So you might wonder why would anyone be insecure on the Internet? I mean that is the possibly nicest thing about the Internet, the utter and sheer anonymity of it. In fact this reminds me of a joke I read recently… “The Internet! Where Men are men, the woman are men, and the children are FBI agents!” I LOL’d! 😀 The Internet began, for most of us, as a way to read things that people wrote. Then pictures were added to these words, followed by video. Social, or ways for two or more people to interact have been around way back in the days of dial up and bulletin board systems. What is relativity new is an ordinary person to have an audience of tens, hundreds, or thousands of people.
With an Internet website you can judge the popularity of your site by the number of visits, and repeat visits. When you use Twitter, or Facebook, there really is no way of knowing how many people have read and enjoyed your post. If you are like me you enjoy being a smart-ass, also sometimes referred as humor. I do this with people (face to face) as well, but normally it is only with people that I know well. Twitter and Facebook, and even this blog, and am more likely to say things that are funny, strange observations, etc… What makes it hard is the complete lack of feedback. I mean people may find my comments, and statements very funny and even seek them out on a daily basis, but I wouldn’t know.
Occasionally I’ll get a feedback from someone in the form of a comment, or just that they found what I said funny. Sometimes it will be in the form of a follow, or friendship request. Little or no feedback can lead to insecurities. I mean it is just as possible that people really dislike what you have to say right? Fortunately I have a wife that doesn’t pull any punches with me. Figuratively and literally! I can count on her opinion. We disagree on what is funny from time to time naturally. There are some things that I just can’t let go of. Like I think of a lot of funny things in the men’s bathroom. There is a whole different culture in there that I think most people, woman, don’t know about. The same is probably true of the woman’s bathrooms. Like what’s the deal with that couch!?!?! Also the one time I ventured into a woman’s bathroom as a young man I was shocked to see that it was totally devoid of graffiti! I think she finds some of my bathroom observations funny but wishes I would keep them to myself.
With social media this moves us from our world of only communicating with people face to face, one on one and getting some sort of immediate feedback to the world of entertainers. People like Jay Leno. I mean he has a studio audience so he has that feedback, but I’m sure he wonders how well he’s doing with the people that didn’t choose to travel to the studio and sit in one of those chairs. He has to wait for ratings, and even then ratings are just a small sampling of the population. I can understand better how entertainers can be so insecure. They’re job, how they make money, is literally tied to how well we like them. Even though I’m not making any money on Twitter, or Facebook, I still like to know how well people enjoy what I say.
I consider myself a pretty confident person, but recently I have become acutely aware of how insecure it can be to regularly communicate with a person(s) for weeks and have that nagging feeling that I am just irritating them. I mean lack of comment can be the same as a nice person just wishing you would stop. I don’t think this is just me that is concerned about this. It is natural and normal not to want to have people dislike you, although there are those that I either don’t care or prefer them to dislike me. But for those individuals that I am actually trying to make their lives a little bit more enjoyable, yes, I do care what they think. Obviously this is tied to my self worth.
So the next time someone, and I’m not saying it has to be me, makes your life a little more bearable, more enjoyable, take a moment and give them a lol! No matter how important or how many people they have friended, following, subscribing them, they might just appreciate your thumbs up a little more than you think.