#PeopleYouMayKnow may lie on social media. So how well do you think you know me? I’m sharing 2 truths, 1 lie. You have 24 hours to guess my lie in the comments below. @PYMKmovie Challenge! 1) I went drunk bungie jumping in Cancun. 2) I have 9 piercings. 3) I'm a vegan. So, which is the lie that I’ll reveal tomorrow? Comment below with your best guess⬇️ If you get it wrong, its your turn to take the #peopleyoumayknow challenge: Take a selfie with a sign that reads, 2 Truths, 1 Lie and use the hashtag #PeopleYouMayKnow then challenge your friends to do the same! It's super fun😝 #sp #PYMKmovie #challenge #playalong #yourturn #selfie #netflix #film #influencer #marketing #campaign #sponsored (at Times Square, New York City)
Supporting each other’s adventures is the true spirit of friendship. Celebrating each other’s success as if it were your own is fullness coming from the fullness leaving only fullness in action. Loved seeing @kailysmithwestbrook movie @pymk_themovie at @thegrovela congrats and let’s built on that energy as we all get to Pause in our Joy. @melissafleis @cindyleos @pauseinjoywithsoffeah Be the best you can be, who knows what’s in there dormant! #thegrove #losangeles #holidaydecor #thegroveholidayfaire #pymkmovie
Would you pick up if I called? Peep my cameo in #pymkmovie. Screener going down tomorrow at the @SFFILM. More info 👉🏾 @pymkmovie ™@usher : #UsherNews #UsherWorld #TeamUsher4Life #Teamusher
Thione Niang | Inspiring Our Youth To Become Leaders
You can learn more about Thione Niang and The Give One Project and learn how you can become involved with what he is doing here.
With 27 siblings, Thione Niang knows a little something about organizing people for a common cause. He has been doing it his whole life! Moving on from organizing his siblings, Thione founded The Give One Project–a global non-profit organization focused on empowering and engaging youth to take social and political action in their communities.
In the years since founding The Give One Project, Thione continues to travel the world speaking to young people about leadership and service. He hosts an online social forum called “The Thione Niang Show” where he dedicates the conversation to socially conscious discourse about art, culture, business, and politics.
You can learn more about Thione Niang and The Give One Project and learn how you can become involved with what he is doing here.
“The incentives for green energy are great here, and D.C. is one of the nation’s greenest cities. I couldn’t imagine a better first stop to develop my art while having a chance to use it for something positive,” says Samantha when discussing why she left Florida a little over two years ago to relocate to D.C. with her now fiancé.
Samantha uses her talent and passion for art to educate others about important environmental issues currently affecting our planet. As an artist, she creates beautiful abstract pieces that address current concerns such as our overuse of plastic and global warming, which she says should be referred to as ‘global dying, not warming.’
“I want to be remembered as a compassionate person that had a positive impact on the world,” she says as we discuss her current job and what she hopes it will help her to accomplish. “I used to waitress in FL and D.C., and I was continually frustrated that my job did not allow me an outlet to share what I am passionate about. Thankfully, I am able to do that now.”
An Instagram fan, she says the social network allows others to share what they are feeling in a visual way, something she can relate to all too well.
When my husband and I moved our family from the Upper West Side to Park Slope two years ago, I felt a strange sort of loneliness.
The move had brought me geographically closer to my family and, as we had both grown up in the boroughs, we weren’t lacking for friends. Our weekends were packed with dinners and parties, brunches and drinks. We had old friends and newer friends with whom to spend our time.
But still, something was lacking.
What I was missing, more than anything, was acquaintances. I knew few people in our new hood and didn’t have many opportunities to meet anyone. I work from home and, since we moved mid-year, our children weren’t going to school in the neighborhood yet.
I didn’t recognize faces on the street like I had on the UWS; I didn’t have other moms to chit-chat with as our kids played on the swings. People are strange when you’re a stranger.
The lack of acquaintances translated into lacking a sense of being part of a community, which made me feel isolated.
Sure, I could call my best friend and talk for an hour about things that really matter, but what I needed during the other waking hours of the day was someone with whom to discuss where to get the best hole-in-the-wall Chinese food or to chat about the weather while ordering my coffee.
About two decades ago, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed a now-famous theory that a person could only really maintain about 150 friendships.
But at the time, only personal relationships were relevant — this was the era before social media.
So Dunbar recently set out to test a version of his thesis: If we apply Dunbar’s number to, say, Facebook friends, what would that mean? How would that translate into actual friendships?
Dunbar’s conclusion was that Facebook friends are no substitute for the real thing, suggesting that casual friends or acquaintances are overvalued.
Dunbar said that if you have 150 Facebook friends, you can likely only count on about four of them in a time of crisis. This was shared across the mediasphere as damning evidence that our Facebook friendships are shallow.
But that reaction, while rational, is wrong. It misunderstands the nature of a social circle and misses the importance of acquaintances.
Four friends who will be there for you if you need them at 3 a.m. is a solid number, and there’s nothing wrong with the other 146 friends playing a different role for you. The truth is the 3 a.m. crises are, hopefully, few and far between, and if you have four people you can turn to during those times, you’re already in a great place friend-wise.
But for the rest of your life it’s fine to have friends and acquaintances who tell you how cute you look in your profile pictures, play Words with Friends or leave comments when you crowdsource restaurants in a new city.
Offline this can translate to your neighbor taking in your packages while you’re away, a mom-friend keeping an eye on one of your children while you chase around the other or a variety of other casual interactions that make up our everyday lives.
It’s not just for convenience, either. A study out of Rutgers in 2014 found regular social interaction improves psychological well-being. The study found that “having continuously low levels of contact with neighbors, or losing contact with neighbors over the 10-year study period, was associated with declining levels of eudaimonic well-being.”
Facebook or Twitter certainly help with the feeling of community but, as this study shows, they’re not a substitute for real-life acquaintances.
It’s worthwhile, of course, to cultivate deep, lasting friendships. But it’s also important to appreciate the more casual friendships that are part of our daily routines. And of course, those deep friendships of ours began somewhere — the person who currently only garners a head nod as you pass in the street may someday be the one you call at 3 a.m.
Or perhaps just the one you text a few times a week to chat. There’s nothing wrong with that either.
This story was originally published in the New York Post on February 7, 2016.
She’s been called a voice of her generation and at only 17, she has done more to denounce cultural appropriation and defend black women than many might achieve in a lifetime.
A video she made for a school project where she schooled everyone about cultural appropriation and warned the world: “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” has nearly 2 million views on YouTube and we have a feeling that view count will continue to grow. Amandla continues to use her social media voice to bring attention to important topics. #BeSocialMediaMindful #PYMKmovie
Be sure to follow Amandla on Twitter and Instagram.
