Dustin Kowal

11-20-2019

Endeavor for Popularity

One of the many marvels of modern society is social media: an alleged outlet for originality where
anyone with an internet connection has the power to be a publisher of content viewed worldwide.
There is almost unlimited potential to make new connections, share ideas, or just update friends
and family. With this plethora of potential comes a burdening caveat. Since social media’s start the
value of popularity has been increasing and in turn originalities value has been decreasing. This is
largely the result of the countless amount of duplicated content that can be seen on social media.
However, it can also be attributed to the utter lack of intellectual property rights and the growing
nature of media itself. All things considered social media not only prevents originality, but it also
supersedes it with the status quo.

Centuries before the use of social media there was almost unsettling foreshadowing outlined by
Socrates. In Plato’s Phaedrus Socrates states his hatred for the written word by retelling an old
Egyptian tale. There was an Egyptian god named Theuth who was known for inventing many
things, one of these things was the use of letters. Theuth was ecstatic thinking of all the benefits
such as better memory and wit. But the god regarded as king, Thamus, did not agree. He believed
that the written word is not an aid to memory but an aid to reminiscence. Through the use of
letters Egyptians will become “the hearers of many things and will have learned nothing” (1). This
story greatly parallels social media because of the amount of the information and content available.
With all of the repeated stories it becomes impossible to learn or commit anything to memory.
This constant stream of information causes nothing to stand out and dulls reactions. Socrates
contributes this loss of memory to the unavoidable growing reliance on written word.

Relating to the same Egyptian tale Thamus states “they (Egyptians) will trust to the external
written characters and not remember of themselves” (1). This idea coincides with the lack of
originality that can be seen in social media today. Since the average person is focused on popularity
instead of originality, people are willing to sacrifice their posts, and in turn their memories, for
what is considered the status quo. Every time a stereotypical popular post is made, or content is
stolen, the notion to post something original diminishes until social media is without it. Through
attempting to copy the idea of popularity people replace what makes them who they are and
ultimately it is not worth it for the temporary ego boost. An example of this can be seen in one of
the main conduits for social media, the cellphone. Prior to the cellphone people would have to
commit phone numbers and other information to memory. In modern times that is no longer
1. Plato. Plato’s Phaedrus, (Cambridge :University Press, 1952), 200-210.
2. Sarkar, Suvrashis. 2015, Originality and its exploitation in Social Media. Journal of Emerging
Technologies and Innovative Research
3. Marx, Karl, 1818-1833 and Friedrich Engels. 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth,
Eng; New York: Penguin Books.
necessary and as a result the cellphone has become a crutch. Without this technology we are
unable to get directions, contact people, or look up information. Generally speaking, the external
characters that people should be wary of trusting has become modern day sources of the media.
An example of this is cellphones in the sense that they can store and access great amounts of
information at a cost to the user’s memory.

Even though Socrates saw many faults with the written word there were some exceptions. Like
the previous examples of foreshadowing from Egyptian times, these exceptions can be applied to
social media and used in the search for originality. Socrates believed that only if a writer’s
compositions “are based on knowledge of the truth, and they can defend or prove them, when they
are put to the test, by spoken arguments” (1) then they have a serious pursuit of life and are worthy
to be called philosophers and lovers of wisdom. This exception outlined by Socrates is the key in
the search for originality on today’s social media. Only a handful of people would deserve the
lovers of wisdom title. This is because in most cases the truth behind a certain post has a good
chance of being falsified or completely fake. However, if the author of the post is able to verify the
foundation of the post by speaking about its truth, they deserve the title and praise for originality.
Overall Socrates’s dislike towards the written word relates to the ambiguity surrounding its source
or foundation which is ever so apparent with the emergence of social media.

Another philosopher who, like Socrates, has made surprising foreshadowing towards the current
state of social media is Karl Marx. Albeit Marx’s main focus was on the threatening actions and
practices of the bourgeoisie, one main part bears a strong resemblance with social media. One of
the crippling problems illustrated by Marx is the bourgeoisie’s need to create “a world after its
own image” (3). Like the bourgeoisie social media has this same curse. This creates an unfortunate
paradox that accentuates that idea of popularity by regurgitating all of the statuses, tweets, and
pictures that are considered popular. This paradox of taking information from the status quo,
tweaking it and posting, that post becoming the status quo, and then the cycle repeating is the
both the fuel behind social media and the bane of its existence. The regurgitated content that
becomes the new status quo is a fun house mirror replica of the old status quo with some
noticeable changes but nonetheless still a mirrored image and certainly not original. Everything
considered if social media continues on its current path of creating media from its own image the
limited amount of originality that is left will be lost.

In modern terminology the truth or foundation of content posted is the intellectual property
rights. The absence of these rights can be attributed to some of the lack of originality in social
media. “The enormous volume of material being published on the internet and at the speed which
this information can be shared to the vast number of individuals around the globe creates an
extreme threat to the rightful owners of intellectual property rights” (2). Since there is so much
1. Plato. Plato’s Phaedrus, (Cambridge :University Press, 1952), 200-210.
2. Sarkar, Suvrashis. 2015, Originality and its exploitation in Social Media. Journal of Emerging
Technologies and Innovative Research
3. Marx, Karl, 1818-1833 and Friedrich Engels. 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth,
Eng; New York: Penguin Books.
information it becomes impossible to identify the origin. This is the curse of social media; it is a
medium where people are able to publish anything they want with relative ease. Nevertheless with
that freedom also comes the freedom to steal and copy work. If social media was more regulated,
to adhere to intellectual property rights, originality would become more prevalent. However the
main aspect of social media is the freedom that comes with it and to take that away would change
it into something else completely.

To regulate social media would mean regulation on all the content posted. This becomes a problem
because “in social media information flows from multiple sources and anyone with an internet
connection can be a publisher” (2). Unlike more regulated earlier forms of media, like newspapers,
social media creates a mixing pool of information. One might think this mixing pool would be a
great place to showcase originality, sadly this is not the case. Instead of focusing on original content
users are manipulated by both the idea of popularity and the need for gratification to take
information that is already out there and attempt to make it both original and popular. Some
examples of this include plagiarizing tweets, stealing a video idea, or copying a photo from
Instagram. This attempt to make already published content original is all too prevalent and in the
end fruitless. Whether it is copying a general idea or a specific quote, once the foundation of media
has been influenced by other sources originality greatly decreases if not disappears completely.

The appeal of social media originates from its volatile environment that is fueled by everyone and
anyone having the power to publish literally anything for others to consume This environment
has the potential to flourish with originality, but it is overshadowed by the endeavor for popularity.
This is the unavoidable and disastrous crux of social media. Nourished by stereotypical popular
posts and duplicated content, this endeavor will be the downfall of social media. People are willing
to edit or replace their authentic content, which is essentially a glimpse into their memories, to
increase their popularity. But what they do not realize is every post contributing to the idea of
popularity prevents originality until it diminishes to nothing. Through social media people are
beginning to lose who they are in an effort to become the idea of popularity that it accentuates.

1. Plato. Plato’s Phaedrus, (Cambridge :University Press, 1952), 200-210.

2. Sarkar, Suvrashis. 2015, Originality and its exploitation in Social Media. Journal of Emerging
Technologies and Innovative Research
3. Marx, Karl, 1818-1833 and Friedrich Engels. 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth,
Eng; New York: Penguin Books.