Venmo: Reinforcing that I have no idea how social media works

Venmo: Reinforcing that I have no idea how social media works

Posted on December 1st, 2020 by Scott Warnock

I have again wrenched myself into the 21st century. Last year I did it through TikTok. This year, Venmo.

This Venmo thing took a big leap of technofaith, since I had only recently started depositing checks electronically. I was driving to the bank with paper checks in my leather wallet–I know, I know: it was, as the kids say, ridiculous. It was time to get modern.

I signed up for Venmo. Not long after, someone wanted to give me money. I told them my Venmo userid. And they did! Look at me, exchanging money online–whee!

Now if you are a late teen or 20-something, the rest of this will no doubt strike you in a “Wow that dude’s old” kind of way. You’ve been warned. But that’s where the story is.

So one day I open my Venmo (is “open my” the proper phrasing?) and look around, and I notice that I can see that Jimmy gave Jenny “$20 for drinkies.” Jeffy paid Jilly and there’s a French fries emoji. Somebody paid somebody for “Sticky Buns.” Serena paid Virgil accompanied by a GIF of a fingernail getting painted.

On and on. I was stupefied: What was I seeing? I’ll tell you, uh, whipper-snappers what I thought I was seeing: The intimate financial transactions of people, many of them strangers.

My befuddlement led me to what I thought was a good question: Why would people want other people to know how they spend their money?

I posed this very question to many of these people and others like them. The general response I believe can be summarized succinctly: “Who cares?” Not only did they not care, but few could even understand why it mattered.

If I thought this was weird, people said (sometimes stifling a yawn), I could simply make my own transactions private (ah–I had already done that!). But what was the difference?

This behavior was outside my sphere of understanding. In my world paradigm, financial transactions are private. They shouldn’t be social. They shouldn’t be media. Especially when it is easy for them not to be.

However, as I scrolled through the endless transaction list of pizzas and drinks and articles of clothing and drinks and tickets and drinks, money eagerly exchanging hands, I wondered if my perception was what needed changing.

Doubt crept in. Why should these things be private? In real life (IRL), wouldn’t I have seen these people in public with their drinkies and pizzas and other stuff, handing money to another person?

What’s the difference if I’m seeing it all secret-like on my phone? Who does care, and, in our digital world, what does it ultimately matter?

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Scott Warnock

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.