Of all the companies in the social media sphere, Living Social has the most evocative name. It's almost a challenge: if you don't sign up, you're anti-social. But Living Social isn't about socialising at all. It's about getting cheap deals at bars, restaurants, hotels and so on.
It's true, however, that you have a life within social media. Your existence on Twitter, Facebook and your blog embraces friends, family and possibly even a few enemies. It mirrors the triumphs and failures, twists and reversals of your real life. Except it isn't real. It's a biopic version of your real life, retouched and polished for public consumption.
My friend Sarah Jane Blackman, a senior digital planner at Proximity BBDO Paris, discusses this in her recent paper «Seducing the Social Super Ego» (socialsuperego.com). She observes that when «lifecasting», we project an idealised form of ourselves, a sanitised digital doppelganger.
As a writer, I'm well aware of this: I do it consciously. When I update my status, I strive to entertain my readers. Still, I was shocked when a Francophile friend in New York confessed that he often lived vicariously through my Facebook posts. In fact, «lifecasting» may have psychological benefits. It forces you to take a step back; to look at your life from the outside. And when you do that, you may realise that it isn't so bad, after all.
