The pressure to constantly and consistently create, produce, and deliver exceptional content is so great that most people can’t handle it. Psychological burnouts, mental breakdowns, and bouts with depression soon ensue. No, I’m not talking about the demands of running a Fortune 500 company. I’m not talking about being a social media star.
Fame and fortune seem great on the surface. Getting paid thousands of dollars to make funny videos or hawk products doesn’t even seem like real work. If given the chance to quit my job right now and start a YouTube channel I would do it in a heartbeat even knowing about all of the pitfalls. But at the same time the glory doesn’t come without a high price – one that is often paid in blood, sweat, and tears. Literally.
Fortunately, there are some forward thinking individuals who work at a Swiss hotel chain who want to make life easier for social media savvy individuals who are victims of their own success. By babysitting their Instagram accounts for them while they relax on vacation.
As The Next Web puts it, “Details are slim, but so far we know that Ibis Hotels plans to allow any guest at its Geneva or Zurich locations, to book weekend appointments with local influencers, or social media sitters. The sitter would be responsible for social media upkeep, leaving you to pound mojitos and throw up in the elevator like the glamorous bastard you were born to be.”
This is a great idea. One that I think could be expanded to create an entire cottage industry around supporting YouTube stars, Instagram influencers, and verified Twitter users.
What I’m imagining then is the creation of a company that would manage a user’s feed for them populating it with the kind of content that they would normally produce on their own. With enough lead time to study a user’s account and their posting history an account babysitter may even be able to create content that mirrors a user’s exact style as well. Take my own Twitter feed for example where I usually post a few different articles every day about the latest technological breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. If someone was to know which sources I frequent (Futurism, Wired, Fast Company, etc.) they could very easily just post interesting articles in my stead. Worse-case scenario I could always just go in and delete anything I didn’t like after the fact.
In essence this concept isn’t any different from when an influencer gets to take over a brand’s feed for the day or when a celebrity gets to guest edit a popular magazine. There’s nothing wrong or taboo about handing over the keys to your social media kingdom for a small period of time if that person you are trusting your prized possession to shares your same taste and sensibilities. How many verified accounts are even 100% controlled by just one person anyway? Someone like Taylor Swift probably already pays an army of people to post content for her.
But at the same time there are some logistical issues to work out. For instance, what happens if your account babysitter goes off the rails and posts something inappropriate, thereby derailing your career or ruining your personal relationships? Or what happens if they use access to your account (and to your password) to gleam personal information from you that can be used against you further down the road. There would obviously need to be safeguards in place to ensure the credibility and reliability of such a service. But at the very least such a service should probably exist. Because if it doesn’t and the stresses and demands of posting content continues on unimpeded then an entire generation is going to grow up in an ulcer inducing environment that wrecks their sense of self. No amount of fame is worth that cost. Having the ability to unplug is something that everyone needs to take advantage of on a regular basis. Perhaps we should make it easier for people to do just that.
Is a social media sitter the Greatest Idea Ever?
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