Recently, I saw an episode of a Chuck Lorre creation, “Mom,” a comedy/drama centered around several women who are in recovery. It aired for eight seasons until 2021, but I hadn’t seen it, and now I’m hooked, partly because the writing and the performances are so adept, but primarily because women banding together to support one another will always be my thing. Another reason I find the series so compelling is due to the fact that one of my closest friends struggles with sobriety, and the writers do an excellent job of not only portraying that struggle, but demonstrating through plot and action how a loved one can help in that struggle.
In one episode, Nora, played by Yvette Nicole Brown, tells Christy, played by Anna Faris, “If you’re always seeking the validation of other people, you’ll never be content, because you’ve made them your ‘higher power.'”
That hit such a nerve with me, because, ever since the dawn of “influencers”, “hit the ‘like’ button”, and online trolling, it’s something I see more and more of in people: a desperate need to be liked, by …well, anyone and everyone with an internet connection.
I can understand why. For the average person, “liked” by *everyone* comes with a lot more perks these days. You can earn money based on your number of “likes,” people give you free stuff based on same, and by responding to your posts, your ‘shares’, your memes, your photos with “likes,” people you don’t know (and never will), who ‘follow’ you solely because of the number of other “followers” you have, give you an inflated sense of your importance in the grand scheme of things. Your value becomes counted in numbers, you become a para-celebrity, the key figure in the one-sided connection known as a parasocial relationship.
Or … maybe… you’re the person who’s not the key figure in this one-sided relationship. Maybe you’re the one who forms the attachment to the key figure, an attachment based on a belief that this para-celebrity is truly your friend, when, most often the key figure sees you as nothing more than another ‘like.’ In rare cases, it does happen that the key figure does connect and bond with one or more of their followers, however more often than not, the one seeking the followers, seeking the likes, has an agenda, or a goal to reach. Maybe they have a product to sell, maybe an ideology they’re championing, or, in the case of artists, a book, an album, a movie to promote. Probably they mean no harm, but to them each click of ‘like’ is just one more step toward achieving their goal. They don’t consider the humans behind the click.
If we consider all the actions and reactions behind this connection (or imagined connection), we begin to see the dysfunction this can create. For some people, attaining “likes” can be addictive, and unsuitably validating. If ‘likes’ become too important to one’s self-esteem, thumbs down or nasty comments will be likewise too demoralizing. It’s one thing to be disappointed if something we share with this world doesn’t get the wide accolades we hope for, it’s another to have our entire sense of self -worth be crushed by what someone we will most likely never meet thinks and says. And, it’s one thing to truly enjoy, to be inspired by what someone posts, it’s another to become overly enamored with the person behind the post. In both those scenarios, there’s a lot of power we’re giving over into the hands of strangers.
And what will a stranger, whether they be influencer or commenter, or in some cases, just an AI bot, do with that power we give them?
What do you think?
In my day the matter of being accepted into the higher circle, the most popular, to validate yourself was the supreme objective while in high school. Once I went to university and was literally alone and unknown at the U of I, that entire concept just kind of blew away. Since then I have been my own person, many times a controversial one in certain circles because I refused to conform. Leaving Chicago created another period of aloneness. In these times it made it important to like being with myself, to enjoy my anonymity and my oneness.
So when this horrific influencer thing broke out it was impossible for me to understand it. It made me so very sad for people, women, to have this real social illness, this addiction that frightens me because that is so difficult to get out of.
“In these times it made it important to like being with myself, to enjoy my anonymity and my oneness.” And with that comes peace. I know young people who will never know that peace. They sleep with the TV on, because they can’t be alone with their thoughts. It crushes me to know that.