Of Liking and Originality

One of the most common things most of us do in a day is browse Facebook – and a few of us even check Twitter too. And one of the things that has become painfully obvious – not just in other people, but really especially in myself – is reposting. Reposting has become the new norm for publication. You see something you like, you hit the “like” button, instantly sharing your opinion about the topic at hand. Find something you enjoy in your Twitter feed, retweet – you’ve suddenly shared what you found it all the people who follow you. In many ways this is really great – but are there downsides to our new found modes of publication? Yes, I think there are.

First let’s look at a few definitions:

Creation: “The action or process of bringing something into existence: the creation of a coalition government.”

Publication: “The action of making something generally known: the publication of April trade figures.”

In philosophy, the argument can be made that if something is unknown to a particular person, it’s essentially the same as that thing not existing in that person’s “world.” It similar to the phrase “out of sight, out of mind,” except in this case we go one step further and say “out of mind, out of existence.” Now, this is not to say that this theory is completely air-tight, nor even very accurate – I simply use it to illustrate a point. That is, if we don’t know about something, it is not in our mind – i.e. it does not exist in our mind. So, I’m not saying that because I don’t know how to do differential equations (complex math), that they don’t exist, but rather that since I don’t know what they are, that they have no meaning or use to me, and therefore might as well not exist in my personal life. I hope that’s clear, I was struggling to remember this topic all day, and it only just sprung back into my mind as I was about to go to bed. (stupid brain)

Back to the main point though. I think people have begun to equate the word publication with creation. They say “oh, I am going to create the awareness of this thing (by sharing it with you.)” (which is publication) and then, it’s only one small step from there, to “I am creating this thing.” (Creation) It’s a subtle difference, and one that I don’t think we even consciously make most of the time (if it crosses our mind at all). I think we might be mistaking the creation of awareness for creation itself. This, I think, is the first dilemma that arises from the Like button.

The second is related, but somewhat different. The next problem is the cheapening of our affection and our expression of affection. All it takes to make some people’s day is for their Facebook status to hit double digits for the number of Likes it gets. And conversely, all it takes for you to feel that you’ve approved something is to give a single click to that Like button. Is it convenient? Yes. Is it a comprehensive description of our feelings? Probably not. Yes, you can comment, but let’s face it, most of the time, you say things like: “Awesome!” “I love it” “That’s so cool” “I bet that was fun” “SWEEEET!” etc… Don’t get me wrong, I know that not all comments are so pointless, but all too often I find myself doing this – maybe you do too(?). We have become a society of one-liners and quick responses. Of one clicks and 140 characters. We want short reads, and shorter responses. Instant. Quick. Faster. Done. Over.

The final problem I feel arises from the “Like button mentality” is that people don’t create their own content any more – they simply “like,” “retweet,” or “share” what someone else has already created. What is the problem with that? The short answer is: it makes us lazy. A more comprehensive answer would be, that since all we do is click a button when we find something that piques our interest, we really don’t put much thought into the things we “tell” people anymore. This is where the first problem we talked about comes in. The interesting part about the first problem is that it is partially true. The creation of awareness is a type of creation. It’s just a very wimpy watered-down type of creation. It’s creation without effort, without thought.

Because people aren’t creating their own content from scratch anymore, we are beginning to forget how. We become enthralled with the wisdom, sayings, jokes, pictures, quotes, etc… of other people. I myself have an addiction to quotations. I love finding good quotes and keeping them around for a rainy day. My quotes files has become pretty large over the years, but I’ve got nothing compared to women on Pinterest.

Pinterest is my problem of scavenging for quotes (and occasionally other miscellaneous items) on steroids…like, disgusting, over the top, body builder, steroids. There is no point to Pinterest except to find things that you think are interesting, and to save them to your profile. There is no interaction with other members, except to share, reshare, and rereshare things. Is it all bad? No, you can find some really great stuff on Pinterest. But Pinterest is the penultimate site for “Liking.” I think you can create things to add to Pinterest, but I know no one who does. It’s not for interacting with people, it’s for interacting with stuff. Ok, Pinterest rant over.

I guess the main problem is that people don’t take time to think about their thoughts any more. It’s just one Like button to the next. As people who know me IRL (In Real Life) know, I don’t really like writing (says the boy who writes 1000 word posts on the weekends at 2am), but maybe writing is the answer. Or at least part of the answer. If people would actually take the time to think about things, and write those thoughts down, I think a lot of progress could be made toward better content, and real, original, ideas. I believe one of God’s greatest gifts to us is the ability to create. So why don’t we create things, instead of just republishing someone else’s creation?

So what’s the point of this post? Do I think we should all stop using the Like button, and Pinterest? No. But maybe, every once in a while, we should actually sit down and create something from scratch. Don’t just modify something you’ve found, scrape it out of the recesses of your brain. Have an idea. Create something that is your own, and share that with us. We’re tired of seeing the same quotes, pictures, and videos posted and reposted. That stuff’s great, but anyone can click the share button. Give us something that can only come from you. You are unique. Won’t you share your uniqueness with us?

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*QUOTATION REDACTED*
Reasoning: Author tried to insert a quote into a post about originality and (essentially) the evils of quotations.
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Attempting to be original,

-Teegan

P.S. This post is mostly a sermon to myself, but I thought others might be able to benefit from it as well – or at least find it interesting to think about.