Strange familiarity

Many of us have most likely experienced strange familiarity with people such as seeing someone you work with at the station. Having a presence on social media links heavily to this as there will be many people you “know” online but encountering these people in person would lead to an awkward exchange at best. Modern society dictates that if you are not on some form of social media you are seen as “weird” which leads to many people using and staying on various social media platforms.

 Theresa M. Senft believes that the rise of social media has rendered the average person to never be obscure enough to be expendable.  She backs her claim with Neda Soltani’s story of her being mistaken for a murder victim and the repercussions being her having to move to another country in order to avoid the unwanted attention. Neda’s life will have changed forever from people acting upon the strange familiarity of the real murder victim. The daily life of the average person is mundane and which causes them to have a need for instant and intimate news coverage such as this story.

However I believe that even without social media, people would not ever be obscure enough to be expendable in our modern society. Most people will have some form of family and friends they keep in touch with on a daily basis. Expendable is quite a harsh adjective to put on a living person in relation to mere social media obscurity. There will always be people who have more of a presence than others online and in real life but I don’t believe that makes someone more or less expendable.