you want another small example that grew large, that is, if you want to read more?  It would be how the NDP defeated the Conservatives in Alberta after being in power for 40 or 50 some years.  I think that people liked the caption to the end of the story:  overthrow government by political action!  That was more inspiring than the mythical proportion that did end up as a myth.  A year after this new government is in, the economy is flat, people, families are losing jobs, resulting in losing homes, and so on.  It's disgraceful is what it is.  Being blown up on hype, and unable to deliver on message.


THIS was the article and my reaction when I read a post from a year ago:  (I may have inserted the name of the publication that reported this, but I'm thinking that if brands want to be named, there should be something in it for me.)


I wonder if people in Calgary Culture​ think they are getting their money's worth from Naheed Nenshi​ ... it shows you that social media can pump you up into mythical proportions, and this is exactly what you get:  MYTHICAL proportions.    I've never thought of it before but Nenshi really is an impostor.  Why? Read more: at OPTIONEERjm .... 

I may start making creative license money by dropping in Brands whom I won't name, unless they pay me.  How's that?  Funny almost eh?  Well, when a respectable publication online refused me entry because I had anti-spam with ads turned off.  They actually said I would not be allowed entry unless I turned off my anti-advertisement tool.  Well, two can play that game eh?  Plus, they lost my readership.  The ego that thinks of itself with mythical proportions are going to go from unprinting publications to estranging readership.  Tell that to the paid advertisers.  Well, maybe not.  Hmmmm, I imagine many bloggers who would like to get paid a piece of the pie.  Especially, more people are gravitating towards authenticity, i.e. free subscriptions, and some may even like the lack of advertisers.