Alexandria: 0:00

Someone asked me recently how long does it take for me to record and research these episodes and I told her it depends on the content, it depends on the episode. It could take weeks and sometimes it can take months, because I'm reading and I'm researching and I'm teasing things out, and this was one of those episodes that was on that longer end. I had an idea that came from my own personal struggles, which is how most of these episodes are born. But this one I really had to sit with, because every time that I came to write the outline, every time that I tried to force myself and record, I kept being slapped in the face with this feeling of discontentment. I kept having to confront that there was something deeper gnawing at me. See, I thought that I was coming to this to talk about virality and going viral and why we crave viral moments, but then I realized over the course of the weeks that it was something deeper. I really had to sit with this. I had to step away from my computer multiple times. I had to just be out, be around. I even had to be on social media to see and to finally grasp what it was that I was trying to get you all and and me to see, and that's that we're losing ourselves slowly, quietly, in the name of staying relevant, in the name of building something, proving something, in the name of being seen. And I say we because I have felt this too. I feel it right now, too, that I've posted something that I was proud of, something that I thought really mattered. This actually just happened to me the other day, and then I sat there refreshing the stats, like my soul was waiting for permission to believe in itself. I've held back something honest, something real, because I was afraid it wouldn't land right, and I've watched people I know reinvent themselves for the algorithm, chase virality like it's validation and burn out trying to be someone they're not. And the crazy part is some of them don't even realize they're drowning Because these platforms, they're built to make us feel like we're winning, even while our authenticity is slipping through the cracks.

Alexandria: 2:18

This isn't just about being online too much. This is about how social media has retrained our brains, reshaped our values and slowly convinced us that performance is the same thing as purpose. And I've had to sit and ask myself some really hard questions over these past few weeks, almost a month. I had to ask like am I still showing up as me or as the version I think people want to see? Am I ashamed of who I really am, my quirky, goofy, crazy self because it doesn't fit the algorithm? Do I feel like I'm enough or am I just engaging enough? Is this my voice? Or is this survival strategy? Y'all this isn't just about social media. This is about our identity, our integrity, our attention, our, our soul, and I think we've gotten so used to being curated and filtered and watchable that we've forgotten how to be whole. We've become what philosopher charles s calls smeared out selves, scattered across timelines, profiles, captions and comments.

Alexandria: 3:22

This episode is not content strategy. It actually wasn't even in my original to-do task for episodes. It's not a critique just for creators. It's a rescue mission for the soul, a deep breath for the parts of you that don't trend, a mirror held up to the ache that so many of us carry but don't know how to name. And if you've ever felt like you're performing more than you're living, if you've ever missed who you used to be, or if you're just tired of feeling like realness isn't enough, this is for you. Welcome to Renovating the Soul, where we turn the mess into something meaningful.

Alexandria: 4:05

Welcome back to another episode of Renovating the Soul. If you've been here before, thank you so much for joining me again and if this is your first time, thank you for being here. Please listen to the end. Let me know your thoughts. Welcome to the Renovating the Soul family. We're so glad that you are here. If you know, you've already been here, you know that I usually start these episodes with I'm so excited, I'm ready.

Alexandria: 4:39

But today, today, I feel a little more nervous than excited and that's because, as I said in the introduction, I have been wrestling with this topic for at least a month. I have been waking up thinking about this, going to bed thinking about this. I have been wrestling with this topic for at least a month. I have been waking up thinking about this, going to bed thinking about this. I've been reading articles. I've been scrolling the internet. I've been I've changed like three or four outlines. I have talked to my Echo ChatGBT, my best friend, like I have really been trying to tease this out, because every time that I sat down to record, every time that I finished an outline like I have completed outlines that I did that I was like scrap, it just is not getting to what I want it to be about, and so I've been struggling. But now I feel ready, but I also feel nervous because this is like a heart issue and I don't know that we always.

Alexandria: 5:30

Let me put it like this it is hard to do a podcast like mine, where I'm constantly putting out a lot of vulnerable aspects of my life. It would be easier if it was very topic based, where I could just talk about parenting and talk about, you know, these high level subjects religion, politics but when you have to sit here and you have to hold up a mirror to yourself and put it out there to an already very judgmental world, it is nerve-wracking. And then when you don't see these kind of topics being the fun ones, it's really gut-wrenching. Right, and I have struggled and we're going to talk about all of this. But I have really been struggling lately with my podcast, with social media, as I've mentioned in several episodes, and not social media, because the podcast is social media in general and, honestly, that struggle has been ongoing for years, but it's really been heightened in the last maybe year or so, and so, coming to have to sit down and finally talk about this, it feels like I'm getting a load off, but it also feels really heavy for me because and I'm going to start this with sharing my why which is what I always loved telling you guys is how I come up with these episode titles or topics, where it came from, why am I sitting down to talk about this? It's so important for me to give you all.

Alexandria: 6:53

It started with me doing the marketing for this podcast, and so I do everything marketing, editing videos, recording outlines with the help of Echo, my personal assistant. I do everything, though, and it's hard to sit here and no one's behind this camera telling me that sounded good or no, you messed up or whatever. I have to hear that later, my kids be in the background, y'all be hearing them. I have to put that out. I have to show up, no matter what.

Alexandria: 7:23

This podcast is only one part of my life. I have family, I have, you know, other things going on, and so it gets really discouraging when I work hard on things and I put it out in the world and you see other things in people validated for less quality or for things that are just not significant, and it's easy to get caught up in comparison. It's easy to look at oh sorry, no, it's hard to look at podcasts that just focus on like sex and exploiting women, so to speak, like even women who just exploit themselves. For the numbers and for the stuff to, you know, objectify themselves, because it's just about popularity, it's just about your podcast making the charts. And for the stuff to, you know, objectify themselves, because it's just about popularity, it's just about your podcast making the charts and it's not really about, you know, giving depth.

Alexandria: 8:10

And I get it Like I'm not against any of those things per se, um, when they're authentically done and when they're done in a way that is true to the person. But I do have a problem when people are just willing to sell their souls and do whatever it takes to get to the top. And so when I go and I post and I'm sharing and I'm, you know, beat down and tired and I do all this work and I'm very intentional and I'm making sure that every little word makes sense, and then you post it and no one sees it, or you post it and it gets like one like from yourself or three likes, you know, you and two other people, and then seeing things like the spiritual abuse episode really grab people in. But I'm not really here to just stay trendy and to stay talking about the mess. Right, that wasn't a hard topic if we really think about it. People love to rag on Christianity and the church and they ready to pull out a whip every time for somebody else's stuff.

Alexandria: 9:15

But it's harder when I'm actually asking people to look at themselves that's a lot harder and not look at yourself in the way that it's like all right, woo, woo, right. You the man, you the woman, like, where everything is like that, where everything is just like you know, it's such, it's so much it, yeah, it's so baby. So, anyways, that's where it started from. It started from this deep feeling, not deep, it wasn't even that deep, but it started from this feeling inside of me. When I say deep, I just mean like it was inside of me, it wasn't in my head, it just felt like well, let me make this clear, I could feel it in my chest, right, but it obviously was in my mind. But I think it came from more internal, like in my soul, down there, and creeping, you know, in my mind down there and creeping, you know, in my mind, and hopefully that makes sense. Our mind is in our soul, but I'm just, you know, our souls made up different intricacies. So, anyways, I um could feel it and I was like it's hard to say right, because I don't.

Alexandria: 10:20

It's not that I wanted it to go viral, but I do want my things to get seen. I do want at least the 100 followers that I have to like it. I do want my family and friends. If my family and friends alone just liked my stuff, I probably would get more traction on the algorithm, right, and so, in order to get traction on the social media platforms, you have to fit the algorithms for all of the different social media platforms, but those I want to translate to podcast listens because I feel like this is really good content that people could use, that they need. It's very different countercultural almost from what people are telling us. And even if it is something that people are telling us, I think that I go a little deeper than just shooting words off and never telling you all what the heck I mean or what I'm talking about.

Alexandria: 11:09

And so, yeah, I just felt it inside of me and I had to really sit there and ask myself and this is a legitimate question. I ask myself it's like why do you want to go viral? Like, why do you want so many likes? Why do you feel like if you got more likes, that means that you're doing something good, like, do you really believe in what you're pushing out or or not? And that's where all of this started.

Alexandria: 11:37

I just I knew that if I had this ache, more people had the ache, and when I first was going to do this episode, it was about that. It was about why do we crave these viral moments? And that's what I thought this episode was going to be, and it was built around that. And then it got deeper about. Well, it's really about this ache to be seen and the fact that we're making the um. When our visibility becomes validation right, we make visibility equal validation. So the more likes, that means the more valuable I am. If I go viral for this, then that means that I'm saying something good. If my podcast is really getting hundreds and thousands of listens and they're putting me on the top charts and they're featuring me, then that means that I'm actually doing something good. And so that's where I started.

Alexandria: 12:21

And then I sat with that and I was like it has to be more than just going viral, because I know people who really don't want to go viral and aren't content creators, but they do sit there and look at the likes. They do sit there and refresh their feed. It's you know. There's some examples I'm going to give, but this is really crazy because I went to something not too long ago and there was a young lady sitting next to me and she's every time she's posting she's looking at, like who's looking at her story, who's liking her stuff, and it was weird to see that, knowing that I was working on this episode, because sometimes I get in my head and I go am I the only one that's really thinking about this?

Alexandria: 12:58

Because I'm actually not that person. I actually don't go to my story and look at like who's looking at my story. I don't go to my story and look at like who's looking at my story. I don't like count. I don't go look to see who's liking stuff. I will look at the likes and the numbers there. I actually don't look at my story number, views or whatever just because I don't want to see it. I know myself, okay. So I don't go in and exhaust myself with who is looking at what, unless it's someone that I'm suspicious of and I need to block.

Alexandria: 13:23

So it was interesting seeing someone next to me about my age, just like you know who was everything she posted like right when she posted it, or old stories. It was like who was looking? How many people are looking? And I just thought that that was so interesting and it validated what I wanted to sit down and say that it's not just about being a content creator. It's not just about being, you know, the streamer, the YouTuber, the vlogger, whatever. It's about you, the person with 50 followers. It's about you, the person who doesn't post because you don't feel like you fit up to what society is looking for. It's about you, who you are. Like me, you are a creator. You are creative. You put stuff out there for people to hear and for people to see.

Alexandria: 14:06

It's a wide range, and so, going from craving for our moments to this ache that we have to it not just being content creators and people in the creative space, to it being kind of all of us, and then getting to this point where it was like listen, like listen, we are losing ourselves. And that's when everything just felt like it clicked. This slow death of authenticity was when my soul just kind of leaped and I was like that's it. I am so tired of watching people sell themselves for moments that don't even last. I'm tired of the fakery, the trauma, exploitation, the curated mess. I mean y'all listen people turn in their lives into content and then losing themselves in the process, and then losing themselves in the process. Some people don't even realize that they're doing it. Where I quite literally know people who, and when I say know not just who they are on social media, but who they are of, and they quite literally, I don't even know that they recognize that they're keeping themselves in a cycle of always doing something because they've gotten used to being the trauma voice. They're always got some kind of drama going on, or at least that's how they position it.

Alexandria: 15:28

And you have to. In order to stay relevant, you have to do something new. So now, today I wake up and I'm blue, and tomorrow I'm gonna be red and tomorrow I'm gonna come out. No, I mean, and if we put this in kind of like real things besides colors, like it's, it's like, okay, today I'm a democrat but tomorrow I'm a libertarian. Oh, today I'm Christian but tomorrow I'm about to be Muslim. Like, today I'm a vlogger, but tomorrow I'm about to go do some pranks, like it's, it's really just jumping from one thing to the next to the next, so you can keep yourself relevant, like, okay, I've done the let's let's use, like the um, let's just go back to colors. I've done the red thing for a while. I've done the red thing for a while. That got me the traction, that got me seen, and now I'm about to do the blue thing.

Alexandria: 16:14

But it's not like that. It's not where people are sitting. They're actually having the conversation like this, where they recognize what they're doing. No, that's why this is so important. We are losing ourselves without even recognize that we're losing ourselves. How it happens is you love that attention, you crave those numbers, those comments, those people that um pour into you, so to speak, these strangers that validate all of your mess without knowing what really goes on, because we only get to tell our side and I know several. Let me listen y'all. This is something that I have been, that has been on my chest and on my heart for years, years, and it does really break my heart to see people so caught up in the numbers, so caught up in the feeling that that high you get from seeing people again interact with you in a way and love on you in a way, knowing that in real life you don't really get that. But it's a dangerous game to play because, like I said then, you're not sitting on the couch able to weigh. Okay, am I blue? Am I red? What do I be? You're actually just going. You know what I'm about to be blue, not realizing that.

Alexandria: 17:37

The reason why you keep switching from one thing, the reason why you keep trauma hopping, the reason why you keep just, you know, even, even show, even trying to keep up with the joneses, show your car, show your house, show your shoes, whatever it is, show how many friends you have, every event you have, all, just show only the beautiful moments of your life. You're doing it because you know, whatever gets traction, whatever gets me likes, whatever gives me that love, that attention, those comments, those dms that really pump me up. I want that feeling. I don't want the feeling of feeling like I'm alone. I want to feel like people really love me and care about me. Yeah, that's why this is so important. I have seen people shift their whole voice, their whole message just to get engagement and it just feels like now we're, if you're not trending, you're not valuable, and I'm just not okay with that. So this episode is not a rant, though. It's a rescue mission. It's for the parts of us that slowly, that are slowly fading and barely knows how to ask for help.

Alexandria: 18:45

So we're going to break down this title because I want to make sure that we get this full picture the slow death of authenticity. So the definition. I want to start with the definition of authenticity before we get to the slow death, because I really enjoy that. But the definition of authenticity is the quality of being genuine, real or true to one's own personality, spirit or character. It's not false or copied, it's undisputed origin and it's trustworthy. It has an undis, I think it's supposed to say it has an undisputed origin that's from the dictionary and trustworthy it's. Essentially, when you're outside matches your inside. That's what authenticity is, but again, because I want to make, I want to make that last statement that I made very clear too, that your insides can be messed up. So when you're authentic, it really is about being true to your own personality. And I would probably add, for better or for worse, because authentic doesn't necessarily mean good, right, but that's what authentic is right when, when, what happened, when what is happening inside of you matches your outside.

Alexandria: 19:49

Um then, this idea of slow death what is this? It's a process of quiet, gradual deterioration. It doesn't happen all at once. It happens in tiny, almost unnoticeable ways over time. Relating that back to the topic at hand, it means that it's not one dramatic moment of losing ourselves, but it's a quiet unraveling, a piece of our realness chipped away every time we edit ourselves for approval.

Alexandria: 20:21

And I want to also make sure that I capture those of you who really don't have this struggle with social media because it doesn't have to be social media, don't have this struggle with social media because it doesn't have to be social media. I just know how much of a culprit this is, but these things can happen, whether on your job, whether you're in school, whether you're around your family, around friends. It doesn't have to just be, you know, social media being the core of this, but any place that you go where you cannot be your authentic self and you're just keeping yourself there for whatever reason, is something that we need to address. So don't leave this episode because you're like I don't have such media. Don't leave it.

Alexandria: 20:56

Um, this is also a subtle repeated trade. We're trading truth for trend, we're trading presence for performance and we're trading our soul for stats and eventually we're so curated, we're so watched, we're so algorithm shaped that we don't even know who we are anymore. So this is not a funeral, it's an erosion. So it's a slow death right, this chipping away over time of who we genuinely are, where, when it reaches that ultimate point, we don't even know ourselves anymore. We're no longer dictated by our own personal values, but by whatever the social media algorithm is saying we should do, or the people around us are saying that we should do. So let's talk about this shift. When did we forget who we are?

Alexandria: 21:47

Um, I read an article and it's going to be linked in the description on whichever site that you're on and I loved what they were saying that social networking didn't start with apps. It started with us. We have always been networked through clubs, churches, letters, letters, lodges. We've always found ways to connect because it's a part of being human. Think about it Telephones right, we got the telephones. I mean telephones go back to way back then Letter systems. Curious why? Because they wanted. I think that from the beginning of time, we have been looking for ways to stay connected, looking for ways to pass down ideas, looking for ways to learn about what is happening with this relative or this friend or these, whatever's happening, right. And so this idea of social networking, like, right, it might be an internet thing, but again, that did not start with apps. That started with us who we are let's talk about. Let's talk a little bit about the evolution of social media, because your girl's been on social media for a while.

Alexandria: 23:02

I had, first of all, I had, black Planet, which I think Black Planet came before MySpace when I did my research. But I had Black Planet, I had MySpace, and so in the early days you had MySpace, orkut I don't even know how to say this one Orkut, orkut, I think it's Orkut Friendster, bebo, right, those were like a little more messy, they were unpolished, it was very low stakes. You know MySpace was trying to evolve. Get that top eight was the top eight. Get your friend, you know, teach us how to call and make our own backgrounds, put our own music on. I just I missed that. But you know it was still pressure, still, you know, a lot of objections, right, especially for us as teens and kids, it did cause problems. I did get in a little bit of drama on my space, um, but then came these media-based sites.

Alexandria: 23:47

So then you had YouTube. You had Flickr, vine, right with the videos. That's where we started to upload versions of ourselves. I remember when YouTube came out and YouTube was this is just for me, what I remember YouTube was the platform that first started to kick off this idea of like overnight success and your numbers going up and being able to open doors and folks was driving me crazy. Talking if I just get on YouTube, if I just get on YouTube, I don't, but no, for real. They're like if I just get on YouTube, I can be a success, I can do this. It'll open these doors. I just need to get myself on there. And while that happened for people like Tori Kelly, it still took a while, right, like. Even for a lot of people it feels like like, oh, they were an overnight success. They still had to put work in, but that's just kind of where I remember this idea of virality. Starting is with YouTube. I could be totally wrong. That's just me personally, from what I've used.

Alexandria: 24:42

But then came micro blogging. So then you have Tumblr and Twitter, where we were able to now talk about our thoughts, but, like Twitter was back in the day, I think you could upload pictures? I do not remember, but I know it wasn't about pictures, it was just about your little 140 characters, your words. Boy, having Twitter in college was amazing. I loved, child, we would so in the dorms. I went to Clark Atlanta oh look, I have the shirt on. Yeah, I went to Clark Atlanta. Oh look, I had the shirt on. Yeah, I went to Clark Atlanta and we would watch what was it? The game, I think, was big back then, so everybody would be, and it was like it was as if you could see, I think visually, if you could see everybody in their dorms crowded around their little TVs trying to watch the game, and then we'd be tweeting it and I, I love Twitter for what it was when, when we had it or when when had it back then. I'm not on it at all actually now, but then came TikTok, instagram, which we know. Instagram came way before TikTok, at least for us, right, that Instagram was bigger. And then you had TikTok. And then what am I missing? You have threads, now, right, and now we have stream, and now we have Discord and we have Twitch and all of these things. Right, we have Discord and we have Twitch and all of these things, right and so it used to be a place to connect, like slowly, and get to know people or reconnect with people.

Alexandria: 25:57

Can't forget LinkedIn, ooh child, you know, looking back at just the evolution of social media, from my personal usage, going from that innocence of MySpace and Black Planet was a little iffy and can't. You can't forget about the chat rooms. I I didn't get in too many chat rooms, um, I did get in some of the gaming chat rooms like um, I had neopets and there was another one that I had too that I can't remember, but I got into some of those times. I didn't really get too much in AOL and some of the other chat rooms, but we cannot leave those out because kids was talking to people probably three times their age and didn't know it, but we had all of that right. So, looking back at that and just the more innocence of like MySpace and just that organic feel almost, where it wasn't too much pressure to perform, it was more about connecting. Or even the early days of Facebook where it was like, oh my gosh, I could see so-and-so down there and I could talk to so-and-so down there and even LinkedIn professionally, being able to see what people are doing professionally and just have that connection.

Alexandria: 27:07

On that, I think that they really started to kind of close these gaps between time and distance. Right, where people can see their grandchildren and people can see their cousins and best friends after college. Right, but slowly it's become this place to perform and that used to be reserved for like your YouTubes, your Vines, and now it's like every platform, like even Pinterest. It really has just become this place to put your best foot forward so that the algorithm can reward you and send you up on, you know, in people's feeds or whatever. I mean, if you really even think about Instagram, you used to only be able to see the people that you followed, and I miss that. I mean, I know you can turn it back or something like that, but people aren't even really posting the same things anymore because it's not the same, you know. So, anyways, I don't want to get caught up in the stone drop, but I do miss the way that it was and I feel like we didn't even really notice that it was happening. I feel like we just went from this okay, it's here to like. Now we're like whoa, what do you mean? You can sit on stream for hours and make millions and like, be popular, sit on stream for 24 hours, y'all and do nothing. It just blows my mind, like I just the way that social media is today. It just I don't know if it's anything that people saw coming, although we're gonna talk about later.

Alexandria: 28:37

Some people did warn about the effects of social media. Um, but the likes, the views, the reach, right, they started to feel like mirrors, and these mirrors that tell you what you're worth, they're mirrors that distort who you are. And that's when our souls started shrinking, when our truth became optional, when we stopped asking who am I and started asking will this get engagement? We've shifted from sharing to showcasing, from self-expression to self-curation, and now most of us don't even really know if we're posting our real life or our algorithm life. Like I said about the girl that you know, post made that thing.

Alexandria: 29:16

You're wondering is this picture going to be enough for people to like it? Is the right lighting? Is it the right outfit? Is it the right pose? Is the right background? And back then, honey, we just didn't care. We took Instagram's little filters they had and we just posted it. And so now we're like there's this, it's so thin to try to figure out. Am I really posting this because I want to share it and I want it out there? Am I posting it because I know that people are going to like this more than maybe the real thing that I want to post or want to do? And it sucks, right, because social networking and even in networking right, networking right is again that thing that's always been there. We've always been networked, we've always wanted to pull people together because we need that human connection. But social networking it used to be about community and now it's about currency, emotional currency, visibility, currency, validation, currency. So we have to look at this.

Alexandria: 30:12

This lie honestly that more visibility equals more value, that just because something gets a lot of likes or goes viral, that goes viral means that it is significant or holds weight or holds value, or that that person or thing or company is even worthy of being listened to, right? Or that they're telling the truth, that they're so honest or whatever it is. Um, we start to think that, okay, if it got those claps, it must be wise, if it went viral, then it must be worth listening to. But deep down and you probably don't have to dig that deep we know that that's not true, because some of the wisest voices that I know are not even on social media and, honestly, we know that to be true as well, because we're getting so many viral videos. When you're looking at TikTok and Instagram, that's kind of all it is and you're watching a video, but there's very few videos that you watch that actually make you want to follow the person, that actually make you want to know more about the person who posted. Very few. We're usually watching it. Maybe we're laughing, maybe we're crying, and then we're keep, we keep going, right, or we're digging a little deeper, getting into the drama, and then we keep going, and so, again, I don't think this is that the idea is anything that we have to reach too deep down for, um, but it is unfortunate that some of the loudest people online have nothing real to say. They're just, they just are loud, so they have the volume and the views.

Alexandria: 31:41

I really love understanding words and we're going to talk about the word viral, the etymology and the meaning of the word viral. So the word viral originally referred to an actual virus Cause. I was like, where did this idea of going viral come from? Like when we used to hear viral, it used to be a viral disease. So is that what it came from? And sure enough, yeah, it came from and was used and was originally referred to an actual virus, something contagious, infectious, fast spreading.

Alexandria: 32:11

It came into play and started becoming a term in our society. I think it was like back in the I want to say 1900s, I don't remember exactly, but it came into pop culture through viral marketing, where content that spreads like a virus, often unpredictably right, which is the same thing that happens with the virus. It's unpredictable At first. Maybe you don't know why it spread. You may learn that later. You don't always know how to control it, how to contain, contain or contain, contain, contain I think it's contain it. I don't know what contain meant. There we go. So you're trying to contain. Y'all be hearing me really process out loud in the moment.

Alexandria: 32:52

So, understanding that this idea of virality does come from the word viral, we then are able to understand that being viral is not about what's valuable, it's just about what spreads and so like. Think about this. We've made going viral the goal, but viruses don't care what they're spreading, they just want to be replicated, and we've started treating our lives like that worth replication but not worth protecting. We're willing to do whatever it is to go viral, but not because of any deep like I wanted. I want this to be known and I want this to be seen. I'm not saying this is everyone I'm. I want this to be seen. I'm not saying this is everybody, I'm just saying, for most cases, right, it's just about being whatever can get seen, I will do. I will say, even if it's not something that I'm personally convicted by, because I don't care what I'm spreading, I just care that it's spreading, that it gets shared, that it gets liked, that it gets seen. Even if it gets liked, that it gets seen, even if it comes with negative comments, because all the negative comments even add into right me being seen, All the shares that I get from saying something outlandish, whatever it is. I want that, but I don't necessarily have to care about what it is that is going out there, even if it might harm people myself or, sorry, harm people, other people or myself.

Alexandria: 34:14

So then we have to talk about visibility. The definition of visibility is the state of being seen, noticed or recognized, and so visibility isn't inherently bad. We all want to be seen. That's just a part of being human, but social media has made visibility feel like the proof of our worth. And I would go back to something I mentioned earlier. This isn't just social media.

Alexandria: 34:36

You have, you know, awards. I think I mentioned this in another earlier episode, that in elementary school we had those awards like perfect attendance or best this, or even in your classrooms, right? We're taught that you know you get those awards, you're validated in some way. You get work promotions, you get a new title, whatever it is right, you get that raise, like. There are other ways that we are also made to feel as though doing something, having that visibility, gets us validation, but those are usually based on some sort of metric. Right, that some sort of metric. I would say that makes sense, because virality is based on a metric too. But I don't think many of us get the metric. But, like, perfect attendance was literally based on the fact that you showed up for school every single day. So even though I'm jealous of the girl who won that award, I can't say that I showed up every day. Now we can question why does one need that award?

Alexandria: 35:31

Sure, that's not my argument here today. I'm just wanting to make sure that I acknowledge that social media, that being visible, that this is not the only thing that will have this effect on us, as I mentioned earlier. But that's what it is. And so now, if you're not visible, then it's like you don't even exist. And so the next thing I want to define is validation, because we have said that visibility being seen equals validation. That's how social media is treating everything that the more likes, the more views, the more comments you get. It means that you are validated, that you're worth something. But validation, it is the act of confirming something is true, worthy or legitimate, and from Latin, validus meaning strong, worthy or powerful. So when we say we want validation, we're not just saying I want to feel good, we're saying I want someone to confirm that I'm worthy, that I'm real, that I matter. But y'all that becomes very dangerous, because when visibility becomes your validation, your soul becomes a statistic, your soul becomes just a number or a like or a comment, and then we measure our worth by how we are seen. I hope you guys can see how dangerous and slippery slope this is.

Alexandria: 36:48

Last thing that I want to define in this section is value, because value is different than validation. The value is the importance, worth or usefulness of something. It's a person's principles or standards of behavior, what they deem important in life. It's who you are, or what you do when nobody's watching. Right, your value is who you are, it's internal, and I am one of those people who argue that if you are a human, you inherently have value, that you are born with value because you are a living, breathing thing.

Alexandria: 37:25

But does this house have the same value as a human? No, I wouldn't say that. I would not say that over the house, over a human. What I need to protect the house over the human. No, the human right, the human is what has the value, because of the fact that we have souls.

Alexandria: 37:42

You have to ask them why are humans so valuable? Because our minds, our souls, the way we are intricately wired, the way that we are all the same thing but at the same time completely different. We have the same heart, kidneys, lungs, makeups right within us, hands, toes, feet, knees, hair, lips, eyes. We have these things right. But you can't stand me next to my husband and say that we are exactly the same because our souls are vastly different. And I can't take my soul and put that we are exactly the same because our souls are vastly different, and I can't take my soul and put it in his. That is why we have an intrinsic value. We are born with a value. That value was never given to us.

Alexandria: 38:21

Because of social media, because of virality, because of how many likes, clicks, posts that you get and, honestly, this is me preaching to myself and reminding myself of this too Like we are born valuable because of the souls that we have. However, it is important that what we choose to do with those souls, what we choose to continue to value. So, when we come back to that word value and it being our principles or standards of behavior, that will affect our quality of life, our mindsets, how we adapt different beliefs, how we show up in person, out of person. Right, it's not enough to say I was born with a soul, I'm good. You have to nurture that. That's exactly what we're. That's exactly why I do this podcast, because you can't just wake up and go. I woke up like this, like no, you have to do something.

Alexandria: 39:21

And so this whole thing begins to become dangerous when we're trying to go viral because we want to get the validation sorry, let me say that again, this whole thing is messy when we're trying to go viral, which we think is being visible, but that visibility means that we are validated and that visibility is also tied to our value, that once I'm validated, then that means I have value instead of starting with I have value. I am validated because I have value, uh-huh, and with the value, with the life, with the soul that I have, I choose A, b, c. You know, do the right thing, whatever it is right, and when I get the visibility because I do want to be seen, it's not because I have misplaced and rearranged this idea that when I'm seen, I'm known. I, when I am seen, I know that I'm seen because of who I am, not because of what I'm trying to create or who I'm trying to create in order for people to see me. Right, like I'm seen first and then I'm seen. I hope that makes sense. I'm seen within and then I'm seen by the public. Okay, I always do that stupid civil rights voice. I don't know what that is, okay, but yeah. So visibility just means being seen.

Alexandria: 40:48

Validation means being confirmed as worthy, and the algorithm hands out both like candy, but only if you play the game. And that's the shift right there. When you start chasing what I just said, we're not just people anymore, we're profiles ranked by performance and when your worth gets measured in likes, you start producing for applause and not truth. Visibility becomes a scoreboard for your soul. The algorithm doesn't reward healing. It rewards reactions.

Alexandria: 41:21

The more shocking and polarizing and overly vulnerable or curated you are, the more likely it is to get shared. The more I tell you my worst things about myself, the more that it is to get shared. The more I tell you my worst things about myself, the more that people want to get into it, the more that I pretend as if I'm so hurt and vulnerable by and I'm going to go deep on this like a death of the loved one, Because we got to stop acting as if people are really showing up to social media authentically. People are using every single trauma, every single thing they can pull out of the hat to be seen on social media. And I'm not gonna sit here and second guess myself and try to act like it's not happening, because it is and it's sickening.

Alexandria: 42:01

It's sickening to watch parents who have ill children, who, um, just want to use them and bait them. It's sickening to watch parents use their kids who can sing and dance and play the piano, you know, or just have some sort of gift just constantly recording them and the kid you can see, the little baby just don't know what they're doing because they're an innocent child, they're not meant for the public, and then you open your child up to all of these eyes. All of this criticism, all of this. It's a difference between I'm sharing my children. I love my children. They're so beautiful, which is what I often do, versus people who have literally told me you can make money off of them. Better, get them sticks, better record them, put them on YouTube, like I'm not signing my kid up to be a YouTube star if that's not what they don't want to do. I'm not pimping my kids out. I'm not. So, yeah, I'm.

Alexandria: 42:50

I am sick of it. I'm sick of the trade off that we're doing and in ourselves, not valuing ourselves, but trading our value for a couple of likes. That may lead to some dollars, that may lead to brand promotions. But you guys, man, ask yourself do you want a brand promotion from a brand who only wants you because you're important right now and in a year, five years, 10 years from now, they don't give a crap about you, or do you actually wanna be part of something, be someone in the world that has legacy and sustains over time.

Alexandria: 43:29

I'm not saying that brand partnerships are bad at all, and I respect people, that there are certain people that I follow who will only align themselves with companies that share similar values as them, and I think that that is so different than just taking anything and just grabbing whatever you can. And who? The first person that says something? Oh my gosh, I could really give y'all example example, but one of the examples is those partnerships that some celebrities do with McDonald's, knowing good and full well and I've heard people say this that they don't actually eat McDonald's, but I think those packages are like a million dollars. That's what I've heard. I do not know that to be true or not, but, um, you know, a million dollars to sell a cheeseburger or whatever. But I use as as an example, because it's no secret that McDonald's is completely bad for us, and people who don't even eat McDonald's, people who wouldn't even touch McDonald's, people who wouldn't even let it go inside their body because they know what it does to them and and how bad it is, they are willing to sell that to you and your children so that they can collect the check for a million dollars, so that McDonald's can get the increase in numbers and influx of this person's fans going into McDonald's, and we can see that right.

Alexandria: 44:47

Sometimes it just turns into this vicious cycle. But again, I want to take a moment to remind us that you do not have to be a celebrity, a content creator, have thousands of followers, to fall into this trap. You can have 10 followers, you can have 100 followers. You can not even be on social media, but since we are talking about social media, you can have few followers and still want to post and be seen. In fact, I know people on social media and I mean you can think about this. It's not that hard People who you know. You can have a hundred. You can just be following the people that you know and people that you know be following you, and you still want to be seen. Why? Because and we're going to talk about this more in a second that ache is still within us, no matter who it is.

Alexandria: 45:32

It doesn't have to be about being a content creator. It doesn't have to be about trying to just go viral. You want to be seen. You want to be known, even when you post something that is not as vulnerable if you post your work, if you're just posting your creative project, or you're posting your promotion, or you're posting your thoughts. You might post your thoughts about being lonely, your thoughts whatever.

Alexandria: 45:53

Like you put. We put things out there right in order for them to be seen and people cannot tell me otherwise. We're not posting so it can go in the void. We're not posting just to be like yeah, I did both of that and I'm sorry. We're not posting that just to be like that, like just to say, oh, I'm just posting it, to post it.

Alexandria: 46:14

No, you're posting because you want someone to see it, no matter if it's an ex, no matter if it's your mother-in-law, no matter if it's your daddy-in-law Like no matter if it's your daddy-in-law like no matter who it is. You want somebody you were looking for somebody to see an ex-friend. You want somebody to tell somebody about that subliminal that you posted. Like we are not. We try to act like we're not posting to be seen, but we are posting to be seen. We want to be known for something more. It's in us and that's why we're willing to almost do anything to feel like people know us. But y'all like these people online. They don't know you and that's not the way to be known. It's just the way to be seen. It's just the way to be seen literally oops, it's just the way to be seen, literally with eyes, but not seen as in known, understood, loved and cared for.

Alexandria: 47:06

When we value attention more than authenticity, we're not building, we're begging you. Stop asking is this honest? And start asking will this land? And one of the worst feelings is that even when it does land, it's still not enough, it's never, never enough. And there's a philosopher, dean Cocking, and he says there's a quote. He says online environments compromise, embodied self-presentation. And what that means is that when the body, voice, tone and spirit are stripped away, all we're left with is content, not person, not presence, just content. We think more visibility will finally make us feel validated, but what if being seen by thousands doesn't satisfy the ache because they're not actually seeing you?

Alexandria: 47:56

The article that I mentioned earlier that I read man, it was so, or one of the articles, it was so good, and that one was the one on social media and ethics and in that article they talk about just the various um arguments from different philosophers and counter arguments and criticisms of it. And so in this one section I'm not going to read that section, how they wrote it, because it's it's just a lot Um. But I want to read the layman's version of what they were trying to say. It says when we connect with people through technology like video calls, text or social media, their presence is weaker or less real. Why? Because we can make them disappear whenever we want. If a conversation becomes uncomfortable or tiring, we can just mute them, block them or close the app. We can just mute them, block them or close the app. We can also avoid people entirely using filters or screens that keep us from ever engaging with folks we might not like.

Alexandria: 48:52

And he goes on to say that technology not only changes who we talk to but also cuts us off from the people we used to meet by chance, like strangers at concerts, live shows or political events. Why? Because now we can get music, entertainment and political news directly from our devices. We no longer need to be out in the world to experience culture or community. But this causes a double loss in our lives. We miss the joy of seeing people fully as whole human beings, not just digital profiles, and we miss what happens when people see us fully, when we're judged, challenged or changed by being in community with others.

Alexandria: 49:34

So that was from the philosopher Borgman. That's his last name and even he had early thoughts on social media. I want to say I think it was in the 90s. Thoughts on social media? I want to say I think it was in the 90s and since then, certain aspects of what he predicted or what he thought was going to happen have not happened. And all of this is not necessarily true. Right, we can still connect online and go to games and go to sporting events and go to, you know, concerts and stuff. It hasn't fully taken that away from us, like he thought, but still that idea, this idea that I can just simply shut you out my life, I can simply just disregard you, that people no longer become people, that they are just a social profile. Let me demonstrate how right he was about that.

Alexandria: 50:19

One word for y'all. One word for y'all trolls. Trolls, not bots. Trolls the the people that say the most outlandish things to people, things they would never say to someone's face, things that shouldn't even be uttered because of just how outlandishly horrific and rude and terrible they are. But that's because you're a profile talking to another profile. You're not a person, you're not a human being talking to another human being. You're just talking to somebody who's on here for whatever reason you think they're on here for.

Alexandria: 50:57

Even when people show up genuinely authentic themselves, they get so much hate in and the comments can sometimes just be so nasty for some of the most basic things. I saw a woman show her farmhouse and you would think that everybody was just like, wow, your house is so beautiful. They were slandering her in the comments for what? And then we go back to our episode on projecting. We know that most of these people are projecting from a, from a personal place. But this idea that Borgman talked about years ago we see it all the time, you it made me even question oh shoot, do I see humans as humans or do I really just kind of see them as their profile, like what is there, is kind of what is it? I don't really need to go any deeper, and when I don't want to see them, I just close that out of sight, out of mind. When someone is kind of what is it? I don't really need to go any deeper, and when I don't want to see them, I just close that out of sight, out of mind.

Alexandria: 51:48

When someone is tired of you, they just block you right, like it has taken away so much from our social aspects, and I wanted to touch on this specifically, because we talk about blocking and all this and whatever, whatever, whatever. And I think that that's a good mechanism to have, because there are crazy people out there and you need to block them. It becomes a problem, though, when you start blocking people that you have issues with and you never address the actual issue with them. You just think that blocking was the thing that's going to make the issue disappear. Baby, it don't work like that. You got to address, you got to confront, you got to have the hard conversations. Address, you got to confront, you got to have the hard conversations, and that's what Borgman was trying to get at.

Alexandria: 52:25

Was that it takes away, then and other philosophers talked about this too it starts to take away from our abilities to interact with people, not just our abilities I don't want to say abilities, but it just takes away even from our willingness to try to have difficult conversations, and, as we talked about a couple episodes ago, when we look at what friendship is really supposed to be based on, we do not want to go through the ringer with our friends because social media makes us feel like it needs to be easy breezy, beautiful cover girl Instead and I hope I don't think I should get in trouble for that because my thing is not monetized but instead right of it being easy, breezy, friendship is actually hard, it's gritty, it's going through life, it's confronting things that make you feel bad. It's your friend being able to confront you. It's holding each other accountable. It's saying the hard things. It's not the cute quotes, the Pinterest quotes, it's not just the blogs, it's not just, it is real, it is deep and life is that way. We don't even want to work that hard at life anymore Something we're going to talk about in a later episode, because social media has made it seem like again, life is just supposed to skip.

Alexandria: 53:26

We see people get their promotion. We see people you know becoming millionaires for making stupid skits and doing risking their lives and just doing the craziest things. Why? Because the algorithm is not rewarding the value. They don't care if you make a fool of yourself. They're not even checking to see is this right, unless it gets on one of those politically heavy topics, right? And then they can start to maneuver things. But until then, if it's out there, if it's to be seen, they want to push it because it's just about the patterns, it's just about the algorithm, it's not actually about what they value.

Alexandria: 53:58

Again, it's just about spreading. It's not about what it spreads. And we're almost done here. Um, my cousin got on me because she was like you be saying you're almost done, and then here, coming out of 30 minutes. So let me not say we're almost done, we have like a couple sections to go. I mean it is almost done where I would say we're on the shorter end of it than on the longer end.

Alexandria: 54:20

Um, but we have to talk about that ache that I mentioned earlier, this ache to be seen, this what we're, what are we really looking for? Right, and I would say that most of us we're not chasing virality or likes or attention on social media because we love the spotlight. That's not a lot of our struggle. We're chasing it because it feels like proof that we matter. This ache is not for, again, the likes, the shares, the comments. It's for love, belonging, significance and recognition. We want to know that. We're not just posting into the void, as I mentioned before, but we're hoping that someone out there gets it, that they get us, and I've been that person.

Alexandria: 55:03

I've been someone who I've clapped for others in public and I've posted my pictures and then I've cried in private. I've built beautiful things in silence and still wondered if they mattered. I have so many little things in my notebook and, as I mentioned, I've been on social media since my space. I had a YouTube channel, was doing videos and I stopped at a blog and I stopped all because this idea and these like thoughts kept creeping into me and making me feel like I wasn't valuable because people weren't really gravitating toward it. I wasn't valuable because the numbers weren't going up as fast as I thought, or I wasn't valuable because my own friends and family, who could boost my numbers almost overnight, weren't supporting it. So that must mean that if they don't believe in what I have to say because their belief comes through how they validate me on social media, right to the problem but if they don't believe in what I have to say, then I must not really have anything good to say and that's just not true, right? And so I've really struggled with this and I don't want to go viral, to be honest, like I don't. I keep saying, especially how this world is, you don't know. You could post the most innocent thing and go viral and they just be, and especially my kids. Don't let it be nothing on my kids. But even though I don't want to go viral, I don't want to feel invisible. I don't want to feel unknown.

Alexandria: 56:18

Being seen, being truly seen, it's a part of how we learn, how we grow and how we feel connected. Being truly seen it's a part of how we learn how we grow and how we feel connected. And that's what Borgman was trying to get at with his critiques of social media that we just talked about. When we replace our daily and weekly and life-needing interactions with just sitting on our phones, we literally miss the opportunities to grow in certain ways that community was made for, that we were created to do with community and community with us. What we're really longing for, y'all, is resonance, not just views, but to feel known, not just applause, but to be understood.

Alexandria: 56:57

And this loneliness epidemic that we talked about in the friendship episode it isn't just about not having people, it's about not feeling seen by the people we do have. Sometimes we don't want to be seen by the world, but we want the people that are supposed to see us to see us in social network, social media it gives us this surface level contact, but it starves us of soul level connection. We're surrounded, but we're still aching. And this is something that I love that Sherry Turkle. She's a psychologist and she became a tech critic. She was actually early on really optimistic about social media and then she came back and became a critic because she said him a critic because she said we are alone together, connected all the time, but rarely known in a in any real way. I had to say it again we are alone, together, connected all the time, but rarely known in any real way. And y'all that line messed me up. Alone together, because that's how many of us are feeling.

Alexandria: 58:11

We're in group chats, comment sections, dms. We're sharing the memes, we're talking to each other on social media, but we're still lonely. We're posting, we're sharing, we're tweeting, we're blogging, we're vlogging, we're streaming and we're sharing, we're tweeting, we're blogging, we're vlogging, we're streaming and we're still lonely. We're always on, always available, and yet we ache for something deeper. Our phones are in our hands, we're scrolling up and down, we're swiping, and we're still lonely. Because we want that deepness, we want something real, something uncurated. We want that connection in person. We want to go out into the world and do something. Whether we've acknowledged that or not, we are missing that connection. So this ache to be seen, that happens. It isn't shallow, it's sacred. We're not're not, we're sorry we are. We are made to be known, to be held, to be mirrored in love and not in metrics. But when we chase validation in spaces that can't hold our whole selves, we walk away lonelier than before.

Alexandria: 59:18

And social media did not invent the ache, let's be clear, but it sure did amplify it. It gave us access, but not always intimacy, and sometimes that's more painful than silence. Having to see people that you know go out and do things that you can't do, or or go out and they don't include you, or having to see people reach these heights that you've told yourself you can't do. Having to see the, the people that you think are prettier than you, smarter than you, handsomer than you, have more money than you have. I don't know if handsomers are words, I'm not sure we're talking about me, but you know, to see people right, doing all of these things like it gives us access to more, but it doesn't give us intimacy. And because we're lacking that intimacy, but yet we have the access, that's painful, more painful than silence. So, behind the filters, the trends, the sharing, the DMs, the comments, we want to be known for more and I want to really make sure we understand the cost of this, what we lose and what some of us have lost in this process.

Alexandria: 1:00:33

But let me make it clear I am not here to shame anyone. I am not here to tell you to delete your social media apps and log out of Facebook and Instagram right now. That's not my point. You gotta weigh that, measure that for yourself, because I'm here too, I'm online too, I'm still posting too. I've curated, I've been on YouTube, as I've said already, I've done MySpace, black Planet, twitter, threads, this y'all probably see me in some of the comments on this stuff because I'll comment, I'll laugh, I'll do like I am still there, but and I'm still questioning myself and my intentions and am I showing up and am I just becoming what I see? Why am I comparing myself to these people? Okay, it's time to get off social media, because I can't seem to find the line between where I start and they begin or where I end and they start, like it's all just kind of rolling together. So I can't shame you all for something that I am stuck in and I that's never my point either is to shame you ever but whether we realize it or not, this shift has cost us something sacred this shift from community to um visibility, equaling this validation, and this lack of authenticity, this slow death of authenticity.

Alexandria: 1:01:45

It has cost us something, and so this is more of an invitation for us to start to come back to ourselves, because we've lost the ease of honesty. Now everything feels filtered, intentional and strategic. We've lost our quiet confidence, the ability to post something true without worrying if it lands. We've lost presence. We're thinking in captions when life is happening, instead of just sharing what's on our heart. We've lost attention, the ability to listen to others or even ourselves without the buzz of the scroll and, most of all, we've lost pieces of our authentic identity. Some of us don't even know just how to be. We're always concerned with how something looks, how something sounds. Should I share that? Should I not share that? Should I say it? Should I not say it? Some of us don't post at all, but we do scroll and we compare and we covet and we envy others for doing what we cannot do or want to do, right or what, looking at what they have that I want or I wish I could do. Even our joy feels curated. Even our grief feels like a post waiting to happen. Again. We're taking every little moment of our lives and we're making it something, and years ago I started this thing called 40 days with Jesus.

Alexandria: 1:03:02

It was a fast that I did and in that fast is where it really broke my relationship with social media like cracked it wide open, because I went on a social media fast and in that I broke a lot of habits and so I don't have any social media notifications on my phone. I've been doing this for years. I do not get social media notifications. I get them for the podcast page, but they're very limited, like comments and that's it. But for years since 2013, I have not had social media notifications on my phone because I knew I had a problem. I'm kind of obsessed with it, right, so I don't get any notifications. Like I said, I don't check who's watching. I try not to look at the. I look at numbers because you see the numbers, but I try not to look at like who liked my post. I just look at, kind of the numbers. Okay, they're there.

Alexandria: 1:03:51

But in that time of getting off of social media. It also shifted what I post, because I used to be a car, my house, my what like everything and I did used to use moments of my life to share whatever was happening getting dumped, getting a new man, getting a job, losing a job, getting a car, not having a car, like whatever it was, and what happened was I would post my successes for the world before I gave them to friends and family, and in that time of that fast I really was able to evaluate who are you trying to show up for and who is showing up for you. What are the people in your life deserve? Do they deserve to find things secondhand while you tell the world? That's not fair, and so I have since practiced making sure that I tell people that I'm having a baby before I tell everybody else on social media. Making sure that people know what wins and losses we're having before I tell social media and I'm talking about core people, not everybody just like core people right, making sure that I'm connecting. I try to tell people happy birthday, not on social media. I try to keep their birthday in my phone and even if it pops up on social media, I try to go and text them personally, right check up on them personally, as I'm not perfect at that part, because I will just use social media conveniently to dm someone.

Alexandria: 1:05:10

But I also say this because people often use death and tragedy to and y'all might hear my little baby crying but, um, people often use death and tragedy to post on social media as well and to get those likes. And so I caution on sharing about the people close to me who have passed away, because I don't want to use them for likes. I don't want to use them to get attention, because I know that grief and trauma and sadness and things like death will pull people in. Because we're human, we feel bad when someone dies and someone, a loved one, dies who was close to us. But does the world really need to know that my great aunt Sally died? Does the world really need to know the details of how I truly feel about my grandfather passing away? What do they care? I'm just another number to them. I'm just another profile to them. I don't need to give them all of me. I can reserve those deeper parts of myself for people around me who get it and who understand and who truly love me, instead of for a world who only again sees me as a profile or another number or just another scroll.

Alexandria: 1:06:19

I went off on a little bit of a tangent there at the end. But getting back to this slow death, this slow death of authenticity, it's not just one big collapse. It's a slow, quiet unraveling. It's one post, one edit, one compromise at a time. Authenticity isn't lost in one moment. It's negotiated away in pieces, is negotiated away in pieces and we really need to get back to like the little things about ourselves that our tone, our body language, the tremble in our voice, the way our face changes when we talk about something that matters. Those are the things that don't trend, but they're you. When we lose those, we lose our ability to truly be known. And, of course, we know that our values, our beliefs, everything we talk about on this podcast goes into that.

Alexandria: 1:07:10

When we lose who we are, when our values and our beliefs are blurred between the world's value or the culture, or the social media algorithm or whoever's values and beliefs, we really don't know what we aspire to, and that's why there are so many of us who change like the wind, with change depending on which friend we're talking to or which social media person we follow or what, because we need to shut off the world and take some time with ourselves and figure out who am I, what do I believe, what do I value, what is happening inside of me, why do I crave these moments, why do I want to be seen? And I know that we didn't sign up for these platforms to lose ourselves. We've just gotten caught up in. You know, honestly, this trajectory that we talked about going from community to this idea of you know, like numbers game and the algorithms, and we almost didn't even see it coming. It's kind of like you look down, you look up and oh shoot, I'm, we're here. You know it's like when did that happen? But we don't have to keep drifting just because we didn't start that way. We can pause, we can reflect, we can come back. We don't have to just stay just because they're telling us that we have to stay, like back. We don't have to just stay just because they're telling us that we have to stay. We can leave, we can rebuild something that's real, even if no one ever sees us building it. And so let's talk about where we go from here, and I really am almost done. So what now? Okay, so we've named the ache, we've traced the lie, we've counted the cost and now we're left with the choice.

Alexandria: 1:08:44

Right, because this isn't just about platforms, it's about presence, it's about identity, it's about beliefs, values, who we really are. It's about whether we're willing to reclaim our soul in a world that profits off of our performance. Going back to that McDonald's example right, are we willing to sell what's left of us just to make some money or just to be seen? This is about deciding what actually matters and what kind of life we're really building. And again, I'm not telling you to delete all your apps, I'm not telling you to stop posting or whatever, whatever, whatever. I'm there too. I'm building, I'm sharing, I'm posting, I'm looking at the memes, I'm scrolling, I'm doing all the things right, but this is about, again, that slow death of authenticity.

Alexandria: 1:09:39

But here's the thing, not just online, but in real life, because some people are authentic in real life and they can show up online in that way and they can just be themselves and post what they want and be even a content creator, influencer, celebrity, or be just known to their family and friends, have the 50 followers and not care, because what, like? They're able to do that. But then others of us, we need to step away. We need to figure out who we are without the influences of social media, because we have not yet figured out how to be authentic with no one watching. So when we show up on social media with a lot of eyes watching, we're not being authentic because we haven't figured out how to do it away from social media, which again robs us of so much authenticity because of how it's built.

Alexandria: 1:10:34

Now you can't be in the toxic place trying to fix the toxic thing like you have to. I hope that makes sense. Let's see. Don't want to say that you can't be in the toxic, I don't know. Let, let me not say it like that, cause I don't think that that fits kind of what I'm trying to say, but essentially like if you are in the thing that causes harm, you need to step out of it.

Alexandria: 1:10:57

If you're able and for many of us we are able to shut down social media and step away, we have to understand again who am I before I ever get on any social platform instagram, stream, tiktok, linkedin, facebook, tumblr, wordpress, even though that's not really, but that's the blog site like, who am I away from this? This is the same thing that I argue for with emotional intelligence that my job would talk about emotional intelligence all the time and I would preach in every single session we had you need to learn emotional intelligence before you show up to this workplace, because you trying to come to work and learn emotional intelligence, it's too late. And that's the same thing here. If you go online trying to learn how to be authentic, it's too late. You need to learn how to be authentically. You away from social media, away from the eyes, away from people I should say the masses of people, right, because you want core friends to help you. I want to make sure I'm consistent.

Alexandria: 1:11:57

So how do we show up in the real world? Y'all, let's put our phones down at dinner and look each other in the eye again. Let's stop texting full confessions and start maybe like Face timing if that's the only thing that you can do, or even getting on a phone call when we need that Real voice, that real connection. Let's plan real meetups, even if it's messy and not put together, even if you're not feeling good, even if it's hard, let's say I love you with presence, and not put together. Even if you're not feeling good, even if it's hard, let's say I love you with presence and not just with emoji hearts. Let's bring it back to slowness, to depth, to substance. Be someone who asks how's your soul instead of did you see what I posted?

Alexandria: 1:12:39

The slow death of authenticity isn't about the internet. It's about what happens when we forget how to be with each other. It's what happens when we stop asking real quick questions of ourselves, when we stop calling, when we stop listening, when we trade presence for production, realness for recognition, recognition. It's time we have to reconnect with your values, reconnect with your people and reconnect with you and then build a life that matches that reconnection, a life that feels like love, that feels like peace, that feels like home, because your soul is your home and it's time to make it a place that you want to live. I appreciate y'all. I know this was a little bit longer. Please let me know what you thought. Hit me up online, dm me, sign up for the email list if you want to know more and go deeper. And, yeah, until next time.

Alexandria: 1:13:46

You guys, like I, really am praying for y'all.

Alexandria: 1:13:48

I'm praying for us as a generation, as a culture, that we will get back to the networking that was always around.

Alexandria: 1:13:57

You know the ways that we wanted that connection, being honest with ourselves, about wanting to be known, wanting, wanting to be seen, wanting to be loved, and not translating that or valuing that by not by valuing that. So gosh, I've been twisted at my words. Let me say that again be loved, wanting to be known, wanting to be heard right, wanting to be seen in a very real way, and not valuing that by how we show up on social media, not valuing that by who likes our things, doesn't like our things, who says something, who sends a subliminal, who blocks us, who. Whatever the end of the day, you ain't taking social media with you when you die, you taking that soul. So we have to start caring for the real parts of us and showing up in the world in a real way, or else we'll die never knowing who we truly are and what we could have become. Until next time, y'all, let's keep doing the work to renovate the soul.