I hate social networking. I despise it. All of it.
For me it’s a tool (like me, some would say).
“But, Aaron. You have 1500 friends on Facebook and nearly 10,000 on Twitter. You’re lying.”
Oh but I’m not. I used to love social networking. I used to travel to conferences where other social media people were just to, in hindsight, make myself look more like a stud. That’s why there are so many.
I’ve dated or slept with social media women just for access.
I’ve been that guy at SXSW that, as a former Austinite, I now mock. That one cutting to the front of the blocks-long line to a hot party just to utter those predictable, and douchey words, “Do you know who I am?”
I have the cred I so craved. Even years after I stopped the social whoredom. I get added to Social Media lists on Twitter every day? Why? Because someone thinks if you have 10k followers, you must be important, and therefore, you must be “social media”.
I am important. But not in that way. I am important to my 9 year old son who I don’t see nearly as often as I’d like. I’m important to my company because I can take their WordPress life farther than they dreamed.
I’m important to my friends… My real friends. The ones who drink beer with me or wish they were drinking beer with me like they used to.
I’m not important because I have friends or followers. And the quality of my life is not contingent on my social presence. I could give a shit less.
When you introduce me as technosailor, instead of Aaron, you do a disservice to me and you. You are the one caught up in the social insanity. Go drink a beer or watch Breaking Bad or, for god’s sake, go fuck your wife.
Come with me for a minute as I revisit a moment of my life.
It was 1998 and I was in my religious mode. I realize that most readers aren’t aware of this past and really prefer if I don’t get preachy. So I won’t.
But what was said from a pulpit 15 years ago lives on in me, as a life principle.
In the Old Testament book of Joshua, the story is told of the Children of Israel, after a generation of wandering in the Sinai desert after escaping Egyptian captivity, finally had the opportunity to cross the Jordan River into their promised land.
Joshua, their leader, was instructed to construct a monument in the middle of the river where they crossed on dry land. The monument was to be made of 12 stones (representing Abraham’s twelve sons an the tribes of Israel) and it was to be a celebration of gaining the Promised Land.
It would be really easy, after 40 years and finally attaining your goal, to stay there and live life there. Live in that glorious history and moment.
Except they had a job to do and a land to conquer. They couldn’t stay in that moment. They had to move on. That moment was glorious but they couldn’t stay. They had to do work.
And so we come back to social networking. I’ve been on Twitter since early 2007. I’ve been on Facebook since late 2006.
I could live in the glory of the Internet and social networking but I’ve got a life to live.
Some of you are still mindlessly operating with the idea you can make a living doing social media on the Internet. When you simply can’t. Only very few people can do it well.
As the Jordan River became a part of Israel’s every day life, social networking is a part of mine. I use it. I live it. I meet people there. It is not my life. And if its yours, you really need to re-examine your priorities.
