There are some infamous lines spoken in movie history.

‘After all tomorrow’s just another day’, from Gone With the Wind.

Michael Caine’s awesome’, You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’, from The Italian Job.

And my all time personal favourite from Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, ‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her’.

But one of the greatest ones ever quoted is by Marlon Brando, the classic,

‘I coulda had class‘, he said, ‘I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been someone’, from On The Waterfront.

The last line captures perfectly the modern mindset belief adopted by vast swathes of the population. Brando’s words were from a Hollywood film’s low life character reflecting on becoming a someone in the world and rising above his meagre status. No longer just a citizen, more a star, more recognised by others. In today’s world art has become life as people all over the world use social media to be a somebody as if they are in some TV show or popular film.

Their every activity is governed towards increasing their profile and being seen. It’s like a disease. In fact, it’s got a name.

The Somebody Syndrome.

Nobodies everywhere.

Towards the end of last Century we were all nobodies. There were nobodies everywhere.

Now when I mean nobodies, I mean non-celebrity, non notable personas to the world. The few true stars, leaders, sports legends, and mega business moguls were few and stood out. If there was a tree in their field, they shone out at the very top.

The rest of us were working folks known only to others in our community, or organisation, or perhaps in some way locally or nationally but not at any elite level where anyone, anywhere would know exactly who we are if we walked down the street.

People went about their business doing what they had to do. Work, shopping, family duties, enjoying some hobbies, the odd day trip here, plus a short Summer vacation there. No desire to tell the world about themselves and what they did day after day. Their focus was their life around them and the people that mattered. As it has been in various guises for hundreds of years.

Then social media arrived. And the nobodies started to want to become somebodies.

It started off as fun. Facebook was the true first big thing. And we all wanted to be involved. In 2006 Facebook opened up to the general public having previously been campus based only with 250,000 student members to begin with. Within a year of this it had 20 million daily users. Today that has soared to the heights of 3.07Billion.

It’s main feature was to share thoughts, images and updates of our ordinary lives, our communities, our activities. Sharing and connecting with others who did the same. It was fresh, fun, novel, exciting, and unusual all rolled into one.

And we got hooked!!

Facehooked.

When it began Facebook seemed to answer an innocuous human function.

A place to go to connect and learn, see what’s out there, see others. See what the world is doing. But….the buzz is addictive. Firmly hooked by the ability to be ‘liked’ and praised and given attention by people we didn’t even know, not just from our friends, we were drawn in. People anywhere and everywhere wanting to hook up with little old us. Wow, the feeling was sooo good.

In our humdrum lives getting a thumbs up from a stranger or nice looking person sure lifted our mood and boosted our self confidence. Innocent pick me ups, good old natured positive recognition which we rarely got in our everyday lives, became a sense of escapism. Add to that gathering a group of ‘friends’ who followed our profile and well, hell, this is the place to be.

These people support me. These people like me. All of these people are keen to keep doing that even when I post a picture of my garden or me in my outfit for a Friday night out. And their comments prove I’m pretty popular after all. I’m going to keep doing this and do it a bit more often.

The Somebody has been born.

Oh No FOMO.

Word had clearly spread. Facebook is the hottest spot in virtual town.

And we headed there in our droves participating in the exact same behaviour as above. We didn’t want to be out, we wanted to be part of the in crowd. So we copied them. After all that’s what humans do. We are a tribe, a race of people, so we do what the group does. Which is hop onto Facebook and share every photo we have got (usually of the self) of almost anything.

FOMO came to life. FOMO aka Fear of Missing Out said you gotta join in or you are a nobody. Which effectively said to our subconscious, that when you are posting and sharing (which blew right out of the water when we could post videos too!), you are a somebody. Roll on enough years and now it’s an ingrained behaviour.

A belief system has taken root in our emotional and mental base.

Cue the drift into a sense of self importance. Checking out other people’s profiles to prove to our inflating ego that we have more followers, likes, comments than they do or more of the cool people coming our way.

And the greatest shock of all with this? This trait surfaced in the young twenty somethings first, the big social guys and girls, who were naturally always out and about. Then it spread. Soon the thirty and forty year olds came to the party and nowadays ever age group is mega active.

Oneupmanship surged. Every time we went somewhere – the local pub, to walk the dog, to buy a new woolly hat; it needed a FB post. We had to stay relevant, stay ahead, stay noticed. We craved the likes, we needed the recognition and respect we felt inside. Keeping that supply going became key. So we took day trips to share online. Concerts and sporting occasions were posted en masse. Traveling to unusual places were featured. Anything to keep the attention, keep the numbers up, and be that somebody we believed we were.

We became so many somebody’s.

Online all the time.

We have developed Somebody Syndrome.

The acute, and often desperate, want to be visible and seen. Oh be seen, yes, but not as just an ordinary Joe or Jane. Someone special, attractive (yes all those phone filters!!), successful, admired, and followed. We have fast progressed from seeing ourselves as a somebody, to bordering on being a star.

Somebody morphs into Celebrity.

We are going almost any place to take a picture or share a video or buy a product (from killer shoes to fast cars) to act like celebs….in our head. The completely fake and false image we have grown up around ourselves is out of control. Millions and millions of people all seeing themselves as some next big thing in some way. Posing like models or shooting a vid ‘at home’ as if they were a world renowned reality personality.

And the damage is huge. Mental health issues due to social media are hitting scary numbers. For instance – did you know 210 million people worldwide are addicted to social media? People actually develop palpitations if they can’t access social media feeds! And worse. Online they meet those who feel inadequate and insecure, people who abuse, criticise, threaten, and belittle others causing severe anxiety and depression as a result.

If it’s not our ego that suffers from overhype, it’s our fragile emotions and identity that are severely holed so we’re sinking.

Our heads have become too big, and our hearts have become too broken.

Be a real somebody.

There really is only one Taylor Swift.

Or Ed Sheeran. Or Steve Mc Queen. And only one Elvis Presley, Julia Roberts, Kim Kardashian et al. Truth is we are killing ourselves at trying to be another version of a well known man/woman/couple instead of the real version of who actually are.

Social media has changed us. We want to be the popular one, the somebody people seek out. Every day we feed that mentality monster by posting and tweeting and shooting videos to Instagram, TikTok, and all other sites we have a presence on. But, we’re missing one HUGE truth.

We were born to be who we are. A pure one off. A unique individual with their own identity. The real living breathing somebody,

Someone meant to be the best interior designer, sports coach, hairdresser, meteorologist, and thousands of other possible roles that make us make our mark. Roles that reflect our true selves in the world around us. Contributions that we will be truly remembered for and not some viral video that will be forgotten in weeks. We have special skills and talents in abundance. Ones we are ignoring chasing the online applause.

You see we already ARE influencers. By being ourselves in our own clothes, and own skin, and own ways. We don’t need some Apple phone image to enhance that nor a few likes that will be here today but gone in a few years.

We are all a somebody. A normal, wonderful somebody. Picture that in your mind.

References – brittanica.com/money/Facebook.

Demandsage.com/facebook-statistics.

Yahoo.com/news/number-active-users-facebook-over-years.

Priorygroup.com/mental-health/social-media-and-mental-health.

Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by mahbubhasan2550. and Sammy-Sander and u_1ns1vt0dbm.