And hear me out on these….

1. Gatekeeping 🚫 — I know, I know, we HATE this word. but I think the access we’ve given others to such simple things like our skincare routines and clothes we’re wearing in a post have made us lose the art of originality, individuality, creativity, snd discernment. why do we HAVE to buy a specific shirt just because it looked cute on a girl on our fyp? what happened to finding a similar item that fit our individual style? why are we buying products just because they worked for a complete stranger, rather than consulting a pro and assessing for ourselves? why are we doing workouts just because they have a girl certain results when we don’t even have the same body type or needs?

2. Research 🔍 — I’m sorry but I see far too many people looking silly in the comments because they simply won’t do any reading. The term “Google is free” has been typed so much in my phone that it’s now part of my predictive text. Outside of simply believing everything you see online and regurgitating false info, people are also just demanding that someone send them the link to the correct information/evidence rather than searching for themselves.

2 1/2. READING SKILLS/MEDIA LITERACY 📖 — I didn’t want to make a huge paragraph, but this goes hand-in-hand with the second part. Too many people are just taking everything at face value and missing SO much when it comes to entertainment, news, or even as simple as a tweet. This makes it so easy for yall to be taken advantage of in so many ways.

3. Cordial conversation 🗣️ — LISTEN. It’s so easy to be quick to react and ruthless behind a screen. I’m guilty of it. but we have to remember that text takes away the tone of someone’s voice, so whatever you’re feeling will be projected onto whatever you’re reading. just because you READ something as sarcastic or mean doesn’t mean that it was. we need to stop immediately being on the defense when someone disagrees with us… especially because it’s more likely that the person is speaking objectively and isn’t very invested in the topic at hand. on the same hand, admit when you’re wrong.

4. Reality 🧍🏽‍♀️ — I know it’s easier said than done because of the era that we’re in, but we need to remember that social media is not the real world, though it does have real life consequences. The internet is so ingrained in our culture that we aren’t capable of separating the two or treating either responsibly. We have our chronically online friends who probably haven’t interacted with another human being since pre-🦠 and depend on clout/attention, and we have our friends who treat social media like a play thing as if digital footprints aren’t a very real thing.

I’ll cut this short and make a part 2 because this feels like it’s already gotten too long. What would you add to this list?

#unfiltered #embracevulnerability #Lemon8Diary #blackgirlcreator #blackgirllemon8 #Lemon8 #shareyourthoughts #deinfluence