If you’re reading this in real time we’re living through the COVID-19 pandemic. What has helped me and many others I am sure survive solo quarantine through maintaining a sense of connectedness has been, let’s face it, the internet and social media by extension.
This comes at a price however. I have to work extra hard to make sure I'm not mindlessly consuming content from online platforms just to fill up time. In fact, I think I’ve become even more weary of what I allow myself to watch recognising the desperate grab for attention from the media, streaming platforms and people online in general. Distraction anyone?
That said, I was recently seduced into watching the Face on Prime Video and I quite liked it for what it was. It played out like most modelling shows but somehow also got me thinking. Which is something good programming or content should do don’t you think? Critical thinking is so amiss in society these days.
If you’re not familiar with the Face, which I wasn’t until I watched it, three supermodels compete against each other to find the newest face to represent MAX factor from a group of amateur models. In every episode the supermodels mentor their hand selected group of models through various challenges hoping that one of their models will win at the end of the season.
The show left me with three questions:
1. What does it means to be a good mentor; and can anyone be a mentor? We do all know something that somebody else doesn’t.
2. How is mentorship changing in an increasingly digital society.
3. How in the hell did the worst model on the show make it as far as she did!? But maybe that’s a topic for another blog…
So, who is a mentor anyways? By definition a mentor gives help, guidance and support to another person, their mentee, over a period of time especially related to their work and/or career. Since working is such an integral part of our identities in society and has immense impact on the quality of our lives, I think it’s safe to say here that a mentor is anyone who’s prolonged influence has the ability to shape our view of life and what it means to live it successfully.
I would like to suggest then, that social media influencers as well as any groups and companies we follow online are, willingly or unwillingly, mentors to their followers. Unfortunately however, since the mentor - mentee relationship isn’t traditionally or even automatically applied in this way most people don’t evaluate the social media influencers, groups, companies they associate with in the same way they would a traditional mentor.
Take a minute to think about it. If you were to choose a mentor for some aspect of your life today what criteria would you use to select the appropriate person?
The following questions would probably come to mind:
1. How much lived experience and/or knowledge does this person have in the aspect of life I’m seeking mentorship?
2. What are they like as a person and can I come to respect them enough to accept and internalise their support, help and guidance?
3. And probably most importantly, in my opinion, what are their values and are they actively living by them? Are their values complimentary or congruent to mine and will I learn something new? I’m assuming that if you’re purposefully choosing someone as a mentor that there is something about their approach to work and life in general that you want to emulate, that is to say, live by.
We are at some sub-conscious level doing this already but what if we consciously and purposefully applied these same guidelines to choosing those we follow and engage with online? It’s so easy to hit the follow button these days that we forget that by following people and companies online we’re in effect inviting them into our lives and giving them permission to influence our perception of reality perhaps even highjack our thoughts! You might think it’s okay to follow that person who’s subtly fear mongering all the time because it’s just so darn funny and clever how they do it but what effect is that having on us over the long term? I'll tell you. We start to live in fear whether we mean to or not.
Some may want to make a strong distinction between influencing and mentoring but to me that’s just semantics. Whether you're open to conflating the two or not the fact is this: consciously or otherwise we mould our lives and perceptions to what we’re consistently exposed to; to what we willingly expose ourselves to. Given this, I would like to invite us all to choose the people and groups we follow and engage with online as we would formal mentors. By critically assessing why we're drawn to a particular person or group or company online, we can avoid mindlessly following those who do us more harm than good through their contradictory values and actions.
