Social media superstars?

[Bobfly]

I follow all that .... so we are a forum 

[corsican dave]

I follow all that .... so we are a forum 

in an uncertain world it's nice to have a point of reference 

[scobo]

The term 'social media' really grates my skin... it should be more 'antisocial media'. The whole ethos of it is geared towards utter human selfishness and ego comfort, image is everything, "look at me, I'm doing a selfie, I am an utter moron and I want to show you pictures of me, me, me, me, hey today I went fishing and here's me with a fish that I caught, am I great or what? Here I am at the museum, this is what I am wearing today, I have no other brain cells to share with the one in my head, I don't care cos this is important, look at my new shoes, look at me,me,me, I love myself.."

Couldn't agree more. My inlaws from London are forever posting pics of themselves off on foreign skiing holidays or business trips with pretensious captions beside them as if to ram it down your throat how wealthy and successful they are. I'm really not 'kin interested !!!
I get how FB can be useful for getting in touch with folk you haven't seen for years or for groups and small business to promote themselves but the whole narcissistic side of it puts me off using it.

[burnie]

I don't do facebook and because of this I miss out on some fishing opportunities I am told, by someone who has my mobile number and could text!!. I am also advised I miss out on photographic opportunities of rare birds too, due to lack of facebook. I am however quite happy and life still goes on, apparently some are surprised I can get through the day without walking round with a phone in my hand walking into things and people not looking where I'm going.

[JimJams]

If you just sign up to social media, it's an absolute nightmare. You really need to spend some time properly setting them up.
Anyone posts a picture of there child, instant unfollow from me (unfollow means you can stay friends but not see their posts, basically being spineless and not telling them you dislike them or their posts)
If I don't like a post about something, again unfollow, change privacy settings and account setting and follow only groups on things you like to see and it's bearable. Just takes a little time.

A lot of things still really grind my gears. Forever writing massive argumentative posts to things, only to delete it, as arguing with stupid rarely works.

[sagecirca]

I use Twitter quite a bit for fishing and football chat.  The 140 characters you are limited to allow for quick, precise posts and little messing around.  A lot of football stories break quickly on Twitter as well so it serves a purpose for me.

Facebook is a weird one for me.  I had an account a while ago but the amount of friend requests you get from fellow anglers that you have never spoken to never mind met is a bit of a weird one for me.  Coupled with the 'angling superstars' who have only been fishing for 5 minutes certainly boils my piss!

You also see more and more examples of poor fish handling as well.  Decent fish being held up with one hand, way above the water while they just have to get that hero shot. 

Rant over  :lol:

[SoldierPmr]

Oh yeah, I hear ya! I'm a master at that!

I think a few of us do similar on other forums. Maybe we should start a thread for purely posting these deleted posts now it won't flow or make any sense but its a vent and could even be funny to read back.

[JimJams]

I fear mine would be too obscene for some readers!

[johnny boy]

To each their own, I  follow this forum, i dont do facebook, twitter, instagram or any of that stuff.

If you dont like it just stay away from it, simples.

[mattheweastham]

Soz, a bit late to the party here...
I agree with most of what has been written already, but unfortunately I fear it is here to stay and will only become more prevalent. Because ours is a niche branch sport of a niche sport, a certain type of person will always feel it is possible to 'make a name for themselves', despite the majority not really giving two hoots about their constant self promotion photos and hash tagging of numerous manufacturers who they hope might chuck them a sponsorship deal (or at the least some free swag).
I'll come clean, I have a soft spot for twitter - it's almost like a group text message with mates to keep each other in the loop as to what's going on where.......but Facebook is where the real nonsense  seems to reside - all those one handed shots of grayling held aloft and squeezed to death, hash tags of #horses and #walkthewalk. It's bloody pathetic.

If Sagecirca refers to who I suspect then I think it could be the same guy I had a discussion with after he posted a photo of himself holding a huge grellin with the background blurred out on photoshop. I suggested that if secrecy was that importance to him, he might consider not posting the photo at all.....unless of course he felt he had something to prove to folks. Cue response along the lines of 'I've got nothing to prove to anybody mate, I put the hard hours in blah blah blah' and a few hours later the photo is down.

Another guy who started fishing rivers about 3 seasons ago and is now representing a low end tackle firm, recently posted a gushing post about how he'd got his photo on the cover of an equally low end magazine and achieve a 'lifetime ambition'.

That's what social media does well - instils a sense of self importance to people who lack the perspective to appreciate how insignificant their endeavours are in the greater context of real life. Maybe it will go full circle sometime and people will return to concentrating on things that matter.....but I doubt it.
Matt