The Instafamous: a social collapse

We’re all aware of the dangers of social media and its toxicity on the mind in terms of social behavior and our daily interactions. We have all become Media producers, and we’ll do anything to raise our views and watchers. Most of the time these are harmless grabs at attention. Sometimes, they are dangerous stunts to generate views, often requiring some level of trespassing.

There’s a spot in Shelton, near Olympia, the capitol of Washington state, that hosts an amazing 500 foot bridge built in the early 20th century. It’s views are breathtaking and cinematic. Old tresses, long and copper red that look sleek in the dewy days of the PNW, travel the massive and rotted railroad ties that make up this historic landmark. It has been privately owned by the Simpson logging company since 1929 and now stands hundreds of feet in the air waiting for time and nature to reclaim it.

The locals had always ignored the no trespassing signs to go and see this landmark. The problem occurs when social media propped it up for the world to see. What was once a small yet illegal audience became droves of visitors. This may not seem like a problem to some, but I caution you to think of the problems the owners of the bridge face as they are the ones who hold the fate of the land: lawsuits from people who may fall or otherwise receive injury. This may sound over-cautionary but consider these pictures:

I am all for people taking these pictures but it must be done so at no risk to the owner, else we face losing our beloved landmarks. There are some cases where homeowners are sued by tresspassers; this is not often but does happen. The crux lies in the frequency of trespasses. If a land owner has reason to anticipate their land is being trespassed, the property being hazardous, then they will face legal consequences, according to Alllaw.com. (praise Alllaw…com) That’s when those neat photos turn into moments of cringe at the thoughts of lawsuits to the owners.

The second problem I would have is people leaving garbage and having fires ON THE BRIDGE. A total disregard is being had at these “hidden” locales. Picture this irony: people go to visit abandoned places because of the beauty and mystique. People head out there. People drop garbage. People leave it there for the owners to see. But we don’t ever think of that. We see these places as virgin land, we are Columbus, ready to have our way with the land and it’s gold. Only we don’t think of the people that came first.

Another problem with the instagrammers and vloggers that occurs is the escalation of great feats. What was once entertaining, say Charlie Chaplin’s tower climb, is now mundane in the scope of modern action in media. Taking photos and videos behind guardrails is not enough for those looking to climb the social media hierarchy and raise their social capital.

A perfect example of the escalation of stunts is the group ‘high on life’, a group dedicated to displaying amazing scenes and actions across the world to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone. Sounds nice enough and they have amazing videos on their channel.

Recently, three of their members were at the top of Shannon falls in B.C. Canada, swimming in one of the pool systems. One fell, and the other two tried to help her, resulting in the plummet of three famous youtube vloggers.

Months before the tragedy, the group had been given a five year ban from all federal land in the U.S. They had crossed the guardrails and set foot on the sensitive Grand Prismatic hot spring and have since been charged with a plethora of other ‘crimes’. This is what I mean about the escalation of social media today. There were always those who dared to go beyond, say Charles Lindbergh, but now everyone wants to do that. Most people are content producers, even me. I’m a cynical hypocrite.

While working on this project another headlilne shot into the news: An Instagram model bit by shark! Wow, who would have guessed that swimming with sharks would lead to a shark biting. “It seemed safe and I’d seen all these photos so I totally thought it was okay”. Isn’t that precious? This is the negative aspect of the escalation of great feats. We see them everyday. Then, people go out and try to do the same. It’s the same reason people criticized Logan Paul for recording a video of a dead body in Japan to put into his blog. Instagrammers and vloggers are the attention seeking trust fund babies that have become the new ‘Florida man’ of the internet.

Imagine the headlines, ‘youtuber kills boyfriend in bullet to head prank’. “It was just a prank! He should have handled the joke better, now there’s blood all over my parent’s house.” It’s all the same, only without the alligators and the smell of Axe that you swear you can almost smell just from watching these people.

Overall what I’m saying is there are people looking to be famous and individualistic who do not care of the repercussions. Too many. This is a downside of individualism. I’m not a communist or a democratic socialist, but I see this flaw in our society, it’s ingrained in our capitilastic heritage. Chew up resources until goods, or in this case fame, comes out. Much like the great feats of early cinema, it will require more and more to impress the current audience with each generation. The old will be received with yawns while the new will be received by thumbs up or hearts that generate social capital.