Translator: Loana Mena Reviewer: Didar Omar
Many of you may wonder, or at least I do:
What’s social media for?
Social media, as we know it, is for gossiping, watching memes,
watching fun and entertaining content,
communicating with our loved ones,
getting closer to our friends, meeting new people,
and even flirting.
Social media already has many uses,
they serve us for absolutely everything.
But have you noticed that social media has changed?
I remember downloading Facebook how long ago? In 2008 or 2010.
At that time, you would only use it to stay in contact
with people with whom you had grown apart.
Now, social media is very useful to entertain us.
I download a new social network and I like watching videos.
If I’m bored, I can browse TikTok or I may watch memes.
It really helps us detach from reality.
Social media helps us to have fun.
And, in a way, it also helps us to de-stress.
Many people get out of work and what’s the first thing they do?
Well, they open TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Youtube.
or they listen to a podcast.
Social media distracts us from our stress and problems.
Entering a totally digital world.
However, social media has evolved in a different way.
Now, in 2021, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,
but social media has become a new way of teaching.
What do I mean?
Now, social media is not just filled with content
that we would consider trivial, meaningless or simple.
And what would this be?
Well, watching people dance or playing dumb pranks on others.
I don’t know, being funny.
Now we can actually find plenty of educational content,
lots of content that is useful to learn.
And this has had an even bigger boom during 2020 and 2021.
Especially due to the COVID pandemic.
The pandemic not only made all of us get closer
to out loved ones in a new way,
and meet new people in a totally digital manner
because we weren’t able to physically interact,
but it also changed educational methods.
The awful online classes.
I’m no longer a student,
but I see today’s students suffering them horribly.
And they say: ″I’m learning absolutely nothing!″
″Online classes are boring″.
″I’d rather watch TikTok than paying attention to slides″.
I can imagine it. Imagine:
If classroom lessons consisted in the teacher showing slides
and just reading them, or being like:
″Your classmates will present every class″
I can see how it is now in online classes:
totally boring and awful.
So, what happens then?
A lot of people started posting educational content on social media
with the purpose of teaching,
of sharing their knowledge in a very different way.
And we can see that in every social network.
TikTok is now the most popular platform.
There we can find plenty of professionals sharing their knowledge
talking about everything they know, sharing information
and complementing what students
of any educational level are learning in their online classes.
In 2020, I was a ″Godín″, an office worker.
I used to work in the 13th floor of a builiding
in one of the largest companies of international logistics.
To me, social media was something mundane.
I used it to watch memes, videos or to gossip with my friends.
And the truth is that I was unaware of how far it could reach.
I didn’t know how much social media could influence people.
And then, at the end of 2020,
I made one of the most important decisions in my life
I quitted my job as an office worker.
And maybe I was the only person
who decided to quit a steady job,
a good, well-paid job that allowed great professional growth,
in a pandemic.
So, what happened?
I didn’t get another job, evidently.
I couldn’t find somewhere else to work because no company was hiring.
Apart of being in the middle of a pandemic.
So I fell into depression.
Something like: “Damn, did I make the right decision?,
What will I do now? What will I do for a living?″
So then, during a thoughtful afternoon,
I decided to do what a 24-year-old man would usually do
I downloaded TikTok.
I downloaded TikTok
because I had nothing else to do. I used to be against it
I would tell my friends:
″Why do you use TikTok? You’re wasting your time″
I didn’t have the app because that was reality for me.
″If I already waste time on other apps, then TikTok will finish me″.
But I downloaded TikTok anyway and I came across a hilarious video
And I said: ″Wow! I want to do something like that too″.
The video showed a little ″face″ on a map,
with other ″faces″ arguing about the differences between UK and US English.
I had so much fun that I wanted to replicate the video
But then I wondered: ″How am I going to replicate this?″
So, what do I know about? I know History
Since I know lots of History, I’ll talk about it.
And I uploaded my first video that day. It was 15 seconds long.
It was a video about Mexico’s independence.
And when I woke up the next day,
I had 15000 followers and around 25000 views in that same video.
Wow!
Why? I couldn’t understand it.
So I started watching YouTube tutorials on how to be a ‘Tiktoker’.
And the tutorials said:
you have to upload more videos, you have to play with the algorithm.
So I decided to post videos constantly during that January.
Until mid-February,
when I got my first million followers.
A month later.
So I thought: ″Something interesting is going on here″.
I think I found a road I can follow.
I decided to keep talking about History, not only Mexican,
but World History as well.
Start talking about the history of all countries,
mentioning uknown facts, fun facts.
And I called it ″tidbits″. ″History tidbits″.
Throughout this time, many people have asked me:
″How do you know so much?″ ″Why are you so passionate about History?″
″Why did you decide to talk about it? It’s so boring and uninteresting″.
Maybe History is not as valuable as other sciences.
After all, it is a social science.
But I decided to talk about History
because when I was younger, maybe seven or eight years old,
I used to live in Oaxaca.
And one day, my grandparents visited us.
They were historians; History teachers.
And my mom told my grandma something like:
″Hey, Teca has a History test coming up. Why don’t you help him study?″
So my grandma sat down.
And something so simple, like explaining the Mexican Revolution to me,
ended up in a four-hour long lecture.
I was stunned.
Listening to my grandma talk about History felt like watching a movie.
I felt like I was in a play.
The talent that my grandparents had as History teachers
lay in them telling it in a simple yet complete way,
and entertaining too.
They were so passionate about it because they involved you in it.
They would even act it out.
And I’d think: ″Wow! I love this″.
From then on, I started reading lots of History.
I was really into Roman history,
for example, Greek history and Pre-Hispanic as well.
I remember that by reading those books, I’d imagine the scenes,
and those images would go directly to my brain.
And I’ve always liked it.
So when I grew up, when I was a young adult,
I was that typical guy in a party who would tell you History facts.
I’d be like: ″Did you know Pancho Villa had the first reality show in history?″
And people would say: ″Tell me more″.
And I would tell them but in a gossip-like way,
as if I had been there myself.
″You see, Pancho Villa this and that″.
And many times my friends would tell me:
″You should open a YouTube channel and explain History as you do″.
And I’d be like: ″Maybe later″.
To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in that.
But well, here I am now, in 2021, having one of the biggest
History communities in social media.
I not only realised that people liked History
and they just hadn’t been taught it right,
but I also noticed that, in general, people enjoy learning.
They like learning in different ways.
People are interested in science topics that
may be considered difficult or boring.
But as soon as someone comes and explains them in a fun,
eloquent, and engaging way, it is when you catch their attention.
And that’s what I’ve seen lately on social media,
especially on TikTok.
I’ve met science communicators
who take advantage of those platforms to tell us about any type of science,
be it Biology, History, Politics, Nutrition, Physics or Maths
In a completely different way that catches people’s attention,
and entertains them while they learn.
And people love learning.
That’s something that we haven’t noticed, and I didn’t even notice
that I used to hate Maths and Physics because I didn’t understand them.
So I found people who would explain it in such a simple and fun way
that if I had been taught like that in high school and university,
I would have understood and learnt.
This is something that has been growing a lot
and I want to encourage professionals
and experts to be on social media,
to tell us what they know, to share their knowledge.
And if you’re a teacher,
to try other methods because they exist and people enjoy them.
People like watching you, they follow comment and learn by doing so.
I believe that this change on social media has been very positive
because it allows us to comply with the only obligation
that we have in life, which is sharing our knowledge with others.
Thank you.