Looking around the auditorium last Tuesday,  January 29th it’s safe to assume most of our student body attended the assembly that centered around social media and its effects on today’s youth. I say it’s safe to assume so because people were having trouble finding seating in the first place it was so full. Despite the crowding issues which I’m sure made some poor introvert feel quite uncomfortable, the assembly was a more entertaining one.

The speaker, Collin Kartchner, is an internet personality that gained fame through his Instagram account which parodied what people traditionally do on social media and more specifically on Instagram. Now Collin does public speaking and has even done a TED talk. Though the assembly was enjoyable and he is quite a good public speaker some could raise some issues about his message overall. Before looking at the content of the assembly itself I’m going to bring up the irony of someone who isn’t our age lecturing us on how social media makes people our age feel. That being said Collin does seem to be more tech savvy than most of the adults who want to say social media is going to be the death of us, regardless of that he is decades older than the main demographic of the assembly.

The assembly itself just felt like an attempt to make the people who enjoy doing things such as posing for photographs and posting pictures of their food feel bad for enjoying these things, intentional or not. The comedy appealed to this new subculture of teenagers who are different and unique from what “everyone else” does on social media. A major talking point of the assembly was people posting the best parts of their lives, the parts that aren’t necessarily reality, on social media is detrimental to teenagers self esteem. I find irony in the fact that by talking about social media lowering people self esteem, and message was inadvertently spread through this that people who enjoy these aspects about social media are wrong and hurting other people in the process. This message isn’t just spread through his public speaking. His entire social media account is parodying these people, that’s what he became known for.

Schools do things like this all of the time to get their message across. Finding someone the school thinks students will find “hip” and “cool” to try to slip a message across. Does anyone remember when elementary schools would have Ronald Mcdonald come to your school and he would talk about bullying or whatever it may be? This is basically the same tactic except teenagers aren’t entertained by burger chain clowns anymore. You know what teenagers love? Social Media personalities that are quirky and easy to relate to.

I have nothing against Collin Kartchner, he seems to be doing good things and his intentions are pure.