Generation Like: Liking is Shaping Our Lives
- Hayley Allred
- Oct 8, 2017
- 3 min read
Extra Credit Opportunity
Generation like is a documentary that considers how social media and this idea of needing likes and follows is integrated into present teens minds. It first opens with a group of friends all together personalizing their Facebook pages. One girl gets over 400 likes on her profile picture and the group of teens are in shock. This psychological reaction is engrained in most every social media user today. The reaction of these teens toward their friend getting a lot of likes is exactly what Generation Like is focused on researching.
Generation Like goes out and interviews a few teens who have become rising stars from social media. One of these teens are Ceili Lynch who is a huge fan of the movie The Hunger Games. Ceili tweeted frequently about the movie and was retweeted by fellow cast members of The Hunger Games. She also found a website that ranks people on how big of a fan they are of The Hunger Games by the amount of media they share pertaining to The Hunger Games. Ceili is in the top 100 which not only satisfies her need of proving she is one of the most dedicated Hunger Hames fans but it also gets her popularity and likes with similar Hunger Games fans.
Generation Like also mentioned briefly about how a teen became popular through his music videos on social media by incorporating known social media stars into his videos. One I know very well is Acacia Brinley. She is an Instagram famous user due to being a “Tumblr” girl and other reasons not to be discussed. Anyways, teens are becoming more strategic in marketing their brand image over YouTube or any social media platform as social media slowly becomes the main way to advertise.
A kid named Steven who loves to skateboard started streaming clips of him skating at the park but it wasn’t until he became the class clown that he started becoming internet famous. Personally, this was one of the saddest cases of social media stardom that they talked about in this documentary. This kid decided to abandon what he loved most and the reason he started posting videos on the internet in the first place just to become popular to receive money and subscribers. Steven has worried about money all his life which is what drove him to give up the videos of his love for skateboarding and adopt the idea of doing crazy, embarrassing things to win the hearts of subscribers. Some videos are him holding hands with random strangers or making videos on how to get a girl. Even though he is famous and making money, it still saddens me he had to give up making videos of what he loved to get there.
Another teen they interviewed was one I have been familiar with for a while named Tyler Oakley. Tyler has been on YouTube posting videos of his daily life and reviews on products he likes since 2007 and today it has led him to have 5 million YouTube subscribers. He continues to grow his fan base and gets paid to advertise products for different companies. One product he showcased recently was the Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco from Taco Bell. The documentary stated that businesses have always tried to engage their customers with their products and now social media and its stars make it easier than ever to advertise.
The last star featured in the documentary was one of my favorite actors from the television series The Vampire Diaries, named Ian Somerhalder. His take on social media advertising was a little different from the young teens trying to become rising stars. It showed how his social media marketer advertised all his content and gained him more followers than ever before. I found this part cool because it is closely related to what I want to do when I get out of college. In conclusion, Generation Like was a very good documentary, show casing the effects social media has on psychological aspects of people’s minds.
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