The problem with social media, if you ask me, which you certainly did not, is the voice lent to those who are all too happy to say the things they’d dare not say to another person, in person. The lure of anonymity is just too heady for some folks. In 1938, Orson Welles and his troop of actors went on the radio for a recitation of an HG Wells original novel “The War of the Worlds” on the series The Mercury Theater on Air. Except, they just acted out the scenes. They didn’t tell anyone this was a book of fiction about Martians taking over the earth. Panic ensued. People thought a performance, made and specifically engineered to upset others, was real. In a case of no harm, no foul, the FCC ruled that no laws were broken. Orson Welles landed a contract with a studio and wrote/produced/ directed/starred in Citizen Kane, while later reenacting his Martian moment on my favorite I Love Lucy episode. That’s my take on social media. Anyone can get their 15 minutes. They don’t even have to tell the truth. They just have to fool you. But, as with life, the good always comes with the bad, and vice versa. I cannot abandon social media because I have found so much pureness and goodness hiding in the tacky crevices. Take Canadian born Shina Novalinga, for instance. She’s been trending in my Instagram Reels lately. And, she’s making a big difference. To understand Shina’s Canadian experience, we must pay homage to 2 separate but connected travesties: The Sixties Scoop & the MMIW crisis. See, Shina Novalinga is a college student studying business management. But, that’s the last thing she’d tell you about herself. She wants you to know that she’s a proud Inuk. Where once she was ridiculed for embracing her Inuit customs, like the homemade parkas handcrafted by her mother and their art of throat singing, a custom that could easily have been lost, she’s focused on bringing her culture back to the forefront. But, in order to see where Shina is going, we have to examine where her culture has been. Remember when Austin Powers lost his mojo and had to time travel? We’re going back to the 60s.
