Blog 1: Oversharing on Social Media

In today’s world a person’s whole life could be openly accessible simply by looking through their social media accounts. You can see their travels, family dinners, birthdays and even hardships they face through their life that they choose to share. In a way social media has brought many people, who may have not met in any other circumstance, together. But the question I wanted to raise with this blog post is how much do we overshare online? What is considered too much with sharing information? And is this healthy or even safe for our lives? Social media apps do encourage users to share their world with the rest of the world, with specific platforms such as “TikTok” using the slogan of “be your authentic self” or “Instagram’s “capture and share the world’s moments.” These can prompt users to use their social media accounts as their own personal journeys that capture the good, the bad and all the in between in their lives. And while it may be a nice release, this “diary” mindset can lead to dangerously over sharing personal information that could leave a person at risk of harm, especially due to the wide public accessibility of social media. Many users online have begun sharing very intimate details about themselves, that can include marital or family issues, personal addresses and even illegal activities that could leave them liable to facing criminal penalties. What could have simply started as a diary entry for themselves can be seen by millions upon millions of other users. This can include content from vlogging channels, most notoriously “family” channels that seem to share many personal moments their children experience with millions of people to see. Infamously Ruby Franke who created the channel 8 Passengers is a large example for this, recently who was arrested on six counts of felony child abuse, and her content was largely centered around her children’s upbringings while also including information that should not have been shared with the general public, such as first periods, shaving, etc. And the information they share about personal lives such as their jobs, locations of their place of work or even house addresses can leave their lives accessible to anyone who comes across their page, and unfortunately not everyone online is looking to be your friend. The reason I bring up this topic is because of a recent TikTok influencer making some headlines due to her “oversharing” on an account that has over 4 million followers. Michelle, aside from her massively successful tiktok page, is just a normal everyday person. She isn’t rich, and she works as a bartender. At first her content was merely sharing alcoholic beverage recipes and things of that sort. Till she decided to post more “story time” content. She felt that her audience were her friends, so she became comfortable with sharing many private details of her life, including more worryingly the address of her job and her specific working hours. She also shared many of her marital issues, and discussions that you would think would be shared only between husband and wife. She even shared many instances of her or her husband putting her own two year old son in harm’s way, such as bringing him to the bar she worked and filmed at while she was serving drinks and even shared a chilling story time on how her husband, who she openly admits is an alcoholic, let in a potential robber into their home at 3 am while her son was sleeping and he was black out drunk. And then the next video showcased her installing security cameras in her home, but this defeated the purpose as she showed all her followers where each individual camera was installed and even showed the front of her house. But when she received criticism for oversharing, with many followers citing she was putting her young son in danger, she retaliated and stated she had no problem with simply being real with her TikTok audience. But does she need to be so real that she puts her family in danger? I feel that many influencers and even celebrities have exposed too much of their personal lives onto the internet, and honestly it creates a dangerous situation that they might not even see coming. I feel that we could all learn that many things in life should remain private from the internet’s eye.