Personal contradictory experiences

In the context of the question:
What compels us to publish content online?

I came up with the question, why do I publish content on social media, because I felt this contradiction; having the urge to post, but then feeling awkward after doing it. I often wondered, did I need to upload this photo of myself wandering at ease down the road to Nordereilland? Or did I have to post that song from Bauhaus which says “Your mornings will be brighter… Break the line… Tear up rules… Make the most of a million times no...”? Nobody cares. Or that time that I wrote on my wall a quote from Kazantzakis about hope and freedom. Oh, so embarrassing! When I look back on my online activity, I don’t understand this craving for posting. The more I think about it; it is not really about the content. It is just the feeling that I need to leave my footprints online. Is this a kind of fetishism? Constructing the image of my digital self and exposing it regularly to smaller or bigger audiences gives me in return a place of existence in the online world. There I can get information about the lives of others, but also likes, followers, and all the rest required to build a good reputation.

Such a personalised world is an excellent field for further infiltration of marketing in social relations. Nevertheless, within the same field, I could claim that by following user accounts I carefully choose and by participating in network communities, I am able to discuss issues that I am interested in, while having access to information that is not available in other kinds of media.

Still, as far as sociality is concerned:

• How have corporate social media managed to mediate my social relations in such a broad way?
• Why are virtual relationships, from which the immediacy of real-world relationships has been removed, gaining ground?
• Why is it considered socially unacceptable when I speak to a stranger on the street without apologising for interrupting their privacy? And why is relating and talking to someone from the other side of the world, just because we are fans of the same musician or we drink the same kind of coffee, considered perfectly reasonable?

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