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Social Media Creeper

Confessions of a Creeper and Other Reasons I’m Single

social media creeper

My name is Lindsay and I’m a creeper. Specifically, a social media creeper.

In this day and age, I view social media creepiness as more than a weird compulsion- it’s a survival tactic. I can very efficiently discover if ‘what’s his name’ from the bar has a girlfriend, or if ‘so and so’ actually graduated from college. And let’s not even talk about the seemingly commonplace act of catfishing.

This compulsion has been fairly longstanding, but it really came to a head last month. I’d met a very cute guy at a concert and everything was rosy until I lost him in the crowd. Armed with just his first name and college alma mater I used the mighty powers of Facebook Graph Search and found him in a matter of seconds.

Did I feel like a terrifying person? Yes. Did I stop there? No.

Due largely to peer pressure and my inability to forget this boy, I friend requested him. It was in this moment that I realized I had a problem.

Our ability to have someone’s entire internet personality at our fingertips has broken down a very important reality: We don’t actually know these people. I can look at your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all day long and, yet, I’m no closer to knowing who you actually are.

This infinite information presents a real problem in relationships. We feel as if we know all of these little facts about people without even having a conversation with them. “Oh, I don’t need to ask you about your siblings on this date, I looked at their Facebooks yesterday.” We’re forging opinions about people and stunting the longevity of potential relationships. Instead of finding out about past relationships on date 3, we’re creeping on their exes after date 1 and canceling date 2 based on our findings.

Very recently, a Tinder chat (a story in itself) grew into an actual chance to grab drinks. I fought every impulse to creep on this guy.* I wanted for once to go on a date without any extra information. And believe it or not, it went well. I didn’t prompt him with questions based on his Facebook interests and yet we still had plenty to talk about. The freedom of a clean slate helped me gain actual interest in this person and who knows, maybe there will be a second and third date.

I’m Lindsay. And I’m trying to get better.

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*Okay. I admit it. I looked at his Facebook. I don’t need some catfish swimming into my life.

 

 

 

 

proposal 4

If You Wanna Be My Lover, You Gotta Get With My Pins

By Molly Daly

My lovely mother works tirelessly at a wedding gown shop. When she tells me about single girls who come into the store to try on gowns and waste her time, I instantly think of what the Pinterest looks like in this equation.

I think we should talk about wedding boards and the presumptions that single ladies tend to make. I am of the opinion that almost every female Pinterest user has a regularly maintained board devoted to her special conjecture day. These boards feature gowns, venues, rings, engagement photos, hairstyles, flowers, even photos of ideal husbands.

As we know, social media is an unprecedented phenomenon that has made a massively positive impact on our lives over the course of the past decade. However, it’s also created cause for social scientists to examine our heads a little bit. Studies regarding the psychological and social implications of social networking are continually surfacing. Some specifically examine the level of narcissism required to actively post about oneself on a daily basis. (According to a study published by Taylor & Francis Online: Twitter is particularly narcissistic, Facebook not so much - check it.)

Think about it: Pinterest, as a concept, is modeled after a bulletin board. If these ladies had a real life, tangible bulletin board full of wedding ideas hidden in their boudoir, they would not want the boyfriend to find it. Maybe that’s the subconscious thrill of it - maybe the lucky guy will happen to come across their pins and think “what in the world have I been waiting on?” Then drop his laptop and rush out for the ring.

This isn’t to say there’s not a market here – wedding blogs and retailers have pounced on this ripe opportunity. Ruffled Blog’s Pinterest has close to 3 million followers and helps keep traffic flowing towards the main blog. The market is so widespread that wedding-specific, Pinterest-style sites such as Loverly are popping up. The majority of Pinterest users are female, at a whopping 80% as of January 2012. According to a Comscore study from 2010, women are the majority in social networking, period, and spend 30% more time on social sites as compared to men.

Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social sites in history, and much of that success is due to aspiring brides-to-be, which has to be respected. One in three couples use Pinterest to plan their wedding, and that number was one in five only two years ago. That being said, I suppose I should let you know that I’m as guilty of wedding pins as you are, though my board is disguised with the not-so-subtle title “Social Ideas.” Even the Everywhere Pinterest has a wedding board! I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? It’s fun to play pretend, but if you really want to keep things under wraps, Pinterest now offers private boards, too.

 

“Molly Daly is an intern at Everywhere. As part of our internship program, we invite interns to write blog posts. We think you’ll be lovin’ Molly for this post.” - Danica