Never in history have the conditions been better for reaching and touching others. Today, anyone can start a blog, website, or social media account and, in theory, connect with millions through their creations, stories, and opinions. In reality though, things are different. People’s short-term hunt for attention, validation, and money, combined with the poorly constructed mechanisms of social media, floods us with meaningless, generic content. What is real, interesting, honest, and unique drowns or adapts to the point of being unrecognizable. We become watered-down copies of ourselves — digital waste without value or substance. Spam without genuine senders.
By signing this manifesto, you reclaim yourself and help others do the same.
Be Yourself
Social media quickly shapes cultures about how to be, what to post, and how to write. Don’t be a Facebook-you, a LinkedIn-you, or an Instagram-you. Just be you. Keep your tone, write your way, and take photos you like. If your style of writing doesn’t seem to fit a certain social media channel at all then good for you – it fits that channel perfectly.
Never Create for Likes and Shares
The quality of your content isn’t measured by the number of likes it receives, the amount of views it gather, the combined sum of comments it evokes, or how many times it is shared across peoples timelines. The more you tailor your posts to get likes, the more uninteresting they’ll become, and the less you’ll matter. It’s better to get one (or none) likes on a post that reflects who you truly are, than 100 likes on a post that could’ve been made by any other person or even a bot.
Like Others’ Posts Often …
… But only if you truly like what you see. Never in the hope or expectation that the creator will like you or your content in return. Showing appreciation for something you enjoy should not be a transactional act.
Share Others’ (Good) Posts Often …
… But only if it’s because the content is so good that you genuinely want others to see it. Never in the hope that the creator will share your content in return. And never with the intention of exploiting someone else’s work to gain likes and attention for yourself.
Stand Behind What You Write and Do
It’s perfectly okay to be anonymous—but not if it’s to express opinions or behave in a way you wouldn’t stand by in real life. Of course, there are exceptions (you live in a dictatorship, you’d face persecution or discrimination, etc.), but the point is: don’t use the opportunity for anonymity to act like a douchebag.
Never Share Others’ (Lousy) Posts
Sharing posts you think are lousy to mock them and make yourself look better is never cool. You’re acting like a bully, and you’re actually contributing to the spread of content you dislike – both by exposing your own followers to it and because social media companies’ stupid algorithms now will interpret it as “engaging” content.
Only Comment If You Have Something to Add
Never comment just to be noticed or in the hope that the creator will comment back on your own posts. A comment should add something – an honest question to the creator, a real answer to a question, additional facts and context, or a correction of a factual error. If what you want to say can be replaced with a thumbs-up or an upvote, then it’s a pointless comment, and every meaningless comment makes the interesting ones drown.
Only Comment On Comments If They Are Worth Commenting On
Many comments on other people’s posts are just about flattery, visibility, or self-promotion. Excited to receive any attention, people often reply with equally shallow and meaningless comments on the comments. Don’t do that. You deserve better. Ignore unengaged comments and respond only to those who show a sincere interest in what you have posted.
Only Follow Accounts You Actually Appreciate
Don’t follow a bunch of other accounts in the hope that they will follow you back, or as a “thank you” for following you. This bad habit only results in people’s feeds becoming an unusable mess of posts they don’t care about, and once again, good and interesting content finds it increasingly hard to stand out and be seen.
Don’t Be Mean
Spend your energy finding creators you like and content that gives you something. Don’t waste it on bringing down and dissing content you don’t like. The latter only leads to algorithms interpreting the content you dislike as engaging, increasing its spread at the expense of the content you actually enjoy.
Don’t Argument With Idiots
Nine times out of ten, you’ll be debating a troll or a bot. You’ll never get them to change their minds, and you’ll only contribute to increasing the spread of their garbage.
Don’t Copy Viral Content
Being inspired by others and borrowing from their work is an important part of many artists’ processes. However, if you do it simply because the content has many views or likes, it’s just embarrassing. The fact that something is successful on social media doesn’t mean it’s good. Instead, seek out and get inspired by content that actually resonates with you.
Say No to AI
Never use AI to create a post. Don’t ask AI to write your text. Don’t ask AI to improve your text. Don’t ask AI to correct your spelling or grammar.
You are better than an AI that just creates average versions of other peoples work. AI will streamline your post and make it utterly meaningless, like something anyone could write at any time, anywhere. It will make you and your creation dull and uninteresting, and you’ll never contribute anything new, exciting, or creative. On the contrary, you’ll just contribute to making real content disappear in the flood of trash.
Never SEO-Optimize Your Content
If you’re writing a blog or articles on Medium or the like – don’t SEO-optimize them. SEO-optimized content is killing the internet. If you try to contribute something of real value to the world, SEO will only ruin your content, and you’ll never be able to compete with the junk-producing SEO optimizers anyway.
(You can also take comfort in the fact that Google has finally realized they need to tweak their algorithms to better highlight content with substance and value over the strictly SEO-optimized.)
The Social Media Manifesto is written by Martin Karlsson.