A Quote by Patrick Grant

In a funny way I think social media is making people less rather more experimental. People are too worried about looking good all the time. When I grew up you could get it all horribly wrong and it didn't matter, there was no record.
It's funny: I spend time in the book criticizing social media, but I'm also aware that a lot of my success is because of social media. I can broadcast myself and my work to thousands of people that are following me or my friends. I do think that social media can be good for self-promotion.
China's social media is becoming more and more influential; I think this is a very good thing. In China, social media gives people an outlet to post about themselves, to find out information from other people. Everyone is very focused on social media and this will be the same in the future.
At this point, a lot of people have made their mind up about me one way or another. I'm sure there's a certain segment of writers who won't ever give me the time of day, hate me, don't get me, don't think I'm good, or whatever. I guess that's fine. It's only an opinion. There are other people who do get it, and can be objective. I could be wrong, but a lot of people, except for really young people, have made up their minds one way or the other.
You could have a zillion Facebook followers. Those people don't buy records. It's about a hundred to one...Record companies, they don't have any money so they see social media as the free marketing...So,...'Billy, light yourself on fire and stand upside down, and that'll market the record'. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I don't think people by records because of anything that happens on Facebook. They buy records cause they're friends say 'I bought this record and I love it'.
It's good to be happy and tell us how cool your life is and how awesome you are on social media. It inspires other people to be happy, too. But a lot of times, people are trying to be happy in the wrong ways - with money or with different things that are not true happiness. It's leading people down a rabbit hole that actually doesn't exist. So people think like, "Yo, once I get this money and these cars and stuff, I'ma be so happy." But that's not true. And I feel like that's why it's very important to educate people on different things while you are actually on social media.
if I could tell my very-younger self something, I would tell him to let loose more often. I think it all roots in sexuality, but because of that, I became so worried about everything — worried about what people thought. I was afraid to be creative and charismatic and eccentric. Just to do things to do things, like dancing. I was afraid of looking too flamboyant or something. I would tell myself to stop being so stressed about what other people are thinking. Stop being so afraid that something may not come off the right way.
I think as more people get more aware, people get more defensive. And when I say that, I mean people who are more privileged, like men. People will think that by pointing out patriarchy and an oppression, that means that all men are horrible people, and they'll write that on social media, and I think that's something that's increased.
Even more than getting compliments on social media, what I love is when some random stranger says something very funny or insightful about my books, often in 140 characters or less! It's a very casual, low-stakes, non-burdensome way of connecting that I think is fun for both the writer and the reader. And there are a lot of clever people out there who have no connection to publishing.
I'm going to proportion more time to organizing and taking action and less time to passively consuming news that is dispiriting me. Part of this will be to get off social media. I know social media is just a tool, but we've been using it in a way that has transformed us from a nation into an audience, passively spectating our own ruin.
More brands are waking up to their social responsibility and doing good work through cause marketing campaigns. Yet too many still go about it the wrong way. I mean 'wrong' in two senses. Firstly, they are marketing ineffectively, and secondly, as a consequence their positive social impact is not maximized.
The economist Juliet Schor talks about how our reference group has changed over the last twenty-five years. As we spend less time with our neighbors, we're spending more time with people we know from TV and social media, and this becomes our new reference group. The media is full of images of people with wealth, and we're comparing ourselves to them and aspiring to what they have. Instead of keeping up with the Joneses family, we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians, even though it's completely unrealistic.
Springsteen on that record started writing less about having your wind in your hair and turning the radio up and more about being dragged down by adult things. Regular people trying to get ahead. A little less mythical and romantic, and more real. It's a really spectacular record for that reason.
We tend to think of our idols as kind of superheroes; maybe less so today, given that people have a tendency to overshare on social media, but when I was growing up, all you knew about these people was what they allowed you to see - which was them doing superhuman things, up on stage in an arena with all these people going crazy.
A good social system is not to be secured by making people unselfish, but, by making their own vital impulses fit in with other peoples. This is feasible. Those who have produced stoic philosophies have all had enough to eat and drink. I feel I shall find the truth on my deathbed and be surrounded by people too stupid to understand—fussing about medicines instead of searching for wisdom. I hate being all tidy like a book in a library where nobody reads – prison is horribly like that.
The older you get, the more yourself you can be and the less worried you are about what other people think.
I think as you get older, you realize there's always going to be critics. Critics are going to win every time because they can change their critique based on the stats and their own personal feelings. It's less about proving people wrong, the critics wrong, and it's more about challenging myself to keep this level up.
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