“I worked really hard on a project that I wanted to share as a gift to my community. I was proud and excited. But within a few minutes after I posted it, some other guy in the community posted about how he came down with Covid and wanted to warn everyone he spent time with to watch out for symptoms, and a ton of people commented on that, and my share got buried. Now of course, I respect that he posted this and of course I care about the guy's illness. But at the same time, I worked so hard to share this thing I created especially for the group, and no one seems to care. I feel like a little kid with my reaction, of course. But nonetheless, I do get like this. And it’s not a fun feeling.”
—Anonymous
Reframe:
I hear you. And I very much get how unpleasant this feeling is, to be skipped over.
Social media can be such a difficult medium to share ourselves through bc it relies on algorithms, which have so many variables that are out of our control in terms of which posts get seen and which get lost in the crowd.
But knowing a bit about how algorithms work makes it a lot easier to stop making them mean anything negative about yourself and your life.
Unless you have built an enormous following, people generally seem to ‘like’ what impacts them personally. Especially if the post is breaking news or about an illness or some other kind of emergency. And on any specific page, those first ‘likes’ seem to drive the visibility to that particular post, which then adds to the ‘likes,’ and pretty inadvertently, buries the other content.
So in the world of social media, I say, if you’re gonna post, you gotta post like no one’s liking, lol. To share, simply bc sharing is the way you blossom, whether you’re being featured in a prominent place in the garden of life, or not.
Algorithms have zero to do with the value of who we are. How we grow and express our being is precious, regardless of who’s watching.
That being said, I also believe it’s important to be seen and known among your community. So, perhaps you could post again—saying something like, “In case the algorithm buried this, I wanted to share this thing I created as a gift for all of you,” or something like that. And perhaps you can also visit your community’s page and look for other people’s posts that might have gotten buried and elevate them as well.
Not being ‘liked’ can bring to the surface a lot of unhealed parts of ourselves. And that can hurt! Especially if you were neglected in your formative years, or criticized repeatedly instead of celebrated.
For me, it’s tied into all the times I read my father a story I wrote only to be interrupted by a snore. Or the times I tried to share with my mother something I wrote, only for her to say that I needed to invest in a thesaurus. Or even the times I was picked last for the kickball team.
So for me, when this stuff comes up, I try to remember that it’s an opportunity to recognize the parts of myself that are still hurting from the idea that I’m “not enough” just the way I am, and to give those younger parts of myself some extra understanding and compassion and appreciation.
In my opinion, it’s our job to share who we are, and not hide who we are just to avoid other people’s reactions or lack of reactions.
And posting on social media is a great way to get comfortable sharing oneself while simultaneously healing from that old need for validation from others that we’re worthy enough to matter.