On a chilly September 2013 afternoon, Robyn Rihanna Fenty changed the way the game of engagement was played. Having incited a petty Twitter argument after cracking a rather mean joke, the Bajan Badgal tweeted an infamous, now deleted, scripture from the Twitter Book of Coconuts:

I REFUSE to help your career… you will NOT get an @ from me! Not til you pay me! #Nomorefreepromo #iRefuse

You see, while her - then - opponent continued throwing petty digs and retorts her way, Robyn Rihanna Fenty simply reminded the world she hated broke b*tches, changed her header image to an unflattering photo highlighting the net worth difference between the two women, logged off the internet and...I don't know, it was 2013 so, went to smoke a blunt probably.

To this day it is not the incident itself which resonates in my mind, though it does remain one of the Top Five reasons why I am both in love and scared of Rihanna, but the statement, "I REFUSE to help your career" and the hashtag, No More Free Promo.

You see, the trouble with engagement is that it holds the potential of being monetized. The biggest problem I have with it with regards to social media, today? Your clicks, retweets and shares of purely awful individuals can be monetized and boosted across most all platforms. In today's society, now just about anyone and anything can come up off a well tailored, polarizing mythos and a few clicks.

And this, my friends, is where we will do what is known as, quick maths:

What happens when people and corporations see the potential to accumulate mass wealth in a short amount of time? They attempt to recreate that phenomena or insert it everywhere so as to encourage engagement. As a result, people and corporations have found a way to capitalize off fleeting moments of infamy (usually as boosted by polarizing opinions towards said phenomena) knowing that surges in activity will continue to line the pockets of all except the person and people boosting their product or content.

Do you know how many people have literally flipped and fumbled a bag off the knowledge that inciting or riding upon the coattails of some form of phenomena would provide them with immense capital?

How quickly we forget what killed Vine, what is slowly killing YouTube.

#Ad #Sponsored

Why do you think corporations like Burger King, Wendy's, the FB-freaking-I and even the CI-f*cking-A always attempt humor and engagement with popular culture topics on social media?

Because they like you? Because the Social Media Manager is just that funny?

Look, I try not to fault people for the manner in which they get their coins. The cost of living continually increases, meanwhile the livable wage remains stagnant and pathetic.

We've all gotta do what we need to survive - no extreme (see: some mild) judgement here.

However I'm going to need people to be a lot smarter about the content they engage with, about the phenomena they help support, about the people whose socioeconomic capital they increase.

You cannot willingly dispense free promo and then get upset when you do not see a penny of compensation for all the 'efforts' you have put in. Nor can you get upset when the formula works against your favor by boosting the phenomena you either hate or love.

We have to use our better judgement and be more discerning about just what we give our time to -because I am not a believer in doling out free promo and then demanding acknowledgement or credit for doing so.

How does that make any sense? You freely gave your attention, energy and clicks to something, and once finished doing that, you believed you were entitled to raise an invoice???? Or got mad at the corresponding consequence of your engagement???

That...is not how that works.

I am not a believer in allotting any of my precious time to the people, places or things I hate.

I will NOT help your career, nor will I drink your sweet alcohol, argue with you about the 2nd Amendment, the rights of Man, the Black American Female Experience, or intersectional inequality.

Matter of fact, I don't even know who you are or to whom I am speaking.

Sorry, wrong number.