Creating A Monster Without Igor

When Dr. Frankenstein created his monster he invisioned that he was bringing to life something that would be a boon to mankind. Ultimately, the villagers with their torches and pitchforks said otherwise. Social Media is the modern day Frankenstein’s monster. It was created to be a feel good method of keeping tabs on friends and family. What it became is an all pervasive medium for narcissism and a threat to civil and meaningful social interaction.

To prove my point, let’s step back in time to that neon drenched era of the 1980′s. If back in the days of mullets and Swatch watches you would have taken a picture of the cheeseburger you ordered at Denny’s, had it developed, and then mailed it to several aquaintances you would have been correctly identified as being a fucking ass hat. No one cared what you had for lunch or dinner, nor did anyone want to see a picture of it. This is not the case today. Today, thanks to the wonders of instantaneous electronic media transfer, any ass hat with access to a smart phone can take and send a picture of his just delivered cheeseburger to virtually thousands of people in mere seconds! It seems that the advent of social media platforms has brought our narcissicm to life in a most mostrous form. The result, is the delusion that our most basic daily actions are somehow interesting to the rest of the world. We seem to have forgotten the lesson that Dr. Frankenstein’s creation taught us. The pitch forks and torches should be a reminder that not all that is doable should be done.

What’s worse, is that we also seem to need validation from our social media followers to assure ourselves that we are somehow doing something good. Of course, this has led to the greatest modern philisophical question plaguing society today, “If I do not post a picture of myself at the gym, did I really work out?” When did it become necessary or even advisable to share that post gym workout picture that displayed your sweaty, yoga pants clad camel toe? Do you need at least thirty Facebook likes to verify that you burned enough calories?

One of the biggest problems with Frankenstein’s monster was that he was unable to hide his physical ugliness. He never had the chance to show he was a big teddy bear on the inside. If the monster would have had the chance to say to the villagers, “Hey, I’m ugly, but I’m a nice guy. Please don’t shove that pitchfork up my ass,” things might have went better for him and the mad doctor. Tragically, social media has the same effect today. Like the very visable bolts in the monster’s neck, social media often reveals one’s less admirable qualities to a large audience. Of course, this has created some real downright antisocial tension in society. For example, before social media, one’s political leanings were rarely known or advertised beyond the family reunion. This ambiguity made neighbors of vastly differing philosophies decent towards each other. If I don’t know that you prefer the blue ass whipes while I like the red dick heads we can probably get along and maybe even share a couple of beers. Social media allows people to share everything with anyone that clicks, “accept, join, friend etc.” This means that a conservative may express the opinion that Hilary Clinton is a pant suit wearing mega-bitch who is as likeable as a case of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea to every one of their liberal social media followers. While a liberal may assert that Trump is a pee-pee showering douche with the morals of a tapeworm to their unassuming conservative Facebook friends. The end result is the internet equivalent of, “I’ll shove a pitch fork in your ass while in retaliation, you shove a lit torch in my ass” situation. Ultimately, both parties end up butt hurt. In short, social media allows people to expouse (agressively) potentially inflamatory opinions that used to be largely unknown. In this case, ignorance is bliss and social media creates an unnecessary pitchfork versus torch scenario courtesy of one’s WiFi connection.

Just as Dr. Frankenstein’s good intentions resulted in pissed peasants, the social media pioneers in their tech smart, common sense stupid enthusiasm created the means to feed our narcissism and start a fist fight from the comfort of our lap tops, cell phones, or tablets