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PART III

OVERSHARING

TWELVE

OVERSHARING

We have all seen it. That friend who uses her Social Media account to complain about her boyfriend or her friend or so-and-so, sharing way too much info to the point that readers feel uncomfortable. But have you ever thought that the problem is more than just your friend not being able to handle her emotions? (Hands up if you have been this girl. My hand is up). In fact, oversharing is purposeful exploitation. The Social Media magnates want you to overshare. Why? It is profitable! 

exploitation (noun)

The action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.

In the context of Social Media, exploitation could be defined as the manipulation and use of individuals' digital behaviors and data by technology companies and Social Media platforms for their own profit, often without the user's full overstanding or explicit consent. 

Social Media is a new kind of exploitation for profit through personal data. We have shifted towards oversharing. There was a time when certain personal details were considered private and not to be shared with others. Prior to the emergence of Social Media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, the only occasion when people typically disclosed such information was during official census surveys. Back then, such details were regarded as coveted pieces of information, and oversharing them was akin to showing one's cards at a poker table. However, the advent of Social Media has dramatically altered our perception of privacy and what constitutes oversharing. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have encouraged users to share personal details with their online connections and even with the public at large. This shift towards transparency has gradually desensitized us to the idea of keeping certain aspects of our lives private.

As a result of this cultural shift, we now live in an era where personal details are shared openly and frequently. This can have several consequences that will increase as the AI era evolves:

Erosion Of Privacy: With so much information readily available, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a sense of privacy in our lives.

Loss Of Control: By sharing personal details online, we often lose control over who has access to this information and how much one can accumulate on you or how they decide to use it. 

Increased Vulnerability: Oversharing can make us more vulnerable to identity theft. At this very moment, thieves can get your birthday and even your home address, but soon they will be able to replicate your voice, known as an AI dub voice, or even replicate your digital likeness, both of which can be used to “be” you in videos and even calls. You have likely seen the warnings on Instagram of “fake” children's voices calling their parents for ransom; however, it can become as horrific as being duplicated for video porn, as seen in the serious incident that happened to Twitch user QT Cinderella. A 28-year-old girl, she woke up one day and was suddenly a new kind of star she never wanted to be. I share in this depth to create awareness, to help you form your own questions and behaviors, not simply follow what is.

Diminished Personal Boundaries: As we become more accustomed to sharing our personal lives online, our ability to establish and maintain healthy personal boundaries may be weakened and that can bleed over into our real lives in the physical world. Think of the people you meet who, within the first five minutes of meeting them, have told you their life story. Why? This is due to social conditioning of oversharing, and now people often overshare with everyone. No one needs to know your life-defining moments or traumas when you first meet. This diminishing skill of using a filter when communicating was normalized by oversharing life-defining moments and traumas on Instagram and TikTok; with short-form storytelling came short-form bragging and complaining for attention, your attention. Because users feel that their home feeds and pages are their “communities,” they share with their audience because they feel comfortable, forgetting it is really a group of strangers. Anyone who follows me knows I participated in this style of sharing for years, and let me tell you, it caused me nothing but issues. Issues that followed me for years. What I didn't know at the time of oversharing is that there are people who watch simply to learn your wounds, your triggers. They are watching and keeping tally, they know what you do not like; some will even learn how to hurt you based on what you share, as in the scenario of the dreaded copycats I dealt with for years. If you do not know my story, online I had several “friends” – woman I actually knew in person – yet, as I began to rise and my platforms grew, they saw what I was doing and decided they would take on not only my words but even attempt to mimic my personality and mannerisms (the mannerisms were that ones that irked me the most). They copied my art and then stood in front of their sub-par versions of my masterpieces and literally attempted to pretend to be me and move in the same ways. As you can imagine I became annoyed until I became enraged by it. So, what did I do? I started complaining on my Instagram stories about them; I was showing my wound and sharks started coming. The result of me oversharing was not only one more but two more women doing the exact same thing to me! Not kind of the same thing, the exact same thing! All incidents ended in cease-and-desist letters and me shutting my mouth. 

Oversharing lesson learned.

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