The Real Danger Is In Living A Lie

I am a Facebook creator. I’m not entirely sure what that even means, but it gives me access to analytics. Analytics I don’t look at often, because honestly, my showing up here is far more about sharing than anything that can be analyzed.

With that said, I checked my analytics yesterday. And as you can see, they were all bad news.

Or at least, Facebook wanted me to feel them as bad news.

Why the red numbers? Red means danger. Bleeding. Error. Threat.

Does Facebook want me to see that I’ve lost 16 followers this past month and experience that as danger? As a threat? I think so, because for a brief moment, that’s exactly what I felt.

For some people, their bodies have a hard time distinguishing between someone walking away from you and someone disappearing from a screen. For many, both register as less connection than before. And for people whose stories include silence, absence, or being left, that signal can land even harder.

I find it interesting that Facebook, and many other platforms (I pick on Facebook because it’s my go-to), was built two decades ago on bringing people together. Yet now, it seems sustained by making people fear others will walk away.

Does it build by appealing to our shared longing to be seen and known, and then keep us hooked by preying on our shared fear of rejection?

But don’t worry. If you find yourself in the red zone, Facebook will offer strategies to fix it. Topics to write about. Ways to become more appealing. More acceptable. Maybe even some AI to help you along.

To what end? Lots of green numbers?

Green numbers that encourage me to meet the world where it is instead of sharing with the world who I am.

That’s where I eventually settled after the initial jolt of those red numbers.

I settled on a question. Or two.

Do you want to go back to chasing popularity at the expense of being known? Have you not run this experiment before - responding to red warnings in life by offering more of what you think will please others, while feeling more and more displeased with yourself?

Those 16 followers I lost? I have no idea who they are. I will likely never know who they are. How can people you can’t even identify as gone make you feel, even for a moment, like something meaningful has disappeared from your life?

I don’t know. I think red numbers play a role. Red numbers that stir memories of past rejection, or fear of it, far more than anything actually happening in the world of social media analytics.

And this is not lost on social media platforms. Understanding the science of all this is surely in their strategic plans. Hence, the red numbers.

So, for social media 'creators' like myself, I want to encourage you to look instead to the green numbers in your life. The people who are with you when life is red, or green, or black and blue.

Maybe that number is one. Maybe it’s a dozen.

Look to the people who are not up arrows or down arrows. They are simply lines in the sand, walking beside you. Parallel. Processing the stories of your life with you, not deciding whether they are worthy of a red or a green grade.

As for social media, if you want followers, write for followers. But if you want connection, write yourself. Your true, unafraid-of-red-numbers self.