Post #3: Social Media and Burnout


For this week’s bog post I wanted to further discuss one of my favorite social medias and the effects it has on its users.  Personally, my favorite social media platform is YouTube and I feel a lot of what was discussed in class connects specifically to that social media platform.  In class we talked about the social pressure we all feel, and when posting on social media we must make sure our posts are what society wants and as well what society deems acceptable.  Posting a status or photo is one thing, posting a vlog however is quite the different story.  Many youtubers post videos of their everyday life as the camera follows them around, thus creating such a pressure on them to seem perfect all day long, in order to eventually create the prefect video which society loves and can’t get enough of.  This added pressure of not just trying to be “prefect” for a picture, but an entire short film causes great anxiety as the pressure to be “prefect” 24/7 is just too overwhelming for the youtubers to handle.  This is known as burnout, and social media is causing it.  A specific youtuber I can think about who has experienced burnout and decided a while back to take a break from social media (which in my opinion is a very smart choice) is the youtuber Elle Mills.  This link leads you to what she calls her movie trailer as it describes how she got to where she is, which was posted one year ago.  This next link brings you to a video she posted in May of this year, where she explains she is burnt out.  The video is so raw and natural and just perfectly describes what social media (specifically YouTube) has done to her life.  She explains how her life has changed so much in the positive direction because of YouTube, but she doesn’t hide how YouTube has also created her to burn out at the age of 19.  I feel Elle has really summed up the positives and negatives of social media, and she does not pretend that everything is “perfect” she makes it clear that she is a person behind the videos and there really is no such thing as “perfect”.

Comments

  1. Rachel GuerreiroOctober 16, 2018 at 5:56 PM

    I really enjoyed reading your post as it connects very well with our lecture material. I entirely agree with you especially when you mentioned the added pressure and perfection of being a youtuber. Another example of burnout that I can think of is the youtuber "Jamie's World", I am not sure if you have heard of her channel but she also took a break from the ongoing filming and life of a youtuber. When she made her reappearance she mentioned why she took a break and it was similar to Elle Mills. I loved her reintroduction because she was very honest about her entire experience and her sometimes false life just for a video or to please those watching. I do catch myself watching a number of youtubers and it is very impressive how they stay up to date with their content and are always on the go 24/7. However, it is also refreshing to see those that can step away when life and the media get hard to deal with. I personally couldn't imagine living a life in front of a camera but Elle Mills and Jamie do justice and bring out the positives in social media and address the negatives as well.

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  2. UnknownOctober 16, 2018 at 9:22 PM

    I really liked your post and I think that Elle's videos give an amazingly accurate view of how social media, specifically Youtube, can break people down. Social media places so much pressure on people and I really liked how Elle was not afraid to show raw material where she doesn't pretend to be happy and that her life is perfect. That is very refreshing from other vloggers I have watched. I think that this definitely relates to lots of class content we have discussed like the video we watched of the woman pretending to have a perfect life on social media. She was posting pictures on social media pretending to do fun things yet she was depressed and at home alienating herself from people who love her. I also think that this can be related to the film Eighth Grade as she pretended to make her life seem perfect and made up fake scenarios to be part of the "cool kids". Overall, I loved your post and really liked watching the vlogs from Elle Mills!

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