As of late, I’m starting to grow tired of the unspoken rules of social media established by our generation.
You may be familiar with some of these: No more than one Instagram post a day. If you post too many selfies, you’re self-absorbed. Don’t tweet too often.
On and on it goes.
The one I’ve been grappling with the most lately is what I’ll call the unending cycle of reciprocal happy birthday posts.
By that I mean the unspoken contract we often have with our closest friends: On their birthday, you post a picture of the two of you accompanied by a nice, well-wishing caption. On your birthday, they do the same.
I’ve started to have several problems — or, if “problem” adds a degree of gravity that this issue doesn’t warrant, then “irritations” — with this custom.
First of all, I think the whole thing sets us up for some sort of inevitable disappointment. How do you know which friends you’re in this contract with? What if you wish them a happy birthday on Facebook or Twitter, and then, a few months later, they fail to do the same?
Oh, the public shame. Does that mean they don’t value your friendship as much as you thought they did?
All of these considerations and the countless other ones result in a huge, nebulous cloud of social pressures and rules that honestly hurts to think about after a while.
Additionally, the public nature of it all reminds me a little too much of middle school.
When everyone began to sign up for Facebook accounts, birthdays were a huge assessment of one’s social standing. It became evident who were the most popular people in my grade at school because they’d receive the most well-wishes via Facebook.
I also think there’s a layer of insincerity to it, too. There is a big, important difference between wishing someone a happy birthday via the extremely public realm of social media and via the private mode of text message or card.
A few times on my birthday, friends have sent me a quick “happy birthday” text then proceeded to post a long paragraph of well wishes on social media. I’ll implicate myself in this as well. I’ve done this before, and I’m not proud of myself for it.
I find issue with this because friendship should not be something that needs to be affirmed publicly. It’s not a performance — it’s a relationship.
If we feel the need to share a veritable cornucopia of birthday sentiments so that the entire world can see it but fail to express that exclusively and privately to the birthday person in question, I feel uncertain and uneasy with what that says about us.
I’ll leave you with this: wish your friends a happy birthday on social media if you enjoy it, but don’t attach a bunch of expectations to doing so. I’m going to attempt to break the Unending Cycle of Happy Birthday Posts in my own life over the next few months.
Either way, though, try to remember to wish your friends a happy birthday via text, phone call, card, or direct message. I have a feeling it might mean more to them than a tweet or Instagram post.
acgroove@umail.iu.edu
@anna_groover
