Written by I simply never had a need for it. I would always see my friends face to face and there would be no need to connect with them, that is until I reached the age of 17. I created my Facebook account to connect with the friends I’ve made that were graduating high school and were at the point where they would move on to the next stage of their lives. It was also about the time where I realized that I was about to graduate high school and made the decision to go to university and I would have a hard time connecting with my friends.
Moving forward about two years now, Facebook has allowed me to keep in contact with my core group of friends that I’ve made in high school. I’m fortunate because these are the group of friends that encourage me when I feel lost and make me laugh when I’m feeling down. We call ourselves Bread is Baked (“Because how do you cook bread? You bake it”) We started off as a study group for our history, calculus, and journalism classes. Our group chat has slowly evolved where we talk about business, economics, computer science and anything pertaining to how can we succeed financially in the future. From time to time, we still tease each other in the same childish nature that we used to back in high school. I’m also fortunate that this group of friends consists of vastly diverse people that can look past our differences and still remain friends. We are people of different ethnicities (Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese) and people of different faith (Christian, Atheist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist) yet we still enjoy each other’s presence and value each other’s beliefs. The diversity of this group has helped me expand my worldview and has helped me look into how other people view the world.
Now that I’m living across the ocean on the other side of the world in London, Facebook has allowed me to keep in touch with the friends I have in the United States. I can now keep in contact with about 30 other people in my church community back home and tell them about my adventures here. I also have countless other people living vicariously through me through the photos I’ve taken. But most importantly, I’ve found that Facebook has allowed me to stay connected with the friends that I’ve made in London. I’ve found a wonderful, supportive community of awesome people at Hillsong London that I can go to forget about my stresses and shift my eyes on God. I’ve also met people from all over the world( I know people on six continents!!!) through the international student hostel that I stayed at two months ago. Social media gave me the opportunity to visit my friend in Germany and stay at his place for the weekend. I’ve got 5 more weeks left in my time abroad and I don’t know if I’ll be seeing the friends that I’ve made here again for a while, but I know that I’ll see them online. Facebook has become my main method of communicating with people and maintaining strong relationships with them.
As for my Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn profiles, I created them solely for the purpose of marketing. I never had a desire to tweet out my thoughts because I could just talk to someone face to face about my troubles. I never had a desire to pull out my phone and take pictures (Although another reason why I created my Instagram is because my friend told me that I posted awesome photos on Facebook through my camera. It then hit me, “Wesley, you’re a photographer now, why not create one?”) My intention for those accounts is to build up my personal brand and create an online presence. I want to market myself as a person of influence, that can draw in people and create content for them to enjoy. I’ve had many quarter-life crises at my time abroad. I’m changing from my studies from being a communications major into a computer science major. I’ve wrestled in my head whether I should travel again in the next five years or not and wrestled whether I should stay at my university in San Diego or transfer out and wrestled with the thought of staying at my parent’s house after graduation to save money. As for right now, I see that marketing myself will be a stepping stone toward whatever decision I make toward my future.
Thank you so much for reading this. In case you haven’t followed me on my social media accounts, I would appreciate you taking the chance to do so now:
https://www.instagram.com/life.of.wesley/
Life of Wesley 