The culture of the U.S.

, specifically that of social media, has influenced my personality

by making me feel like I’m not good enough. This entire essay/response will probably get pretty

personal, so be prepared to hear me complain about my life.

The way that the U.S. is shown as the ‘land of dreams’ where if you have a dream, you

can accomplish it, is just plain false. There are plenty of dreams that I’ve had that probably won’t

come true. I want to be famous, just as most other people want to be. I’d love to be on a

Broadway stage, or play in the pit of a Broadway show. I’d love to write a best-selling book, or

to have a whole bunch of money. I dream of going into a field with no money and somehow

making infinite amounts of money. I realize that it’s still possible that those things could happen.

But the chance that any of that happening is so miniscule that it’s not even funny, but the way

that the media shows things like that tries to frame it as possible.

One example of this was the Walmart Yodeling Kid. He was just singing at Walmart,

then just 2 months later, he performed at Coachella alongside people like Beyoncé. He went

from being a nobody who enjoyed singing to then being a major social icon. While he may not

have as much popularity now, he has at least one album released, with probably more to be

released. The way that his story and video was spread around gives hope to people like me, who

think that doing something like that would make me incredibly famous. The reality of it,

however, is that there’s always going to be people better than me. Even with the Yodeling Kid,

there are plenty of child singers who are much better than he is, but for some random reason, he

became incredibly popular.

Social media affects my personality on a daily basis, just seeing people who are popular

who don’t deserve to be, or seeing ‘influencers’ who don’t give anything of value to society

make millions of dollars a year, and also seeing artists and musicians who barely make any many
or have any popularity, despite putting time and effort into everything they do. This affects my

personality because it makes me think that putting effort into something doesn’t pay off. The

Yodeling Kid may have worked on his voice, but I doubt that he had taken voice lessons for

years and years and just happened to be picked up on a national spotlight. He most likely just

enjoyed to sing and got famous because he was a cute kid who sounded kind of nice when he

sang. If I were to see people who devoted their life to something become famous for it, my

personality would be improved. I’d be able to point to something and say “Hard work pays off! I

should work hard!” But instead, I see people who don’t work hard become millionaires and

people who work hard go without the attention they deserve.