Social Media, Cambridge Analytica and ELON MUSK

I really to get myself a personal workstation. A place where I could plan out ideas, a place where I can store my important documents, a place where I could study and gain the knowledge of the Universe! lol

I guess I left the previous blog post in a bit of a hangover, I looked at my stats just now, I only had ten views, 2 of them probably myself proofreading my post and making sure the layout looks nice lol. Besides that, a few years ago, the reading list was like a twitter feed, endless rolls of new blogposts from aspiring writers. I've checked the reading list, there's literally like only two people writing blogs whoa. One is a avid writer who shares all kinds of wonderful stuff about travelling, inspirational activities and interesting english lessons. The other, was a blog of an ex-classmate which I have no idea of where the person is or what the person is doing with its life, but its a blog of expressive words song lyrics or poem like. Oh well.

I think I have grown older or sort of hit some level of maturity, I'm enjoying reading/watching/listening to news such as Al-Jazeera, BBC World & BFM. I have no idea why. I love BFM the most. Even save interesting podcasts from BFM on my phone with the BFM phone app.

The past week, there was a big issue that affected the world's political turmoil. It was regarding a data firm (sort of), Cambridge Analytica. What was claimed was, 50 Million facebook user's data was retrieved and being manipulated of changing what was coming in your news feed and change of you perceive things, which include political votes. (GOSH SOMETHING RANG A BELL WHILE WRITING THIS, THERE WAS A FACEBOOK INFO THINGY ON POLITICAL VIEWS! LOL). Anyway, the 50 million facebook users data however was sort of a key or a path to friends of the users (i'm not sure whether it was 50 million that came from 6 million maybe or whatever number.) But 50 million! wow! all the likes, all the comments all the bawang posts like wow! just imagine if you have all of that! wow! okay, too much wow! lol.

Anyway, with all the facebook data leaked and stuff, I, myself, havent been very active on facebook. The only reason I use facebook for the time being, is to check notifications on wedding invitations, interesting activities and newsfeed from pages that I like (IGN, NAS DAILY, GAMESPOT and etc.).

Most recent news is that, ELON MUSK himself, deleted his facebook pages! like, WOW!

All these facebook turmoil stuff got me thinking, how was life before the facebook age?! like seriously, how was it?! I'm having trouble of focusing my imaginations, but let me try to write it down here, maybe that would help.

Technically, I've been on facebook back in early 2008. I have no idea why I had an account in the first place, might be probably because my elder sister had one and she's the sort of hipster of trends and stuff, I might have accidentally followed suit lol. But I wasnt very active. I only got addicted when I was in my foundation years, back in 2009. Facebook was the in thing. Fast forward a few years later, I got myself a blackberry and I guess that is the prequel of how I got hooked on facebook lol.

So how was life pre-facebook days. Was it good? was it bad? Before Facebook, I was an active user of myspace and friendster. Though myspace and friendster well.... there was a lot less views and dicussions a lot less bullshit maybe. But most importantly, I didnt cared about other people's lives and how the way they think. There was no sort of like , oi, look at what i think oi, look at my baby, oi, look at how awesome my life is. There was non of that.

One thing that I realized after addiction towards social media of any form, I just forgot how to really focus anymore. How I found how this occurred, when I watched a movie on tv, i just seem to be focused on my phone for some intervals. It happens like subconsciously, like almost anywhere and for any activity. If you dont believe me, go out with some friends and do activities like going to the gym and stuff, and just observe how the phone pops up and they become zombies. 

Be Yourself

"Be yourself", such a subjective term, yet we hear people say it all the time to people who lack confidence in whatever hassles they faced in their daily lives.

"Be yourself", kinda gets annoying hearing it a few times. What does it mean by "being yourself"? So how do you be yourself?

Lets put this into a much different context, lets view this in a different way. I'm sure many of us yuppies who are aged 25 years old and above have watched "The Truman Show" or even played "The Sims" before. But in this case, lets put ourselves in "The Truman Show". You are the director and you are watching your life. Lets view ourselves in a third person view, but instead of dictating what you should do like in the sims, just put it on auto-play and see where it goes.

So now, you are on a giant TV screen and you can see whatever you are doing, but you have no control over yourself. You are the audience of your own life. So what is the name of your own show about your life? lets call it "Being yourself"

Lets just imagine you have went through many seasons of your life and you have the blu-ray disc set which you wonder when you will ever rewatch (I would definitely watch RICK & MORTY AGAIN! LOL). So lets assume, you remembered all the seasons of your life, by heart, like every single episode, every single action, every philosophy and etc (I hope you understand what I'm trying to get here).

So, you watched everything and congratulations, you discovered how you are "being yourself!" (congratulations, worked so hard forgot to vacation....lol) As a number 1 fan of your own show, you are required to give an IMDB review of it. Furthermore, you have to be super honest about your own show.

Like many things on IMDB, there are the reviews by "professional" critics and reviews by honest fans. Okay, forget about IMDB, you need to write a review on rotten tomatoes instead since you are going to be super honest about it.

For example, Star Wars The Last Jedi is the stupidest star wars movie ever made! (Thats an honest review by me lol)

Now lets get to the review writing part. Before you start writing the super honest review of your own show, you think back of all the seasons you watched and understood by heart, your self-awareness skyrocketed and you realized, you suck at being yourself, you hate being yourself.

"Being yourself" could be a man who lives in fear, have bad habits, had every chance of improving your life but not taken a chance and etc.

I guess "being yourself" is not the best option at all. So how do we go on from here? What if the first 10 seasons sucked and for the 11th season, you are not on autopilot anymore, you are the director, the mouse clicking every actions behind a sims game.

I am not here to say my life sucked too bad or anything, I am grateful for whatever positive things that happened which are beyond my control or... in other words, good or bad, you'd never know....

So how about things that we can control? Think about it.

Roughly half a year ago. I decided to change how I make my decisions. I started to step outside and took the leap of faith. The leap of faith of not to worry of the implications of my actions.I stood by, as long as I don't break any laws and treat others with respect, I'm sure it wont go too bad if things go wrongly lol.

Among the biggest change of my life that I made, (i think i mentioned this before on one of my previous blog post) I stopped instagram, like literally. My last ig post was on the 1st of August 2017.  I stopped looking at other people's lives and subconsciously compare it to myself and end up being miserable, loss of sense gratification towards life itself (okay, that may be a bit too far haha). Surprisingly, other forms of social media actually followed.

I was starting to live. I stopped thinking of trying to get the best shot for my instagram posts and at the same time subconsciously (or consciously lol) trying to show the world how awesome my life is towards other people lol

Over the months that followed, I made decisions towards a new phase of adulthood. It was like a journey of self discovery. I was slowly creeping out the life of fear. I was aware that at some points over the months, there were things I really felt that I wanted to speak out, but I chose to stay patient, though it was not because of fear, it was because I realized the bigger picture ahead.

Besides that, on my self discovery journey, I also discovered that some people, no matter how long you've known them, at one point, you just realized how much of an ass they are throughout your life. You just feel like punching them in the face or speak out your opinions. Though, I chose to just keep the harmony and distance myself. It may be an easier path to stay patient, whether the outcome over time would be good or bad, I cant really say to be honest.

On a positive note, over the past few months, I discovered really awesome people as well and also very specific positive notes (persistence and perseverance pays I guess haha)

Right now I am trying to find how do I conclude this blog post hmmmmm haha

What I am trying to say is, what if "being yourself" just doesnt cut it. What if, you could lay out a plan of positive actions that you can control, you give yourself a trial on the plan you laid out and if it doesnt work out, pick yourself up, adjust the plan and adapt, maybe?

how do I conclude this? hmmm maybe for another blog post.... maybe.....