Photos You are Failing Me

I wake up every morning to a very colourful tapestry of photos on social media. It includes photos of food people ate,  to friends they met, to workshops they ran, to speech they gave, to people they coached, to awards they won and many posts start with

  • it is my privilege
  • it is my honour
  • I am delighted to

which are all perfect starts to a humble brag.

Now, the sad thing is that these people bought into a fallacy which is

That the more photos you put, the more likes you get, the more likes you get, the popular you become, the more popular you become, the more work you get. I have to admit, I have felt the urge to share my work photos too. But like always, I go back to the people whose work I admire. I look at how they lead their lives, how they use social media and here is what I have learnt.

  • It is the work you do that matters not the marketing alone.
  • Good work gets marketed itself ,If you are doing something right people will talk about you.
  • Turning up on social media is not about marketing but about educating, sharing knowledge and demonstrating generosity.
  • Turning up on social media is also not back scratching, I say good things about you, you say good things about me and we make some noise.
  • Turning up on social media is also not about acts like the Russian model who streaked across the field during The Champions League
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naked female streaker during the UEFA Champions League final match between Tottenham Hotspur FC and Liverpool FC at Estadio Metropolitano on June 01, 2019 in Madrid, Spain

Yes, even if that means you get 300,000 followers straight after the event on Instagram, which is exactly what happened in this case.

  • Turning up on social media is not about followers but about listeners
  • Turning up on social media is not fun, fast and easy, it is emotional labour
  • Turning up on social media is about demonstrating self confidence through your content not insecurity by tooting
  • Turning up on social media is about using your photo but with a purpose

Photos are not memories but marketing now, that too the wrong type. Photos, I loved you at one point but now you are failing me.

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