When it is all said and done, one must realise that the likes of Twitter & Facebook are just mediums of communication - ways in which we can transfer information from one part of the world to another. This mustn't be confused with the real, empirical world though if one wishes to assert their place in reality from the perspective driven by the will of the almighty. The border between the two isn't always clear, I mean social networking is not but a mere transfer medium of something far greater and I intend to show you what that is.
Firstly you can consider the advent and evolution of social networking to be something that forms a layer that makes the previous state of reality seem subordinate; it is not but a holographic entity from within the conceptual relational schema of reality - simply put symbols are taken for reality thus the original entity of reality is replaced by some kind of substitute (probably because people deem it to be more satisfying than that of the original) - this is evident because a lot of young people these days are self-conscious about how they appear, what they do etc... and pretty much everyone that was in their class at school will know what their occupation is, what their field of study is and whether an exotic holiday for them is either a trip to Blackpool or Rhyll or a trip over to one of the Caribbean islands (hence self-conciseness can be a rather huge bane of the human existence!). As I've aforementioned elsewhere on my blog, this is affirmative to the parable of Lazarus and the rich man - it is easy for a rich man these days to become immersed by social media, icons, symbols, adverts, films, music etc... and that leaves little in the way for a man to realise that he may actually want God's salvation; the rich man feels a false glow of satisfaction from the likes of seeing a thumbs up on his latest Facebook posting to being a complete and utter perfectionist (thus distorting his perception of perfect, finitude will always be less than perfect). Subconsciously, most people become integrated into the entity of reality seen as the silent majority, symbolically recognised by the likes of market statistics and the like. Escaping the constraints (or being a deaf-mute, that is how JD Salinger puts it - maybe then he, or rather the protagonist of Catcher in the Rye, will not have to make the obligatory "small talk" as people come up to him to be served) that are seemingly unwillingly placed upon us by the media and realising the benefits of utilising the crutch that is God can seem like a foreign, and sometimes arcane, chore to those part of the silent majority (for a bit of further reading look to the orders of simulacra as written by Jean Baudrillard. An anime called Stand Alone Complex, an extension to Ghost in the Shell, may also be worth a watch - the point conveyed isn't really theological, but it has a paralleled theological truth behind it once you delve into the implication of the whole "the laughing man" take over situation).
However I also feel as if you should realise that people will always judge you, no matter what. It is what we as humans do in order to assert who our allies and enemies are. These perceptions, however, are not exactly absolutes. People do only have substance from within the memories of other people. You may feel, at times, that there are different kinds of you. There isn't a lot of you per se, you are one person, all there is just a lot of conceptual ideas about you rooted from within the minds of your peers - they have to do this or else they couldn't build their immaterial map of reality thus navigate and actually survive. Your body exists in a totally different plane than your mind (Cartesian dualism) because if it didn't then how can you trust your reasoning? I can infer that chemicals only react, they do not reason. This, however, should only be used to show you that your potent body within reality will last for a finite amount of time only. You are the one staring into a shifting picture from within the transcendent gallery for the souls, but you take the picture as reality. Tell me, how do you define what is real? Anyway I'm digressing; I address that elsewhere on this blog you know! Oftentimes conditioned people will label you as an extremist, of some measure, if they do not agree with your point of view. Every one of us is conditioned anyway, for example one may associate the kitchen aromas with homeliness, kindness, comfort and cheeriness but take that at face value and you discover that one associates the unholy stench of blood coming from the juicy steak within the oven with comfort and cheeriness. If one gives you an insight into what they believe to be true for them then they are only trying to stick up for what they believe in. Now would not life be rather boring if we all shared the same ideas about things (do not confuse with morals though, those are absolute and if you want to know why then read some more of my blog - you'll discover your answer soon if you do that!!!)? Anyone and everyone is an extremist of something in my opinion anyway, even if they are in denial of that - you cannot be a thinking being if you hold no opinion about anything at all (to think presupposes opinion). Some meat eaters would freak out at the thought of the likes of dogs and cats being killed for meat yet these commonly domesticated animals are often eaten in parts of Asia. Yet these same meat eaters may not think twice about visiting a McDonalds, a KFC or Burger King and tucking into some flavoured carcass (or whatever body part it happens to be) that was once part of a cow grazing in a controlled field or a chicken (either free or confined to a small cage whereby its lack of exercise and therefore obesity crushes its legs) eating birdseed or whatever. A lot of what we deem to be acceptable comes from society and the symbols we're exposed to. I can guarantee that someone brought up on the Isle of Arran lives a different life coupled with different ambitions when compared to someone of the same age brought up in inner-city Glasgow. The Glaswegian will be used to the melting pot society and the hustle and bustle of the large megastores selling expensive electronics and articles of clothing whereby in Brodick (relatively large town, albeit village by Scottish standards, on the Isle of Arran) all a person would really be exposed to is a post office, a small paper shop and not much else other than Scottish people and the occasional tourist. You can call someone an extremist though for not blindly following the norms of the localised society though, just remember that you sow what you reap - be cognizant of that!!
So on that note I think that there is indeed a stigma associated with anything you do. Computer programmers may be judged as geeks, history teachers may be judged as boring, knitters may be judged as old-fashioned, sailors may be judged as polygamists (a woman at every port?), unemployed people may be judged as lazy and/or unambitious, crying people may be judged as attention-seeking, Guns 'n' Roses fans may be judged as loud and shallow, Boney-M fans may be judged as feminine, wine boffins may be judged as alcoholics, bankers may be judged as greedy and as for Christians - does it matter (go read Psalm 83:16! The Psalmist here implies that hiding your faith from people will shame you and as a result you'll seek God anyway. Oh, and this may be yet another digression but Genesis 9 verse 20 onwards is about Noah getting into a drunken stupor and making a fool of himself in front of his son called Ham - need an ark? I Noah guy - OK that may not be that applicable, but the aforementioned verse does relate to embarrassment in general)? You can be what you be and yes it is possible to strip away the constraints society places on you if that is what you want to do for you have free will (but you sow what you reap, remember? I'm not saying that you should break the law or commit a sin or whatever!!!), you are always doing x because you are always chasing y and oftentimes society helps you to achieve your goals! Although people judge, you can get over it! :)
P.S. for a bit of food for thought, ask yourself about what you need. You may say something like food or clothes but do you really? Is this more of a want than a need? Do we need anything? Even air? Not really, man needs nothing because the concept of need without a defined - or more likely implied - goal is obsolete. Man needs air because he wants to live makes more sense than man needs air (but in most cases the living part is implied anyway). Man needs God? Unless you subscribe to the notions implied by nihilism, I will attempt to turn the whole aforementioned concept on its head by saying yes, from a theological perspective - man needs God's love because man was designed to be coupled with a soul that would eternally despise the alternative to heaven, and theologically this is an absolute rule of thumb.
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