A Liquid Life and Social Media Transforms What Friendship Means
Overview
This paper explores how social media and liquid modernity have fundamentally altered the nature of friendship and social commitment in contemporary society. Through a dialogue between theorists Lasch and Baudrillard, the work examines how digital platforms encourage performative relationships, fear of commitment, and prioritization of social approval over genuine human connection.
What this essay covers
- Introduction with dramatic scenario illustrating modern friendship failures
- Baudrillard's perspective on simulation, social media performance, and authentic self
- Lasch's analysis of commitment avoidance, social approval seeking, and lifestyle performance among youth
Preview
A LIQUID LIFE AND SOCIAL MEDIA TRANSFORMS WHAT FRIENDSHIP MEANS
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A Liquid Life and Social Media Transforms What Friendship Means
On Friday evening in France, Christopher Lasch and Jean Baudrillard are interacting in a hotel in Paris, having a coffee and watching a televised society drama. The drama is about a friend who died in a hospital for lacking $35000 that he needed for brain surgery to extract a tumor. The patient requested his friends to contribute some amount to enable the doctors to perform the surgery and save his life. However, most of his wealthy friends declined to give substantial help, and the patient died. Ironically, the friends contributed a considerable amount for the burial of the friend. They also launched an online campaign to raise more money for the funeral. Following the drama, Lasch and Baudrillard indulge in discussing friendships and how liquid life and social media transform friendships.
Lasch: My friend Baudrillard, do you see how wicked the world has become? It is surprising how friends decline to mobilize help for their dying friend, but they do a superb job when it is about his funeral.
Baudrillard: We live in a world where everything is a simulation of the real thing. We often hide behind what the world wants to see, but we want to live our lives deep down. People only help because the world will question why we did not help despite the close relationship we had with the person affected.