The Bores are Hardly Triumphing.Write an essay on this.

Good Student
Professor ____
English 1101-XX
9 December 2014
The Bores are Hardly Triumphing
In “The Triumph of the Bores,” British-born journalist Cosmo Landesman argues that social media users are not concerned with being labeled boring; in fact, these people emphasize life’s trivialities in their online posts. Previously, Landesman notes, people were embarrassed to commit the social sin of boring another person with the mundane details of their middle-class lifestyles. Now, however, Landesman believes the rise of social media has led to a cultural shift. People accept hearing about other people’s boringness. Though Landesman waxes nostalgic for the days when people abhorred bores—instead valuing pretense and originality—he happily accepts the cultural shift. Landesman admits he is relieved to no longer feel pressure to be interesting all the time.
Overall, while I found Landesman’s arguments about boringness to be interesting, I disagree with most of his claims. He seems to believe people are different online and offline; I reject this claim, noting that people try to be charming in any sphere. Landesman finds social media to be a place to emphasize the insipid, but I see it as a place where people show off the best parts of their lives. And finally, Landesman worries that with the onslaught of posts about breakfast, we will no longer find anything boring, but I argue that we still find plenty of things boring. Overall, while I appreciate Landesman highlighting the mundaneness of some social media posts, I reject his notion that the advent of social media has led to people overwhelming each other with boringness.
I disagree with Landesman’s claim that the online sphere is place, separate from our offline “real” lives, where we can essentially cease to be ourselves or need to impress others. Landesman believes that online spheres protect people from having to appear likeable. Landesman states, “The online you is free from the off-line pressure of having to be witty, entertaining, or interesting in social situations.” In making this comment, Landesman argues that people online no longer need to be socially attractive the way they do offline. I disagree with his argument because being offline does not automatically “free” a person from herself. Online and offline realms are hardly separate; anyone with a social media account knows the substantial overlap between friends online and friends offline. I believe that there is no “online” me and no “offline” me; there is just me, one person represented in two spheres. I feel just as much incentive (not “pressure” as Landesman suggests) to represent myself positively in both spheres. For instance, I frequently post “witty” or “entertaining” captions to my Instagram pictures. I write these captions because I want my friends who see them to think of me—real me, both offline and online—as witty and interesting. These online posts reflect on “offline” me as much as any witty comment I might make at a party. Landesman’s claim that our actions in these two separate spheres do not reflect on us as a whole is oversimplified.
While Landesman believes that people use social media to drone on obliviously about the mundane, I believe that, overall, people use social media mostly to showcase glossy, fun events to make themselves seem more interesting. Landesman claims, “[Middle class people] share the most ordinary and mundane stuff and, just like the stars of reality TV, they never stop and wonder: am I boring you?” Landesman is insisting that the “middle class” person feels compelled to provide the minutia of his/her life on social media, even though many people might find those details boring. I disagree with Landesman’s claim because my own experience shows that these people are more likely to post exciting details. For instance, my friend Mallory, who is definitely middle class, only posts pictures to Instagram of her trips to Mexico City, Manhattan, San Francisco, and Barcelona. Not once have I seen a photo of Mallory’s breakfast, a “boring” image Landesman says middle class people like to post. Mallory wears lipstick and high heels in every online photo; she obviously wants to make her life seem glamorous, not boring. Similarly, when I scroll through my Newsfeed on Facebook, the most frequent posts I see are about weddings, engagements, new jobs, or backpacking trips through South America. People do not use social media to highlight the mundane; they use it to post about life’s highlights as though these happenings were commonplace. If anything, social media might users find themselves jealous, not bored, by others’ posts.
Overall, I disagree with Landesman’s claim that nothing falls under the definition of boring because we no longer find anything boring. Landesman argues, “In a Britain where intelligent, educated, middle-class people go online to post pictures of their cats and tell you what they had for breakfast and what cute things their kids said, what counts as boring anymore?” Landesman believes people no longer consider anything too boring to be posted to social media. On the one hand, I agree with Landesman’s assertion that we are less likely to define a person as a “bore” based simply on the fact that they tweeted about eating a bagel. On the other hand, we certainly still categorize plenty of things as boring. Mundane posts are not intrinsically boring—it is the manner in which they are posted that can be boring. For instance, my friend Adam posted on Facebook that he got a parking ticket: “TRUE STORY: I just got a $50 parking ticket bec I forgot to pay the meter bec I was too busy thinking about how awesome of a parallel parker I am when I got out of the car.” Adam posted about a mundane event (getting a parking ticket) in a clever and thoughtful way, so I was interested, and I found him interesting. If he had written, “TRUE STORY: Got a $50 parking ticket”, I would have classified his post as boring. Similarly, if a student takes an English class with a dull professor who lectures with a projector and notes for two hours, the student will probably find English boring; however, if the student takes English with an enthusiastic, vibrant professor, the student will likely find the same content invigorating. “Boringness” is not inherent in our social media posts—it is inherent in our approach to our posts. There are plenty of criteria from which we can still judge something boring.
Overall, Landesman has many interesting arguments, but I find his logic to be flawed in several instances. In contrast to his claims, I argue that people are not okay with seeming boring. We use social media just as much as any social platform to seem interesting and to show off our wit. In fact, we should celebrate more of those “boring” things that Landesman references—our families, our pets, our shared meals. These are not the boring elements of life; these are the core elements of life. Rather than painting ourselves on social media as exciting and fun, we should use social media for its real purpose: to connect with other people, in a real-time and real manner.