Social Media 03: Please Like Me Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: One thing Laura and I have noticed and have felt ourselves is that, as moms, we always want to know that we are doing a good job. We want to know we're getting it right because we love our kids. We also want to be seen as successful. I think sometimes that's because we already feel successful and we want that validation and affirmation, or maybe we feel like we're failing and we're hoping that somebody else will affirm us. This is true in just our regular real-life community. It's interesting because, when we go online—and we're talking about social media, which is what we've been covering this whole series—that gets further magnified.
Laura Wifler: Amplified, yes.
Emily: Yes. When we are coming to create content and share, I think often it's because we want to know we are good. Whether that's in our home life content or our workout coaching business or design portfolio or the fact that we have this encouraging biblical, microblog content online, we want our followers and the people who are on social media to tell us that, yes, you're doing good, you're balancing life well, you're smart, you're funny, you're professional, you have it together. Whatever identity we have online, we want people to affirm that.
Laura: Yes. I think it's interesting to hear you talk about that, Emily, because, if I'm honest, I'm like, "Yes, I don't really care." My first response is: "I'll just do what I do, I'm doing my thing"—and even if you have a private account, or you're like me and say, "I don't really care how it does." Especially my Laura Wifler platform, I'm talking about. Risen Motherhood—I definitely want to say I look at that a little closer, just to make sure we're meeting everyone's needs.
I think that this idea of, hey, it's just personal, it's not business, I don't care how it does—what you cannot deny is the fact that social media actually plays into the ways that God created us neurologically. Going back to our first show, where we talk even about the dopamine hits that happen, our presence online and how it is received does matter to us, because it creates these feelings that you can't control of pleasure, of happiness, of false joy. Even if we look at the way that God created us in Genesis, to be known and loved, and to know that—
Emily: —To be declared very good.
Laura: Exactly. To know ourselves, deep within our soul, that we matter and that somebody likes us. That's how we were created. We see that with secular science through all the dopamine addiction research. We also see that in God's Word, and so we are going to talk today about being a content creator. Now, don't turn this off if you have a private account, because we are going to really try to talk about this from a seat of no matter how you create content online—whether that's a Facebook account and you like to share funny memes or a private Instagram account where you share pictures of your kids for grandparents or you are somebody who has hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and you are posting consistently and your monetary income is based off of what you do on that platform—at the end of the day, the question for all of us remains the same: why are you creating that content and what do you hope to get from it? Secondly, what or who are you turning to, to look for your deepest hope, worth, and identity? What happens if you do not get the growth and attention you were seeking? How do you respond? Oh, sorry, I feel intense right now and I'm really sorry. I don't know why. [Laughter]
Emily: That's a good, deep pause for all of us right there to contemplate that. Just as a quick side note, if you're wanting to contemplate that more and you realize, "I need to really take time to think about these questions," we have a social media workbook that you can download to go along with this series and really take a hard look, prayerfully, through Scripture, saying, "What is my heart motivation?" Of course, none of us are going to have perfect heart motivations. A lot of times what we're wanting, like Laura is saying, is rooted in good, God-designed things, but just really evaluate: "Am I going to the Lord to get those first?"
I think one of the things that we've already mentioned that we can look for in social media when we're posting content is the affirmation, that feedback loop that says, "Yes, you're good. Yes, your kids are cute. Oh, you did such a good job on that. Oh, that was such a great hack that I didn't know before" or "Oh, you're so great at business coaching." Whatever those things are, we're going to social media for that affirmation.
Laura: I think, if you're sitting here still saying, "No, no, that's not me,"—I think one thing—we're going to talk about it more in a whole show, which I'm excited for—but to think about just posting your kids. I have heard many people say this—and I even know for a lot of years when I had just a private account—there's this idea of the algorithms rewarding posting our kids. Even just a gut check is saying, "Hey, are you posting those pictures for your kids' benefit?" No. I'm trying to think of a way that it would be yes, or is that for yours? It's okay to be really proud of your kids. It is totally okay to be like, "Oh my goodness, I can't wait for the grandparents to see this. They're going to love this. All the aunts and uncles."
Emily: —And you know, in the '80s, all of our parents had our pictures on their desks.
Laura: Yes.
Emily: They're like, "Look, look at this cute picture of my kid on Halloween." And then the seven others in the other frames. Parents have always been posting pictures of their kids.
Laura: Yes. We just preen under people saying, "What cute kids you have." I think that that's okay. That's a mother's pride that's given to us from God. I think it's the way he feels about us often: "Look at my beautiful children." I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm trying to prove point the fact that we're posting these pictures and we probably are like, "Hey, aren't people liking these! My kids are cute." It's the old pulling out the wallet and slapping down 25 photos. They drop out of the wallet in that—do you remember what I'm talking about? That plastic thing.
Emily: Oh, yes. [Laughter]
Laura: Am I making this clear?
Emily: Okay, that's clear. I get it. I know what you're talking about.
Laura: That's the version of what we're doing on social, and we do that not because our kids are going to feel so good, because our kids have no clue. It's to really say "I'm proud of my kids. I want to show you."
Emily: Sure. I love a good back-to-school picture comment session where people haven't seen pictures of my kids in a while, and then they're like, "Oh, they're so tall."
Laura: Yes, they're so big.
Emily: They're so handsome. I just check back every 10 minutes to see what people are saying.
Laura: I know. They're so cute.
Emily: I think what we want to note here in terms of our content creation and the things that we're posting—we all know this, but we need to hear it and remember it again. It's really God who we ultimately need to look to for that affirmation and that deep sense of being known and loved. God knows us better than anyone else and he sees not only our good, cute things that we post and our filtered photos and the cute selfie. He sees us when we look like a hot mess and when our hearts are a hot mess, and he loves us anyway. So I think we have to just stop and say, "Is that where I'm going? Is that the affirmation in which I'm putting the most stock and value?"
Laura: I think some questions that are heart check questions are: are you posting things simply to get more likes and comments? Especially anybody who has more of an influencer platform or is making money on it—are you guilty of virtue signaling in a way? Then I think that it's really important that we confess to God that we like likes, that we like comments, that we like affirmation, and that it has puffed us up. It's something that I feel people aren't willing to admit because you sound, I don't know, weak, or you sound like, "Oh, I need that. I need that affirmation," but in reality, again, it's human nature to say—
Emily: —I like people looking at me and telling me I'm great.
Laura: Yes, who doesn't like that? At the end of the day, I think that it's really important that we're honest with God about how things make us feel and that you can admit that, especially again if you have more of a creation influencer account, that you want content to perform well. We're going to talk a little bit about stewardship in a little bit, but before we get there, Em, let's talk about the humble brag.
Emily: Oh, the humble brag. I think this is something we had a great conversation with a friend about a couple of years ago, and it was interesting to think about Proverbs 27:2, which says, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." The fact that that verse is talking about the fact that we really aren't the ones who should be tooting our own horn or putting ourselves in the seat of honor or just saying, "Ooh, look at me, look at me, look how good I am." A lot of us would probably say like, "Oh, I don't do that. I wouldn't give myself a compliment in front of other people," but perhaps we're willing to reshare compliments about ourselves.
Laura: I definitely have. I'll be honest.
Emily: "Laura's book is so amazing. I just love it,” and then we're like, reshare! And I'm not picking on Laura because I've done that too. The Risen Motherhood account does it. I think we're not trying to say, "Hey, this is always right, or this is always wrong," but just to say, let's ask the question, because we definitely all probably do humble brags. "Oh, I'm just so thankful to God that I'm on the bestseller list…" [Laughter]
Laura: Oh my goodness. Oh, I see that all the time.
Emily: We have to ask ourselves, does that fit into that Proverbs verse?
Laura: Yes. The question I think we need to ask is, hey, are we doing this for God's glory or ours? Do we trust for God to reward us even in secret? Do we think that we need this to keep going—people saying, "Wow, look at her, look at how amazing she is"—and are we saying, "Look how much God has blessed me, look how amazing I am," or is there just a genuine heart to steward well what we have been given?
I do think within the content creation realm, it can be—I've said this already, but it's squishy. I do think it comes down to: what is the heart behind it? There are publishers, there are agents, there's a lot of—when you think about even a book, for example, my recent book—there are a lot of people with real businesses behind that and I want to steward what opportunities I have been given well and to make sure that not only do I fulfill the contracts that I'm a part of and the things that I've committed to, but also that the gospel message gets out, because I wrote that book in a true desire to help people know more about God and his Word and to teach their children. I think that there is an element there of saying, "What does that look like to help raise awareness and market, but not land on the side of, 'look how amazing I am?'"
Emily: Sure. I think there's a spectrum is what you're saying and this friend that we were talking to about humble brag and just different social media things in general was saying that, oftentimes as Christians, there are things that we can all agree are gross and braggy. We can almost all tell it when we see it or know it when we see it, and then there are some people who would say, "I will never, ever reshare. I will never, ever post a compliment." I will never, ever do that because even to do it once to them is a brag, and then there's a whole bunch of stuff in between. Probably a lot of us are trying to navigate that in-between space, and so I think a really good question to ask, as somebody who's creating content again, whether this is something you're posting for friends and family to see or this is something you're doing because you're a lifestyle blogger—that's an old term, what is a lifestyle…?
Laura: Glamour? [Laughter] What would you be? You would be a lifestyle whatever.
Emily: You're posting lifestyle content online, regardless, to say, "Does this content serve people in and of itself?" We want to be sharing things that, even if it is pointing to the success of our business or the success of our content or the fact that it's helping people—can you share things that have meat in and of that content or that reshare itself? I feel like I'm not being clear. It's clear in my head.
Laura: Like, does it point to a review of the book where people can understand what the book is about? I know we're picking on authors right now, but it’s what we are. Or does it offer, like, "Hey, this helped my child learn X, Y, and Z or my child—" Is that what you mean?
Emily: Yeah. It's not—it actually has some meat and some help. Essentially, it's saying, hey, I want to be wise with a few things that I do post and make sure that I'm posting things that are the most helpful, the most informative, and I'm not just mindlessly resharing, including braggy compliments about myself or my platform, but then I'm really saying, "Does each and every thing that I post help people in some way?"
Laura: Okay. I'm going to push back on that a tiny bit.
Emily: Okay.
Laura: What about—at least I would see it a little bit as a ratio. What is the consistent content that you're putting out and are there times where it is just a quick reshare of a really cute picture of someone interacting—it's like a beautiful flat lay or a bag spill. What are those called? [Laughter] Is the bag spill not a thing? I think it's called a bag spill—where you see a bag and stuff tumbling out of it and it's really beautiful? I think that's the real name anyway.
The point being: it's this really beautiful picture, and I do think at some level there's like, hey, what's the ratio of the content you're sharing? Again, there's no real number, but for me, I think about it as like, "Hey, 80, 20, 90, 10." I want to really offer really thoughtful—like what you were saying—stuff that adds value to the conversation. But I think that at some level it's okay—just like we would share a cute picture of our kids—if you've worked really hard on this content and there's a great picture out there. At least that's where my conscience lies.
Emily: No, I think that's good because this reminds me of another thing you and I have talked about before. Sometimes it blesses that person, or it's a way to share somebody else's platform, and then it can be a form of generosity and hopefully it's not a way to justify a brag, but there are other reasons why you might reshare something. I think what we're saying here is this 1 John 4:7 principle: "Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God," and this idea of our goal is to love others. Hopefully, if we're doing any type of content creation online—again, whether it's pictures of our motherhood or pictures of something different—we are doing it from a place of wanting to love and serve, and that's going to motivate different behaviors than being there to gain love and grow.
Laura: Sometimes that means leaving the individual.
Emily: Yes.
Laura: I know we have had that conversation. Okay. Another one is attention. This can feel a little bit related, but I'll never, never, never, never forget the time where I saw a woman—and I was just in my explore feed, so I don't even know who this is at all—but she was crying, and so I watched it. She said that she had hopped on Instagram live to share with her community that she had just found out five minutes ago that she had cancer, and she was verbally processing this through tears online.
It was heart-wrenching, my friends, heart-wrenching. What was so sad is that she ended up saying, "You're my community. You're the people I want to tell first." So many of us, I think, are looking for that community online and motherhood is really lonely. Social media can feel like a place that's going to fill that void and we tell ourselves, well, this is my community. These people get me. I've curated the best community on the internet. Sometimes it can feel like this is the true one and more than our in-real-life one.
I think that this is just an important thing to evaluate—how are we seeking attention online and why do we feel like we need to get it from online? Because there's this other thing—this is like blowing my mind, but there is now—Emily, have you heard of this? That Munchausen by Internet. I think I'm saying this right. Munchausen Syndrome. You probably guys have all heard of that. It's a psychological illness when people fake an illness to get attention. They fake being sick. Now, they're doing this by internet where somebody starts to fake something online for social gain.
Emily: I have seen this.
Laura: I've seen it too. It's insane.
Emily: I saw it yesterday.
Laura: What? Tell me.
Emily: It was so disturbing.
Laura: Tell me it now.
Emily: Well, you're scrolling through your reels, or this is like an explore page, and this woman was saying, "Hey, I'm 50 and these are my two kids," and she does not look 50. She looks like 24. The two girls behind her look like also 24. I was like, "What is going on here?" Of course, because I dug into her page, I think she really is in her 20s and she just grows by doing these TikToks that are fake, essentially, because people like me—I fell for it, you guys. I got sucked in and I went and looked at her page because I was like, "What's going on here?" People outright lie and I've noticed it more on TikTok. People literally lie about stuff so that you will come look at their TikTok page, and then you realize like, oh, that was just a fake video.
Laura: That's insane.
Emily: It's a thing.
Laura: Well, there was that woman—there was a mom who faked that kidnapping.
Emily: This makes me sick to my stomach.
Laura: Did you ever hear about that? She faked a kidnapping about her two kids. This happened early this year in 2021, I want to say. Her following went from 6,000 to almost 80K overnight and there was a bunch of police investigations. It was determined that it was not true, that it was not real, but she truly accused real people. She accused a poor couple of trying to kidnap her children. She got online, live, right after it happened, saying she wanted to raise awareness, but at the end of the day, it was like all a hoax. It just shows the extremes I think that humans will go to in order to get attention.
Emily: I think bottom line for this is that God created us for community and for relationships. This desire that we have to be known and loved and have people that we can share things with is good. Ultimately, we want to be finding that in our real life. We want to be developing community through our local church. Perhaps it's just godly moms that you can get to know, friends that you can share ups and downs and struggles with, and just to be known in your real life to know that you are known and loved by God. I think all of that takes a pressure off feeling like I have to be known and loved and paid attention to online.
Laura: Absolutely. I think you need to ask, am I creating this or am I posting this simply for the attention that it will bring? The next and last one I think we have is "For the kingdom." This one—it's actually a core value we have at Risen Motherhood, something that's really important to us. We see that anything that's for the gospel is something that we want to encourage. Even if that means we're not necessarily a part of it or a main factor in it. When we're online as creators—so again, any type of platform that you have the opportunity to create things—are you thinking of the ways that you can support other people to use social media, for what it was at least titled for, to be social?
Think about what Psalms and Proverbs talks about. Proverbs [11:25] says "A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed." Psalm 112:5: good will come to those who are generous and lend freely. With both of these things, think through how can you share about a friend's new business? How can you engage in their content or cheer on what they've shared about their kids? Can you comment about like, oh, it looks like they had a great game today or they're doing awesome? I know I love it when my in-real-life friends will comment on my pictures, just knowing that they know me, and they see all of me. Having them interact with me online actually means a lot.
I even have a friend who has—not a private account. It's public, but it's very small. It's just friends and family. She is so consistent about sharing things about Risen Motherhood, about what I'm doing professionally. It loves me so much. She doesn't do it with any expectation that I'm like groveling with thank you’s. She just does it because she's sharing in my joy. What are some things that we can do when you're online, no matter your size, to say, "Hey, I've been given this platform. I've been entrusted this, and here are ways that I can love my sister as well?"
Emily: That's a good word. That's one I need to learn from. Knowing all of these things that come into play when we are creating content, it's worth thinking again about boundaries. Social media, as we've talked about all along the way, is a tool. It can be helpful. It can be a way that we can spread the gospel. It can be a way we can grow our business. It can be a way we share with family about what our kids are doing, but it's really not a toy. It has some dangers and so we have to be constantly learning how to use it well.
A few things to consider: are you in a local church community? Do you have that real-life, in-person accountability? Or a friend who is watching the content you create online, but she's also having a meal with your family, and she knows what you're like in real life? Have you talked to her and said, "Hey, if you ever see anything I post it doesn't seem consistent with who I really am or there's anything that you're concerned about, feel free to talk to me?"
Another thing which I love from Well-Watered Women is the phrase, "Word before the world"—are you? Are we? Are we preaching these things to ourselves, spending time in the Word of God before we're posting? Do we have regular time with the Lord thinking about who he is, the way he's designed the world to be, and who he wants us to be in Christ? Another thing you might consider is, hey, are you taking regular Sabbaths or rest from social media? We talked about in our first episode that this may have something to do with breaking an addiction or breaking habits.
I think this can also look like, if you're a creator (depending, again, on what level you create), maybe there's certain days of the week that you don't post. Maybe you have your posts prescheduled and so they post for you, so you don't have to be on your phone as much. I'm just giving a few ideas here, but there are a lot of options for being able to create content online without having to be addicted and in the engine of it, 24/7.
Then finally, just recognizing, "Do I need to evaluate my content online?" Man, I'm going to try to not step on this soapbox. Something I think about a lot with content is: why am I here? Why am I doing this? Am I just doing it for fun? What do I hope to get out of this? How am I contributing online? There could be some really easy answers to that or there could be some hard, complex ones. I really think it's worth all of us stepping back and taking an inventory because if our mission can drive our content, I think we would all be in a better place.
Laura: Yes. Emily has thought so much about this. She helped us develop a social media engagement policy at Risen Motherhood. I want to pause for a second and just talk about this because we think that this is really helpful and important, and it's something that she and I stepped away from social media to put together. She wrote—I tip my hat to her—she wrote the majority of it, but it lists twelve commitments that we have as a ministry of how we're going to create content and engage on social media. This includes things like, hey, we're always going to be kind. That sounds childish, but it's actually important to keep in mind.
Especially if you listen to our last episode and see why that's there. We always want to engage in a peaceful way. We want to post in universal ways because we are a global ministry. We want to think about the big picture view, not just posting for individuals. We want to stay true to our statement of faith. We want to be faithful to communicate with our community in a way that aligns with our mission. What we've done there is we've outlined, hey, this is what our promise to our community is. If you haven't read that and you're engaging with us online, maybe check it out and hopefully these things will match up.
These things, when we stepped away to write them—we did so with the thought that we want to do it when we're not under fire. We want to do it when we're not under pressure. We want to have a clear head to be able to write down very thoughtfully how we want to react on social media—not in a crisis, but all the time. Then the other thing that we did was we outlined what our expectations are from our community. Again, if you are a creator, particularly if you are somebody who has a larger following or you are interacting with people that you do not know, I highly recommend checking out our policy and perhaps considering doing this yourself, as you step away to evaluate, like Emily said, where you can say, "Okay, with my community, here's what I hope that they offer me." You can even advertise that to them.
That's why we're advertising it to you because we want you to know, hey, if you're in our community, we're happy you're here, but here's a little etiquette for you. Then it also can outline how and why and when you might end up blocking somebody or to delete their comments or to remove them from emails. We even have set in place—again, when we're not in the fire and heat—we set aside a way to say, "Hey, here's how we're going to evaluate when somebody crosses the line and we have to take more drastic measures."
It has really served us well because we've come against a lot of things since that policy was developed, and I can hear Emily's voice in my head, "Well, what does our policy say? Well, what would our policy say?" It's really good and helpful that we can go back to that. Then too, when we have to take more extreme measures, it's actually not like, "Well, just because I decided today. Well, just today, because I feel a little bit hurt by what you said." It's actually like, "No, we can point to a document that offers a really clear outline of why we've made the decisions that we have." Okay, what do you have to add, Emily? She's probably dying to talk.
Emily: I love this talking so much. [Laughs] I think even for an individual—we can think of a lot of friends who have personal manifestos or little, one-page documents or things they've created for themselves—not even a ministry—but just documents they've created for themselves that help outline the amount of time I'm planning to spend on social media. Am I going to answer DMs or not? How often do I answer DMs? What do I do if somebody says something uncomfortable to me? I know that can just be really helpful.
I think one caution that I would give is just that we know historically, especially in evangelical Christianity, that just making a set of rules that we all start to abide by— these rules don't protect us from sin or from doing something wrongly. Sometimes we can be so gripped on to a formula that we miss the gospel or the heart behind the formula. I'm really just curious to see how Christian culture plays out in the next decade on social media because I see more and more people coming up with these policies, which I think are really helpful individually.
Not necessarily just adopting a general set of rules of like, "Rah, rah, we're all going to sit behind this," but like each person to thoughtfully say, "This is where the Lord has me right now and I'm going to adapt that, I'm going to change that over time." It seems like historically, in Christianity, when something is nebulous and uncomfortable and gray, we like to rally around a set of guidelines—
Laura: —Just tell us what to do.
Emily: —and a set of benchmarks, and then we hold to that till we die. It doesn't age well. I think our encouragement in this is not that you would look at ours and say—
Laura: —Yes, don't duplicate it.
Emily: —Yes, like, "Oh, because Risen Motherhood did that, that's what I have to subscribe to," but that you would, as a creator, think, "Why am I here? Why am I here? What's my mission? Then, how can I create a few ideas for myself on paper, not under the pressure, not under the heat of the fire, that help me walk in wisdom?
Laura: Here's the thing, in some of the past episodes, we've talked about, again, the addictive qualities of social media, and this idea that it's really this newer research— and what I think is really interesting is that so many of us apply ourselves to learn about other topics that are somewhat addictive: food, exercise. We will want to grow and get better at it. I want to learn how to lift without throwing out my back. I want to learn what do GMOs do to my body and so I want to know what kind of nutrition I'm taking in. We commit and apply so much of ourselves to saying, "This is something I interact with every day, and I want to be wise and use wisdom around it," but social media is so new and such a fresh thing for a lot of us, we haven't really sat down to do that.
Just like new research comes out in exercise, new research comes out in food and nutrition, and we grow along with that—the same thing has to happen with social media. This is something that we are interacting with every single day. It affects our lives. It changes how we operate, how our brains are wired. So we need to take the time to say, "I want to learn about this, I want to understand this. This is a big enough deal and has a big enough effect in my life that I want to set up some boundaries."
We might think with food, "Well, okay, I'm avoiding sugar" or "I'm only going to buy these more nutritious things" or "I want to eat the fruit" or whatever. We're not doing that yet with social media. We're not taking it as seriously as we do with other things and in fact, I might say—and this is not scientifically proven—but I might even feel like social media seems like it's a more important thing for us to really care about, if we're engaging there consistently, than our food and diet because of the way it alters the way we think.
Emily: It's our brain’s diet.
Laura: Yes, I can hear some arguments there, but the point being, what Emily's saying here is that it would behoove all of us to step away and take some time to develop, even if it's four points of just, "Here's what I want to do when I'm on social," and we only share the policy with you because we want you to feel some inspiration.
All of that said, my friends, we hope that some of this just at least gets some thought process going, gives you some stuff to chew on, have some conversations with your friends, and I know where I wanted to go is to remind you that you can do our workbook.
Emily: Yes.
Laura: "Wake Up," the workbook about social media. That would be a good spot for you to take some of these things further and have these conversations with in-real-life people because, while the principles apply, obviously the way they play out will be very, very different depending on how you interact on social. Thanks for joining us!