A Generation of People Pleasers and Self-Gratification

On my whirlwind driving tour the last few days a thought came to me when "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson came on the radio.  As soon as the song started, I reached to the radio to hit some imaginary button or thumbs up to let the radio know that I liked the song and would like to hear more music like that.  In the middle of this act I became embarrassed of myself.  There is no such button like that in my car, that only exists on Pandora.  But this "act" got me thinking how much our world has changed.  I love Pandora.  I like that I can pick a station that will play music to fit my mood and I can give songs a thumbs up or down to make that station even more personalized for me.  In an instant I can make something more pleasing for myself.

This then got me thinking about Facebook and Twitter and any other sort of social media and how we "like" or "favorite" status' and tweets.  And I thought to myself what if we did that in real life?  What if I was talking to some of my closest friends and someone said "I cannot wait for school to get over!"  and I then would respond with "like." or maybe I would have a back pocket full of sticky notes shaped like thumbs and I would place the sticky note up or down on that person to let them know how I felt.  How ridiculous would that look?  How would we know when to take the sticky notes off?

When did we become so concerned with what other people think?  When did we have that first urge to make sure every person we are "friends" with knows how we are feeling?  When did we start needing things to be tailored to our specific needs and wants?

Anyway, I think this is your first look into the randomness of my brain.  I will leave you with the song that got this whole thought process going.