My Very Own Social Media Assessment

Hello, you absolutely amazing person you. How are you doing? Like, I mean, honestly, how are you doing? When you think of the big picture, that is your life scale of 1 to 10, 1 being you're barely hanging in there, 10 being you're crushing it. How are you doing? And like, honestly, I've definitely, I don't want to say struggling because that seems disingenuous, that seems like I'm being dramatic because I know there are people out there that are actually struggling and that's too strong of a word for what I'm going through. But I have definitely noticed a change in things and largely that's to do with social media. So today that we'd have some fun. I want to do a social media comparison. So let's talk about it. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And I make my living as a reconciliation guide. I work in first nation communities, helping them with things like lateral violence. And I work in non indigenous entities, whether it's universities, hospitals or corporations, you know, for profit corporations and help them to up their indigenous engagement game. Everything from learning how to serve their indigenous customer base more effectively, more efficiently, more respectfully, or how to attract and retain indigenous employees. It's a wide gamut of information and I love the people I get to work with, but you can imagine that it's not easy work. And years ago when I was doing bookkeeping and studying to be an accountant, yes, that's true, I was studying to be an accountant. I actually owe my ex husband for saving me from that pointing out to me that is definitely not a career path for me. Not enough conversation, not enough socializing and way too much one plus one equals two. It just kudos to all of the people that are amazing at that. I love my bookkeeper to death, just not for me. But as I was saying, I've noticed things have changed and in my opinion what has changed is what we're seeing posted on social media. And I think that's a reflection of society as a whole, as a marginalized person, as an indigenous woman in Canada, if there's one thing I've noticed is racism always existed and definitely from my darker skinned friends and family members. They have endured it blatantly their entire lives. But it seemed like it was more hidden before that you didn't just blurt out something racist, you probably whispered it to your friends or maybe you did that when you were with your inner circle, but not necessarily in general public. And now it happens in general public all of the time and it happens online now. One of the things I was thinking about the other day, I think we can all agree that lockdown literally physically forced us all inside. No matter your personality type or career, you were locked in. And when the world opened up again, many people found it very difficult to come back out or chose not to, or both. So we saw a lot more people communicating online, feeling comfortable with texting over phone calls, emails over in person meetings. It's just like the world went inside. But I couldn't help thinking the other day as I looked at my social media feed that I was wondering, is this what's going to push us back outside? Because I have seen and heard from so many people saying that social media is just so ugly nowadays that they're taking a break from it and they're actually going outside and enjoying nature and enjoying a coffee with friends again. And that got me thinking because it's all well and good to make a statement, but is it true? Does it apply? So last night, now I want to be specific here. I am talking about my Facebook feed and I'm talking about my personal Facebook feed, not what I see on my business profile. And you may not know this if you're not in business, but the two profiles are incredibly separate that I can't even see if someone comments on my personal post I may have made personally if I'm on my business page and vice versa. Versa, I have to switch between the two. That's a Facebook thing. That was an update maybe a year or two ago. Not a fan, but whatever. You get used to it. So last night, because I was debating this, I chose to scroll through my, I guess doom scrolling, right? Scroll through, scroll through my personal Facebook page. And what did I see? I made a list here, got a piece of paper here. I saw hate. Blatant hate about a group, an other someone posting and othering someone else and talking negatively about that group. Not just negatively, hatefully. I saw criticism. I saw ads. So many ads. I'm in business, I get the idea of ads, but so many ads I saw racism. And I am not blind enough that I am only going to pay attention to racism aimed at me. That would make me, in my humble opinion, a horrible person. In my opinion, if you're anti racist, you're anti racism, period. No matter who it's aimed at. And unfortunately, and the truth, because I'm indigenous and because this is our lives, I saw so Many posts about grieving, whether it was missing someone that was lost all too soon or reacting to someone who was just lost. So what I thought I'd do today is we can do a comparison. I invite you to do the same thing, to step back from your feed, don't get lost in the posts, but do the analysis of what the posts are. So I have my phone here. And again now I should say if you were to. I'm not even sure you can see. I think you can see my personal profile on Facebook, but the little bio or description or whatever it's called literally says inner circle Only if you want to get hold of me and it gives you the address to my business page. I have locked down my personal page to just my in real life IRL friends. If I wouldn't go for coffee with you or I never have, if I wouldn't recognize you on the street, whatever. My friends are on my Facebook personal feed, I get requests all the time from people I might have met at seminar that want me to add them, but I don't know them. I invite them to follow my page and I comment and answer questions on there regularly so we can have a conversation. But I'm not adding you to my personal profile because as a public person, a public Persona, you need the place to share the jokes that maybe you wouldn't share with other people. And I'm not talking about racist jokes. Don't be rude. I. I never share pictures of my kids or grandkids. That's because I have a public life. They don't. And I respect that. But you need the private space. Space. Right. And I need to be able to support my friends and not have them worry about my following. I have 16,000 followers on my Facebook business page. My personal friends don't need that exposure. So. But what I'm going to do now, I'm just going to open up on Facebook and well, I'm in my business profile, so I'm going to switch over to my personal profile and let's see, I haven't looked at it in ages. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not on social media scrolling a lot. I work, I have a company to run. I have staff to support. I have people I serve my customers that I have to work with and make sure that they get the support that they need. So no. So what's this first one? Oh, wow. Okay. Obviously it made me laugh. The very first post is a friend of mine, a girlfriend of mine and she is, let's just say she is suggesting what anti vaxxers could do. I'm not saying that's wrong. I told. Actually, you know what? I'm going to love that post. The next one is an ad. Yep. For someone I follow. So I mean, it's not a horrific ad or anything, but it is an ad. Oh, okay. So the next post. Now see, I love this. And by the way, I should say I still post on social media, but what I put out especially, well, most of the time it's something positive, motivational, or I'm just sharing something happy. If you follow me on threads, I post a motivational meme every single day. I'm trying to add some goodness and offset this negative in the world. But I don't consume social media a lot because unfortunately there's not a lot of people putting out positive stuff out there. And I'm not saying I don't always. I had to delete a post that I made the other day because people were adding it was a negative post. I'll admit it. I was not happy when I made the post and they were adding negativity to it and it just got too big. It just like, ah, I don't need this in my life. So I deleted it. I delete myself as often as I delete other people. So the next thing I see is a girlfriend sharing a picture from. I think she's in Mexico. Her and her partner, she's indigenous, suffered a very personal loss not that long ago and it's just so nice to see her on vacation and taking some time. Her and her partner, she know so needs to do that. Next is an indigenous woman I know talking about Trudeau, the break on the gst. And of course that's different. The whole indigenous people paying tax, gst, hst, all of that depends on where you live, blah, blah, blah. That's another video. Next is an ad. How are we doing so far? I think we've seen quite a few positive posts. Now keep in mind, I don't keep negative people on my friend. Listen, so I'd be very interested to see what your assessment is. Do you do the same? Have you eliminated negative people? I have deleted family off my friend list because if you're going to post negative stuff all the time, I cannot absorb that. I couldn't do the work I do with constant negative influences. So, yep, they get deleted too. I can love you in real life and not follow your stuff. Next is an ad. Next is a friend of mine talking about Merlame ice cream, which if you're in Thunder Bay That's a fave. But he comes from London and I guess there was one there too. I did not know. This next one is really common these days. A friend posting that. I didn't create a second account. Please don't accept a friend request for me. That just happens so often. Next one is an ad. I think ads are winning. Okay, the next one was funny. Okay, Nish humor here. Indigenous friend of mine and she posted, dear native women, when you laugh, just laugh. No need to hit others. If you're niche, you totally get that. Okay, she gets a laugh emoji. That was hilarious. I love that. Next is an ad. This time for a rental property. Next is an ad. I have no idea what for some program. Not interested. Next is a post from Justin Trudeau. Yes, I follow him. Not because I would consider myself a liberal, but I am definitely anti conservative. You would know that from my posts or in my videos. Canadians are getting a tax break starting December 14, reposing GST and HST on groceries, kids, clothes and other essentials. I'm going to take my girlfriend in that because she wasn't sure if it was PST or GST or hst. So now we know. That was easy. Next is. Oh, the same thing. Native women not hitting people. Another post of another girlfriend on vacation. I love personally vacation pictures. Another ad. This is a proud grandma sharing a picture of her granddaughter playing the piano. It's actually a video. See, I love that stuff. Like, if something beautiful is going on in your life, please share it. This is an ad. This is an ad. Then we get to the reels. This is a negative post. Well, a negative situation. A girlfriend of mine sharing about Dawson University and Dawson College is closed today. I should have said Dawson College is closed today because the administration is concerned about students and employee safety during protests for Palestine. Next is an ad. Next is an ad. Next is an ad. Next is an ad. Okay, I now know I'm officially not crazy. There's lots of ads. Next is. We had to have a picture of food, right? Like, wasn't that used to be a big thing on Facebook? You know, you have a amazing meal in a restaurant or you cook something and you posted it. Yes, I have cat hair or something in my lip gloss. This is a girlfriend making moose burgers. So she posted. There is a media release. Something happened at Northern Lake School, Rainy River. What happened? Do I want to know? On November 20th. Oh, yes. The school received a call from a concerned parent. Parent. Regarding a possible threat to the school. Yeah, that's something. You got to take seriously. Then another ad. And then a post from my friend who has an amazing sense of humor. This is what we're going to end on because I don't know how to cover his. His. I'll. I'll take a picture and post it in the video because the video is just too. Or the picture is just too cute. Done save. And I don't want to show. I'll tell you. And like I said, added to the picture. But it's a very Zen monkey and it says the less people you chill with, the less BS you deal with. I protect and cherish and love my inner circle, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to add new people to it. In fact, the Badass Broads is a positive in my life. That is the new group I shared where it's just a bunch of indigenous. Not indigenous. It's a bunch of ambitious women that have agreed to join. We text each other individually every single day. Just a motivational message so none of us feel alone. We encourage each other. We're going to be meeting virtually once a month. Just. Just so we have a place to be ambitious and awesome and as big as we want to be and not feel like we have to dim our light. If you're interested in being a badass broad, do, do, do send me an email. So that was my social media. So I guess today it's not bad. Maybe I should do another video in the evening and see lots of ads. Lots of ads. And I'm not going to slam Facebook for that because that's how they keep it free for us is running. I know. I've purchased ads and ran ads for my company. I'm actually reassured, I guess. But I guess bottom line, you know, you boo. And if you're having a rough day, I would highly suggest staying away from your Facebook feed. Unless you got a list that's gonna make you laugh and. And cry with joy. Don't add to the negativity. I know I pull away from social media far more often nowadays than I ever did and I'm totally cool with that because my mental health and well being is what I'm protecting. And if that doesn't mean I. If that means I don't comment on a post, I can live with that. What do you think? Until tomorrow? I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye. Wait a minute. What's the day today? Maybe this is Friday's video. I don't even know. What's the date today? Well, that's embarrassing. I don't even see a calendar. Hang on. Trying to find a calendar. Yes. This is gonna be Friday's video, so no, I'm not seeing you tomorrow. I'll see you Monday. Take care of you, please. You know what? In real life, do something in real life today. And if that makes you anxious, in real life can be just sitting outside by yourself in your backyard where no one can get to you. But enjoy some fresh air. Enjoy some people you love take care of you. Because that is how we teach others that we have value, that we are worth. Taken care of. I love you. Until next week. Bye. Bye.