America is the place where anyone can become anything, anytime. Our society has behaved this way since before the Revolution. This is how our society always will be. This belief in constant reinvention derives from our unparalleled liberty. We truly do have the freedom to do more than any other people. We always have.
When was the last time a trend or fad was as buzzy as social media? The Dot Com Boom of the late ’90′s? The Bio-Tech Gold Rush? Flipping real-estate like pancakes? There are specific characteristics embedded directly into the emotional DNA of every American, whether they are “Mayflower material” or 1st generation immigrants. Heck, even illegal aliens struggle to get here just to chase something they believe this society holds for them.
The Vehicles of Self-Reinvention
American’s require vehicles in order to pursue their self-reinvention:
- Sometimes it is land, as when hundreds of thousands of immigrants streamed into our Eastern ports with dreams of having their own plots of land, their own piece of the earth to pursue their happiness. They moved West in droves, pushing the boundaries of the frontiers, establishing new settlements and communities.
- Sometimes it is religion, as when oppressed religious minorities, whether they be Puritans, Jews, Muslims, Quakers, Shakers, Amish, Mennonites or the hundreds of different Christian sects that first found the freedom to practice their religion in the way they saw fit in the 18th century
- Sometimes it is the riches of the land: gold, oil, water, silicon and mineral rushes that have pulled American’s in a thousand different directions
- Sometimes it is simply a change of scenery, new places, new people, new institutions. Simply crossing state lines is often enough for people to get a fresh start, get their second (or third) choice
Social Media Reinvention
Right now, social media is the vehicle that American’s are using for this historically constant form of self-reinvention. And think about it, it actually works quite well. We can become whoever we want. We can slap up a website, we can call ourselves whatever we want, an artist, a musician, a professor, a social media GOOROO, and bam, we are that. We are that thing that we say we are. We can be anything we want. I’ve done it!
But the downside of this reinvention is that we need it to work. The vehicle of our reinvention requires us to promote it above almost anything else. If the vehicle runs out of gas, then our vaunted reinvention does too. When we need something, we become indebted to it. We lose our critical faculties. It owns us.
As the current vehicle of our reinvention, social media owns us. We need it to work. It is that thing that will save us, that will let us be free. This is one very important reason why Social Media is now so buzzy, over-hyped. So many of us have put our souls into the social media reinvention wagon that we are now dependent upon it. We share the stories, we evangelize its philosophies, we elevate its stars. But are we only doing so in order for that sheen to rub off on ourselves? Do we really believe in it? Do I?
Image Source: Todd Huffman on Flickr
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