Social Media

This is the era of social media. As technology progresses, so does the way we connect and communicate with each other. We no longer write letters to each other. No longer do we genuinely enjoy the company of others without pulling out our phones and checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat and whatever else I don't feel like naming. Social media has become many things:a source to teach, learn, share ideas, forums, "fame", entertainment, and many other things. Social media can also get VERY dark. Videos of killing, sex, exposure, conspiring threats, drug deals and many other things. Social media is not all bad and not all good neither. I'll weigh out the pros and cons of social media. 


CONS

If there's one thing that people seek from other people is validation/acceptance. Everybody wants to be accepted by everyone, a particular group, or particular person/people. People will go as far as living a lie just to impress the next person. This stems from insecurities. You're not satisfied with your life or present circumstance, so you would lie to others and a lot of people would just accept it. Keep telling yourself the same lie, then eventually you would start to believe it. MANY people like to portray themselves as if they're living the Hollywood life. Lying about they're income, lying about the activities that they indulge in, everything is just a big front just to cover their insecurities. So whatever "lifestyle" you portray yourself on social media, will evidentially attract those kind of people. With this comes the "fame" concept and bragging rights. The goal of many people (at one point was my objective as well) on social media is to gather up as much followers as possible. Even celebrities are on these social medias apps and they have myriads of followers. A lot of people who idolize these celebrities will try to be just like their idol in any category. Someone who idolize and revere 
Amber Rose, and acknowledges her followers would attempt to post similar if not the same kind of posts just to gain similar recognition. Having a lot of followers is bragging rights to some, and greatly admired by others. Social media has also become a place where people try to hook up as well. How do this work? Get someone's attention: go on their profile, favorite and/or retweet their post or like their videos/photos and leave "complimentary" comments (not genuine compliments, just tryna get some ass so say something that'll catch their eye). Taking appealing photos/videos. Squint your eyes (look "lightskin" is what the kids call it), show off your body (if you're decently built or heavily tatted, then it won't be too hard for you) have swag, or sex appeal. Everybody have their own taste, so if you're good looking and do at least two of the things I mentioned, then you can bait in a lot of people. The brothers do it just for ego and impressive your fellow brothers. To see who they can get to send them nudes or on the more extreme notes, who they can fuck. Insecurities. The sisters do it because they're insecure about their looks, and they'll go above and beyond to seek validation from the brothers who might find her attractive to tame her insecurities. They'll go as far as exposing their breast, ass, take pictures sticking out their tongue and their tongue would be pierced, put on a lot of make up and then take selfies. Going above and beyond for some likes and comments from guys. Get comments from guys just to NOT reply to them. Insecurities. THEN you would have the people that ALWAYS put out their business and what they're always doing. People would vent on social media as a way to relieve themselves but at the expense of: 1) people knowing what you're going through and can use that against you or talk shit about you or 2)making yourself look like an ass to some people and think you're seeking attention (which may be the case sometimes). They would share their drama and personal problems with someone on Facebook or Instagram or whatever and lord knows our people love drama so they'll entertain the hell out of it. Then you have negative videos of people fighting, stabbing, drunk fights, (I separated drunk fights from regular fights because they're on a more comical scale than thrilling and suspenseful), the indulgence in drugs (weed doesn't count), and a bunch of other shit that may be humiliating or shameful. The worst part about all of this is A LOT of people don't mind the activities I just mentioned because like I said, our people loves drama so then they'll share these posts, photos, and videos as sheer entertainment but oblivious to the fact these shares of entertainment is an extension of themselves. There's also a bunch of snitches on these social medias particularly family members, bitter exes' friends, and people beefing. Then you got the people always sharing photos of their food (I do this myself, fuck it) like we get it. You can afford to eat good. Last but definitely not least, whatever you post, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING so watch what you post!



PROS
Social media is not all bad. A lot of people actually utilize it for good. For example, there are a lot of informative posts that people post and share that I myself have learned from. Enlightening posts such as history, spreading awareness, how to's, and experiences as well. All experience does not have to come from first person, you can experience through someone else's experience. It's also been utilized to share ideas as well and cause people to think (we all know a lot of people don't like to think anymore). Want to send invitations to people for your upcoming party, baby shower, wedding, meeting, without having to constantly send reminders, Facebook is good for that. Forgot someone's birthday or didn't know it was someone's birthday, Facebook is also good for that. There people who genuinely like to see their peers succeed, so people who post their accomplishments are supported by really good friends. Support. Going through hard times, people will send their support with prayers or actually offer help. Have a job interview, you have family and friends that support you. Enjoying yourself at a party or outing? People like to see their peers enjoying themselves. All videos that are posted aren't all bad. Theres actually some funny videos, adorable videos of babies and animals, how to's, amazing people doing amazing things and plenty other things. So if you're having a bad day and need a good laugh, social media can be a good source (or maybe not). 


UNFORTUNATELY, there are more cons than pros. Some people may disagree with that assessment but that's cool. This is just my outlook on social media. I still use it for my own purposes. I often contemplate on deleting social media because it can be very distracting, and annoying but social media has become my news. I don't really watch tell.lie.vision, so most of my news comes from the people, my people. Not only that, I'm one of the people that genuinely like to see my people succeed and enjoy themselves and keep in contact with a lot of family and friends. I also like to keep my people updated on my physical progress report (pics and videos of me getting stronger mentally and physically). I remember years ago when there was no Facebook and Instagram, we had Myspace, Sconex, instant messengers (add my AIM: CEO of Drew Ham) and others that I either didn't use or was not familiar with. I wonder what new social media apps are gonna pop up. 

Harlem 2016

It's now the year of 2016, and Harlem has gone through some changes. Change can be good or bad, but I'll weigh out both the good and bad changes of Harlem. Let's start from what I know Harlem as. Growing up a Harlem native, I've just grown to love it. I didn't always love Harlem. I grew up on the upper west side of Harlem. My location couldn't be any more convenient than it already was. I had transportation all around me. Buses (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M7, M10, M102, BX19), trains (A,B,C,D,1,2,3), cabs/taxis and the best part was everything was coming and going like clock work. Missed a bus or train? Don't fret, another one came within 2-5mins. Corner stores everywhere. Growing up as a kid, the corner stores were the supermarket for us. With $1, you could've bought you a full course meal (even though they're all poison, but we didn't know anything). 25 cent juice or water, 25cent bag of chips, 25cent cake, and 5 peanut chews or Now and Laters (didn't mater, you could've mixed and matched for they were 5cents a pop). Now if you had friends/family that you always rolled with, everybody put their money together and we would all splurge. Or when we were all broke, we would just simply swipe snacks and walk out the store and just eat everything we stole. Block parties occurred often, we went outside often to hang out. At this time, cell phones didn't have all these social media apps and texting wasn't that much of a big deal then neither. We were always going to boys' houses, stay the night, play games all night then wake up to watch Saturday cartoons. Everybody knew everybody so if someone knew your folks, then they knew who you were. Summer time was always the best. The sun, the days were longer, the nights were still warm but had a nice breeze, the festivities, the parade, everything. Harlem had key points too. My most memorable one was Mart 125. It sold a lot of merchandise, cultured merchandise, food, regular clothes, whatever. Then you had the burger stand on 145th, the  theatre on 125th, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. Harlem was so lit, there was a point where a brother had an exotic zoo in his house. This brother had a tiger, alligator, and a few snakes in there along with regular domesticated animals. I saw a REAL LIFE Spider Man. It wasn't Peter Parker. It was a brother trying to get away from the cops. Even the fashion was different. Baggy jeans were the thing. Baggy jeans with baggy white t-shirts with a basketball jersey and some uptowns (Air Force Ones to those who don't know what uptowns or ups are). Enycee, Phat Farm, Fubu, Akademiks, Sean John, and a few others were THE name brands and can't forget Tims and Jordans. If you didn't have any of these, you got your ass cut, by everybody. Other kids, and even adults, it didn't matter, you got your ass cut (jokes on for those who don't know what getting your ass cut meant). It was pretty much taboo to be gay. If you was gay, you got your ass cut and the constant reminders that you were a faggot. You BARELY seen white people around, I was mainly surrounded by black people (the whole black diaspora, American born, Jamaican, Trini, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Bajan, Haitian, African). It was very cultured. Black Utopia as I call it and still to this day I call it Black Utopia. All these things took place from about age 8 until like my earlier teenage years. 

Now let's fast forward some years later...just a couple sentences ago, I said I was surrounded by my people. Now it's more than just my people, now White people started migrating to Harlem. Motherfucking GENTRIFICATION. White people EVERYWHERE now. More condos being built, private buildings, coffee shops, etc. Its so crazy now, that 125th is nowhere close to the old 125th. No more Mart 125, a bunch of clothing stores like Gap, American Apparel, Banana Republic, H&M. Now they're building a Whole Foods Store, American Eagle, and a bunch of other fuckery. Why is this bad? Cause Harlem was considered the ghetto, not the place for white people to be. Now they're here. Rent being increased far beyond tenants income causing them to relocate. We're talking about families, single mothers, elderly, even too experience for the typical 9-5 worker. Not only did gentrification invade, but the fashion changed as well. Remember how I said baggy clothes were the thing? Not any more. Everything is fitted or TIGHT! Not any tight, I'm talking about yeast infection tight. Suffocation of your balls tight. Now the new brands that are socially acceptable are Gucci, Louie V, True Religion, Burberry, and a bunch others that I decided not to keep up with. The only thing that still stuck around are Jordan's and Tims unfortunately. Even the air is different. Breathing is definitely not as smooth as before. Back then, time moved at a decent pace and now it's moving a little too fast. Too fast to really enjoy yourself. One thing I will admit is Harlem is not as violent as it was before. Gang violence died down a lot. There still murders going on but not as frequently as before. But since the gang violence died down, police brutality decided to take it's place here. Cops killing and beating us up left and right abusing their authority and they're barely getting penalized for this shit. There are less block parties, the African American Day Parade/Harlem Parade is now at it's shortest it's ever been. It's like watching Rome burning and being built but not as Rome but as something else. Now that I'm adult, all this makes me wonder...is Harlem really changing as drastically as I say it is, or was all this here already but I was too young and oblivious to my surroundings as I thought it to be???

It's Been A While

It's been 6yrs since my last blog. I've read my old blogs and now that I'm an adult and have a better understanding on life, I sounded like the typical teen getting smacked in the face by puberty. Back then, I thought I was the only one going through the problems that plagued me at the time, but no, not  really. At the time, the blog was utilized for my emotions to "safely" manifest itself. Now, it's for whatever the hell I want it to be. None of the emotional bs like from the earlier stages of my life. I'm a lot more wiser, more mature, and emotionally stable (at least I like to think so).