JCP FEATURES: MAGIC LAMP

“Like so many things, it is not what's on the outside, but inside that counts”

- Merchant, Aladdin

“Wait. I want to post this on my insta-story.”

“I saw this on Instagram and let’s go here too.”

“This was viral on TikTok, let’s make it too.”

Those sentences are some clips of our daily life nowadays. Especially after the soaring high use of Instagram and TikTok. Many are “busy” making content for their profile. Due to the popularity of social media, anyone can be a full-time “content creator”. Compared to 10 years ago, life as a blogger was not much appreciated because it doesn’t seem to be a profitable job and it couldn’t be described as a job. But here we are now, where childhood dream job is no longer to be an astronaut, or a teacher, but to be a YouTuber or an influencer. Well basically, all job is equally good, but we need to aware that what we see is not the whole thing about that job, especially content creator.

Well, actually the content creator is not a new job description since the magazine we used to read, TV programs we watch, or even the flyers you received are created by a content creator. It’s just the form of content that is new and we don’t have the specific job description for it yet. We can call a magazine article creator a magazine editor. For TV shows, we can call the creator as the producer or advertiser for flyers makers. We started to call people who create content on the internet as a blogger around 8 years ago and people who posted a video on YouTube are called YouTuber. All these job naming is just a name for a person who creates content for other people to read, hear, or watch with a more holistic perspective. The distinctive difference between the new content creator and the previous one is the working hours and independence. As for editors, producers, etc they are dependent on a company or brand and have specific working hours. While the new type of content creator is usually self-employed, more on freestyle, and has no specific working hours.

Many think that being a content creator is just the happiest and easiest job on earth. All it takes is to make your content viral and voila! You can get instant popularity. But, there is no way in this world that success can happen in the snap of your hand. All needs hard work and few times of trial and error. (Well, sometimes lucks played some part in someone’s career, but not everyone got the same luck) I was once helped my friend’s brother in running his studio and content creation business. Our client at that time is e-commerce for outdoor activities. So, we went to the mountain to create content. I enjoyed outdoor activities and moreover, this is my first-time experience hiking plus spend the night at the mountain, so I’m very excited about this content making. But, on the way up, I realized this content creation is not easy as what I usually see on social media. To make a 15-second video I had to hike up for more than 3 hours, not taking any bath, get wet due to rain, and most of all I can’t go to the toilet as there was none. In sum, there is no such easy thing in this world, you’ve to work for it.

Besides work hard, time also plays a part in your success. Who would know that YouTubers that started their channel 12 years ago would gain the spotlight like they received now? If you look at it carefully, many of them have started their career 10 years ago and just got the time to shine. More about time and timing, you can read it here. I’ve made a post about it on my previous JCP Features, so you can check it out there.

Actually, being a content creator is not just making any content. They have to carefully think about what they should make because there are thousands, even millions type of people that will look at their content and make a judgment of it. Their reputation is at stake. As you know, there were many issues with public figures or content creators regarding hateful comments. Many of them got hurt badly and many of them chose to end their precious life.

A few months ago, there are many content creators out there that reminds their followers that what they share is just a surface of their life and just like you and me they are not perfect. Like an iceberg, what we see on the internet is just the tip of their life. They choose the best part of their life or what they do and share it on the internet. Everyone has their own problem and mistakes, so they don’t need to add more of them. Mostly, the aim to create content is to give entertainment, hope, or information. As a semi-content creator, I also just wanted to share the good things here, since life is not easy for everyone. Personally, my aim is to encourage others and share the good stuff with all. We are all the same human beings and we are given the same abilities. It’s just you need to take action to make it happened. I watched one of the TEDx Talks videos titled “Stop Looking for Your Passion”. She said that it’s okay that you don’t have passion but do something. She encouraged us to work and take some action whatever it is.

Everyone already has their own problems and crazy life, so why sharing the negativity or discouraging content? We always see other’s grass is greener, but we don’t know how the others make that grass green. So, comparing your life with others is not really a bad thing to do, but you must know that great things don't happen instantly. Everyone has their own pace and there is an endless way how people achieved what they aim for.

2021 is on the way to the end of the first half, yet I’m still doing my 2020 monthly project (surely my time management didn’t get any improvement). It might have heard like an excuse, but being a part-time content creator is damn hard! See, being a content creator need persistence and consistency, which not everyone can have. In the last month of 2020, I learned how to live a content life. Not about being online all the time and sharing content, but how to fully enjoy life. Obviously, 2020 is not the best year ever, but there is always joy in everything. I started to post my daily activities during the Advent weeks in 2018. At first, I wanted to show how great it was spending Christmas in a winter country, but then I got to reflect that there is always a grateful thing every day, especially during the year-end. Then I continued the ritual up until now.

As I enter my 20s, I started to reflect back on my life more. I started to read self-improvement books or contents (like TEDx), or I started to analyze the main idea of the movie or drama that I watched (should I become a movie columnist?). Basically, I started to pay more attention to little details around my surroundings and fill in my mind and heart with positivity. After I got some insights, I have the urge to share them. Both offline and online. I started simple, by sharing it with my friends. Sometimes I shared it on my blog, but mainly on my Instagram, where I can reach more people I know personally but cannot be reached offline.

Just like what ‘The Aladdin’ movie (the older version) portrayed, he once didn’t want to buy the lamp because of its appearance. But the merchant said, “like so many things, it is not what's on the outside, but inside that counts”. And that lamp turns out to be a magic lamp! So, appearance is not everything, but what’s inside that counts.

This is my last post for JCP Features. I’ll prepare more thorough content in the future and share positivity with all of you. In the second half of my 20s, I’ve decided to restructure my life and I will take that as a chance to share more good stuff. It took me a long time to brainstorm and deliberate for this post. Even though I know that there aren’t many people who read my blog, but I had to finish what I started. Anyways, thank you to everyone who read this post and I’m signing out for now.

XOXO,

Further reading:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQaBpe7Fxuz/

(currently the most relatable account on my timeline)

TEDx Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBaFL7sCb8

https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1137037/things-about-aladdin-you-notice-as-an-adult/

LIFE: What I learned from Social Media Detox

Trying something out of comfort zone is one of social campaign this year. I believe it is a year of revolution. It seems impossible for people who work utilizing social media every day, but actually it is pretty bearable. I did this in accordance of Passover and I pretty nailed it. The social media I’m signing out was Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I didn’t categorize chatting application like LINE and Whatsapp, as well as, YouTube as an addictive social media application. (Yeah, I’m a newbie YouTuber, but I don’t watch YouTube videos that much). So here it is, few lessons I got from social media detoxing.

I got a lot of time to spent

I have a habit of scrolling down my feeds till the end of it which, sometimes it took 3 hours to do it. Back in school days, I have a plenty time waiting for class and have wifi service that makes scrolling down the social media didn’t seem take a lot of time. But nowadays, I’m staying mostly at home and I need some shows to catch up. Got nothing to catch on, I got a lot of spare time. I can work on my blog, watching shows and dramas, and focus on every little thing I’ve never noticed before.

Less exposure to screen phone

Your smartphone screen can be intimidating sometimes. Your eyes could hurt, excessive touching means spreading germs all over the screen, and most of all less electromagnetic waves exposure. I tend to laying my phone somewhere else whenever I’m home.

Longer battery life

Yup, your social media feed took so much energy from your phone battery. If you see the battery usage percentage on your phone, the most application that took the most of your battery is social media applications. Not opening it, makes it live longer.

Less comparing yourself to others

I’ve mentioned it once on my reflection post about social media as a media to compare your life to others. Whether you are the one who envying others or the other way. It was like a black hole or a trap if you are not wise enough to use it. Since you don’t know what’s going on with other people life, you are able to focus on your life. You got no time to talk about other people lives or business. Whether you realize or not, others can be jealous of you too. So, taking some time off the social media means you reduce others to not comparing their lives to yours. And it is a pretty good start to restructuring your life.

Well, there is a downside from this detox program, which is you are late in retrieving information. In this fast phase era, information can be retrieved in the matter of seconds and all people around the world knows about it. Without social media, you might be slow about it and you might experience some disconnection with people around you. When you meet up with your friends or relatives or other people, you seem don’t know what’s going on and what are they talking about.

It doesn’t seem a hard challenge right? But it is more likely to help you in self-discipline. I didn’t delete the application; all I do is just logging it out. It was a very challenging thing, because you can always see the icon and tap on it, and you will fail the detox. But, this will train you into more discipline with the challenges you set. If you fail once, don’t give up! Keep continuing the detox to until the day you’ve set. 

I found some great inspiration on doing some social media detox. One of the highlight is "there's so much hatred" and I'm agree with it. One of the main reason I started to loose interest in opening social media is just because there is so much hatred. Well, we can't really control other people's thoughts or believes, but sometimes you feel annoyed when people you follow use some bad languages or complaining all the time. If you can't cope up with it, maybe you can try social media detoxing for a while. It will help you to meditate and clear up your mind from negativity. Just think it as an exercise for your mind, like Yoga. You can read a post from Tipsy Writer here. 

When the period of time I’ve set arrived, I end up not opening the applications until few days later. I thought I will be missing it so much, but actually it turns out I don’t. I hope you are inspired with this social media detox, because something too much is not really good. Not only too much food you consume can be a toxin, social media too. So, be wise to use social media, especially young generations. There are a lot of people who think knew to use social media, but actually they don’t. Let’s use social media to spread positiveness and create value for people who see it. I’m glad to share you my experience and will be happily to hear you experiences too!