A week ago, a certain young lady (name withheld) was trending on Twitter (Nigeria) because she was caught lying or better put exaggerating her involvement in a UN conference she attended at the UN Headquarters in Geneva. Of course, she was dragged for two days and she did not help matters by organising a Twitter Space to explain herself but in her bid to do so, she complicated matters which fueled the dragging further. Sigh!
This incident reminded me of another young man (name withheld) who was also dragged for days (his lasted longer) because he associated himself with the UN as an ambassador for the Youth Assembly (a conference I have attended before and saw this person in question) and apparently taken money from people who were interested in attending the conference in exchange for guiding them through the application process, getting their visas among others.
The real issue is, most young people these days like to brag or exaggerate their achievements on social media and that is a dangerous thing! It is mostly like you have to lie to make yourself feel good. Yes, because exaggeration is a LIE! (My secondary school headmistress used to say this a lot!) You go to LinkedIn and you see people with ‘very big titles’ and their so called achievements but in reality, it may be far from what they are portraying. The question is, Who are you seeking validation from? From strangers on the internet who have their own lives to live? Or to boost your own ego? These are some of the instances which highlight how wrongly we are using social media in recent times.
In the first example about the young lady, attending a UN conference alone is a big flex! I mean it is the UN we are talking about. You can put this on your CV as part of your achievements and briefly point out your key takeaways from the said conference. She did not need to exaggerate her involvement as being a speaker when she was not enlisted as one. From the video she posted, she had someone record her giving a brief introduction of herself and her NGO and then went ahead to ask a question. This does not make you a speaker but rather a participant asking a question which is very normal if you attend conferences especially during the Q&A session. Trying to explain herself about how she did not preprare her speech in advance which was the reason she appeared nervous in the video and reading her speech from her phone and some whole crap was not it. Just accept you goofed, apologise for misleading people and everybody moves on! The most embarassing thing is, a popular newspaper in her country picked her story up and wrote an article of how she spoke at a UN event in Geneva but after the truth was uncovered, the article was immediately deleted. SMH!
For the second example, why would you put in your bio on IG that you are a UN Youth Assembly ambassador when you are not. The fact that you have made yourself one does not mean you have been employed by the UN. Besides, the Youth Assembly is only held at the UN Headquarters in New York and not organised by the UN but rather the AFS currently (It used to be the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation). This young man kept changing his ‘position’ in the UN on IG (a pigment of his own imagination) which also fueled the dragging. Of course, people reached out to the organising body of the Youth Assembly whereby they stated categorically that they did not know him and anybody who regards him as an ambassador does so at their own risk. How embarrassing! Is this shame and disgrace really worth it?
I could go and on but the point is, if you are really putting in the work, you will be recognised by the necessary body or institution rather than doing it your own way (and lying about it) and getting caught. It screams insecurity and dishonesty. And the fact that there is the internet, you should not even think about lying about your involvment in anything because knowledge abounds! It is good to celebrate your achievements on social media if it makes you feel good but do not include what you have not done or exaggerate it. You do not have anybody to impress and truthfully, nobody cares! The most, I will do is type ‘Congratulations’ and then run along. We need to be true to ourselves before we can even demand such from our leaders. If we are doing this whilst we are young, are we going to become like the leaders we openly criticise?
All the same, I hope these two have learned their lessons and we also learn to do better and not be carried away by people’s bragging or achievements on social media. We are all living our lives at our own pace and hence do not need to be intimidated by what we see. Remember social media is not real life…..people only post their highlights!
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I will see you soon with another post. Stay safe and God bless you :).
Much love,
Gertrude.
Gertrude says...... 