I have an interesting view of this as I have never really engaged with social media even though I am generally an early adopter. I have accounts to all of them, but rarely look at them, literally sometimes for years. The two I like best are what I refer to as anti social media, Discord and Reddit. There I control who and what I engage with. They are both terrible marketing platforms, but I think that is why I like them. Although as my friends know, I am terrible at even keeping up with direct messages, so I am just not built for social media. I just prefer in person communication.
I think I had a point when I started this, but I forgot it. Let's have coffee and discuss.
It’s a tough question. I built my fan base and arc team from scratch via Instagram. And although I’ve amassed a 1000 newsletter subscribers, I worry I’ll lose touch with what my readers are trending towards if I duck out completely. Writing to market on some level has many virtues in my genre. Of course, I’m an indie author so I am my own marketing team, PR team, and hype-man. It’s slightly different as a trad pub author. (You still do all that work for the most part but you give away a disproportionate amount of money for the benefit of ease of getting on shelves.)
Morally, I want off the ride. I also worry-and this ship has already sailed- that when they start cracking down on dissenters, my digital footprint is going to be the actual death of me. So in that way, it ultimately doesn’t matter. Lastly, social media can give a general sense of which way the tide is turning. I took a lot of comfort from Gen Z on TikTok during the election. We shall see.
I am in the process of leaving IG and FB. My main reason for being on FB is a couple of performance groups and local audition groups that help me with information/coaching and that don't exist on other platforms yet. I also have a couple friends in other countries and that is the main way that they keep up with folks and I truly enjoy seeing what they are doing. My main reason for being on IG is to keep up with friends and my niece and also a group that I am in there that as of yet doesn't have another platform. (Though that creator is looking for other options for hosting that group). For now I am trying to limit my engagement. I am on BlueSky and also Vero. I checked out pixelfed but I am stumped at having to choose a server- I don't understand how that works and how you would know which server your friends are on? And I am here. My oldest niece left social media and is here. I definitely think that my "Blogger" site combined with myspace days were my favorite internet days. I miss just subscribing to a lot of blogs and seeing what photos/music my friends were posting. I loved Myspace and IG (when it started) because I really just wanted to post photos and write little captions. I love taking photos and having an app to share them so easily was thrilling to me. But then it became what it is and it is much less thrilling but still my favorite place to post photos. I think that social media is a huge time suck and has a lot of other issues for society, but it also has it's good points and I wish there was a way to have more of the good and less of the bad. I think that this year I am going to try to write more actual letters again, and find other ways to stay in contact with those I care about. Maybe that will make leaving social media feel better? I think we have all relied on social media for being social in the broadest of ways and maybe we can get back to being a little more intentional and personalized in our communications? I also want to start making actual physical photo albums again. That was a huge part of my life in terms of documenting my life and memories before social media and now I know that I have started to use IG as my memory capturing space and now I feel tied to an app that doesn't care about me or my memories. It's weird isn't it? We all have a fear of leaving completely but everyone who has left seems pretty happy with their decision.
Boy, I feel everything you’re saying. I was thinking of coming up with a text list/email list, particularly to let people know about my creative endeavors. That way it would feel more personal and less like a blast of marketing.
I do most of my social media on the fediverse. No one owns it. There is no algorithm controlling what you see. There are many small servers with local control and moderation, and the people are more directly engaging with each other. Mastodon is like twitter in format, but better in practice. Pixelfed is like instagram in format, but better in practice, Peertube is lije Yiutube without sll the copyright scammers. Pick a social media thing you use, there is a Fediverse version of that, and all of these things interact with each other. There are no billionaires in control, and there never can be. This is the way.
I hadn’t heard of Pixelfed, that sounds awesome! The real problem, of course, is the network effect. Getting the publishing industry to move. What we need is Stephen King to join up. We’ve got him from twitter to BlueSky. A victory.
Yeah I think that a lot of people and industries have used ‘social’ media as a broadcast media or advertising media. I do this with music. I really only post on Meta platforms to promote my shows or albums on bandcamp. The problem with that is that I’m not being very social when I do it, and it doesn’t work well for me anyway. On Mastodon I follow a bunch of my favorite sci-fi authors, and tge engage there on a lot of topics ither than their books, and they respond to people who engage with them, so that feels goid for me as a fan, and I like these folks better now that I know them a bit. Do we want social media to be social, or do we want it to be an ad platform for us? I like the social side of it — like your comments forum here!
That’s a really, really good point. It’s disingenuous to call it a social network if I’m just endlessly self promoting. And if we’re all just doing that…who are we promoting TO?
All of this points to the question of why people even use these platforms in the first place. Instinctively we seek community, but then what do you do with that community? You just have people… there?
I generate visual media, I want people to watch it. I just happen to have a community of likeminded people who might enjoy it so I share it with them. Eventually, though, I don’t wanna give it away so it shifts into an ad platform to get people to pay for it in some way shape or form. And it doesn’t have to be visual media, I mean we’re all here doing newsletter/blog things. We’re generating the dreaded content. We may tell ourselves it’s to connect, but how honest is that?
We saw the transition to “marketing platform” happen in real time on MySpace and then get adopted by Facebook and Twitter.
I doubt that any platform can exist for long without the broadcasting becoming marketing at some point.
I think the only thing that will keep that from happening here anytime soon is the fact that monetization is built in.
It’s hard to build following online unless your “product” can be delivered in short video form. I’ve bought wallets and card games from social media ads. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book or an album because of jt.
Really? I’m surprised to hear that, especially with music. Especially because it’s kind of insidious how this kind of marketing works in you. It isn’t hearing someone say, “buy the album” it’s having a song from that album be used as a sound in a bunch of videos, it’s a beef between Kendrick and Drake leading to “Not Like Is” getting a billion streams.
This is why marketing via social media works so well, it makes you feel like it’s your idea, meanwhile your algorithm has been training you based on what it knows about you. It’s referral marketing on steroids.
You’re asking all the right questions and I have absolutely no answers. I respect your honesty. I am hoping to whittle down my social media use this year, but to what extent? I don’t know. In the meantime, I will Restack this thoughtful post to my 2 followers.
I deleted my Instagram today - and I feel nothing but wonder about why I didn’t do it sooner. The downsides of those platforms far outweigh the benefits, especially when I put aside my own personal reasons and considered their impact on society, the priorities of the heads of these companies and their stance towards world issues. I didn’t want to support any of them anymore through my own membership.
I enjoyed reading this because I’m currently going through a crisis of cyber identity. At its core, it’s fear, exactly as you mentioned. The fear that we will cease to exist, at least not in the way modern society has defined existence. For me, that kind of self-erasure was necessary. To become human again. Not a slave. Freeing oneself is a harder process than any real captivity.
When I deleted all the posts from my personal Instagram account, nothing happened. I didn’t die. No one even missed me. And then, life began.
The public is great, until they’re not. When you have a large audience following your work and life, as I did, they eventually start pushing boundaries. You offer value - they want more. But not necessarily your knowledge, they want you, the private corners of your personality so they can shape it to suit their comfort and punish you for the rest. I was so overwhelmed by the specific rhythm of social networks and how they manipulate your personality that I started acting like I was in a toxic relationship. Deactivate for weeks or days, then come back, repeat. Apologies if your comment was just a bait to get me to respond and boost the algorithm, but I’m new here. This space feels like an escape, or at least a transition between my need to be present among others and my infatuation with solitude. Maybe someone out there feels the same.
YES! All these thoughts. And today I got a notice about meta AI reading our messages, accessing photos and everything we’ve sent—it’s completely creepy.
Thank you Jeff for sharing this! I'm new here at Substack, and since the last couple of days I've found myself reading a lot of interesting and inspiring texts! This post caught my eye since I've always had an aversion to social media. I don't want to be there. Period. But I have still felt myself being pushed in there for several reasons - over and over again. And every time it ends up with me feeling sick and tired of the unreality that surrounds me in that world of fakeness. Since 2021 I'm totally social media-free, and I have never felt better! Because I'm free and live my life completely IRL! BUT, now I have a problem ... I'm about to launch my debut book here in Sweden where I live, in May. It's a selfbiography about the struggle of trying to be and express your true nature, in a society that wants you to adapt and fit in. Guess what the publishers want me to do...? Of course to get on the platforms! So I can sell, sell, sell and interact with potential readers (because that's what will make people buy the book, I hear). But in my book, I'm clear about my thoughts on this whole thing - that it's a trap. And that when you're in, you can't break free from the convictions that "this is where you NEED to be." Especially if you want to be an entreprenour, or in this case - a writer. Because what's actually IN the book, doesn't seem to matter ...? And this is where I'm at now; actually thinking of getting back in there again. Because if I'm not, maybe I don't really do my best to try and sell this book ... But this post got me to believe in my own thoughts again. And put a smile on my face, realizing that I'm not alone! So once again, thank you for sharing these valuable thoughts!
Thanks for sharing your dilemma. I highly recommend DEEP WORK. The logic and math of how little social media posts affect book sales is fairly decisive. There are other ways to build relationships with readers. On substack, my reader count is only a fraction of my follower count from twitter and other platforms…but the depth and quality of the relationships are profoundly deeper. The two don’t even compare.
Sometimes I hate that I feel addicted to IG. And I really only have FB as a way for my estranged mother to contact me if she wanted to... 8 months with no contact so not holding my breath. Either way if you figure out how to reconcile your relationship with social media let me know how you did so I can too.
This post speaks in colors to me, being an unpublished novel writer and poet who is looking in more directions than a compass rose can provide to make head way into the world of writing. Social media really seemed to be the direction I need to take with my writing. However, with everything that has surfaced in this election and the billionaires who surround it, I have really placed extra energy into not using the social media apps which drill more issues to our surface and then make gross amounts of money from it. Of course I am talking about Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X and Amazon. I write because it's who I am, where every direction is pointing to.
I really relate and appreciate that your writing made me feel understood. Thank you!
Jeff, it was great to hear you sing a happy birthday song to an aging uncle. Thank you so much for that. Regarding social media, I rarely look at FB, usually just to clear all the messages that have accumulated, and I rarely look at IG, and surprisingly, I'm still here. I just don't want to take the time to stay up to date. I know I'm missing stuff from family and friends, and I care about that, but the time to sort for that and fight my way through BS is just too much. And now I'm older, and for the moment, still here.
Thanks, uncleDon. It was wonderful to see you and hang out with the cousins and your extended friends and family. I agree, the signal to noise ratio is very low on social media. What we need is an algorithm that filters out the bullshit!
I broke up with Facebook unwittingly (last summer, my account was hacked by some bad actor who posted violent, graphic pictures, unbeknownst to me. Meta's algorithm-driven, hunter-killer bots saw the pics, yanked them, and yanked my entire FB and IG presence within a day. I never found out what the photos looked like, who saw them, how long they were there...nothing. Just "This Account Has Been Permanently Deleted for Violations of Facebook's Content Policies." No appeals process, no 800 numbers, no email addresses to file a complaint or register a protest of innocence. 17 years of social media scrapbooking and memory storage- simply smoked. It was shocking, and I feared the pulling of this plug I considered a necessity might send me into some kind of spiral.
But it didn't happen.
After reeling for a few days, I noticed I had more free time. Time to dedicate to my special needs toddler. Time to dust off and finally finish that stack of books hidden from view years before. Time to stop and stand in the sunshine and get my face out of a goddamned screen. I don't miss Facebook or Instagram at all. Like at ALL at all. Losing these crutches; these doorways to sloth, has been the best thing that's happened to me in years. I entertain the notion of potentially reestablising some kind of online presence...somewhere, from time to time. But, for now, I am happily rediscovering the joys of kicking back on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and a good old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, pages-made-out-of-actual-paper, book. Reading feels like coming home. You should take the plunge and 86 all of it. Today. Social media sucks. I suspected it for a long time, but it took having it ripped from my grasp to believe it. You can do it, my friend. Let me know how it goes.
I definitely needed to hear this. I got summarily kicked off Facebook too, and by some miracle (or curse?) it all came back. It’s a crazy machine over which we have no control. I really appreciate your words, and I will take them to Heart.
I quit Facebook and Instagram. I quit Twitter during Covid. For someone who is a non-quitter, the lack of accountability on most social media platforms, not to mention the toxicity was more than my fragile boomer heart could deal with. Do I miss these platforms? Of course. I miss seeing my family and friends. But I have other means of communicating with them that really didn't depend on social media. I am calmer without it. I have returned to my first true love, that being reading. I am ashamed that I shoved my love of reading aside for so long. I am learning a new hobby. Sounds trite and somewhat pollyannaish I would say. But for me, at this point in my life, it is what I felt was best for me. With that said, I am ALWAYS open to new things!
WOOF, Jeff...never has something been more SPOT ON. And you hit on exactly what I hate about it all lately.
There are a few times when I catch GENUINE emotion on a YouTube video or something and it moves me so much because it's so RARE. (I think it's why people love the Tom Holland Umbrella video. I also love the Virtue Moir Moulin Rouge performance. And there is this happy dog video I watch over and over again.) Everything else is so performative - holding up a phone while we cry into the camera for likes in hopes that we sell more widgets or whatever. It's all so disgusting. None of it is real.
I made a ton of very good friends on message boards back in the early internet days and we have all followed each other around to various social media sites. I feel like it's how we hold on to each other. But every time we move to a new one, we lose a few more people. It's sad, but how many times are we going to pack up and move? Do we even want to anymore?
Thing is, even when it's authentic, it's performative, because there's a camera and you know it. And maybe it's time for quality over quantity. Thanks for reading.
I logged off FB, IG, and Threads a little over a week ago. I've been off X/Twitter for several years. Unlike you, cuz, I'm not a published writer nor will I ever be one. I just write for my own enjoyment on Substack. The only other social site I'm on is BlueSky which is in its infancy - but I do like it for its lack of algorithmic ads that pop up in your feed constantly like on Meta apps. Since leaving those Meta apps I have had far more free time. I'm reading more than I have in a number of years - already finished 3 books in the past couple of weeks and I'm into my 4th by Lafcadio Hearn (it's all about New Orleans in the 1800's). I'm also playing and composing more in my ill equipped but functional studio. I can't say whether or not I'll start using FB or IG again (the accounts are still active) but as of now I feel my wee brain is regaining some long dormant cellular goo. And I'm just fine with that.
I have an interesting view of this as I have never really engaged with social media even though I am generally an early adopter. I have accounts to all of them, but rarely look at them, literally sometimes for years. The two I like best are what I refer to as anti social media, Discord and Reddit. There I control who and what I engage with. They are both terrible marketing platforms, but I think that is why I like them. Although as my friends know, I am terrible at even keeping up with direct messages, so I am just not built for social media. I just prefer in person communication.
I think I had a point when I started this, but I forgot it. Let's have coffee and discuss.
I would love to have coffee and discuss. It has been too long since I saw you in person. Another
Commenter brought up a good point, that what we think of as “social media” is actually “marketing media.” Discord and Reddit are far more social.
It’s a tough question. I built my fan base and arc team from scratch via Instagram. And although I’ve amassed a 1000 newsletter subscribers, I worry I’ll lose touch with what my readers are trending towards if I duck out completely. Writing to market on some level has many virtues in my genre. Of course, I’m an indie author so I am my own marketing team, PR team, and hype-man. It’s slightly different as a trad pub author. (You still do all that work for the most part but you give away a disproportionate amount of money for the benefit of ease of getting on shelves.)
Morally, I want off the ride. I also worry-and this ship has already sailed- that when they start cracking down on dissenters, my digital footprint is going to be the actual death of me. So in that way, it ultimately doesn’t matter. Lastly, social media can give a general sense of which way the tide is turning. I took a lot of comfort from Gen Z on TikTok during the election. We shall see.
I feel all of this. And I imagine being an indie author comes with a whole matched set of baggage you have to lug up stairs. I read this today, and it gave me some great ideas: https://substack.com/@jeffgarvin/note/c-89866362?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=dxpy0
I am in the process of leaving IG and FB. My main reason for being on FB is a couple of performance groups and local audition groups that help me with information/coaching and that don't exist on other platforms yet. I also have a couple friends in other countries and that is the main way that they keep up with folks and I truly enjoy seeing what they are doing. My main reason for being on IG is to keep up with friends and my niece and also a group that I am in there that as of yet doesn't have another platform. (Though that creator is looking for other options for hosting that group). For now I am trying to limit my engagement. I am on BlueSky and also Vero. I checked out pixelfed but I am stumped at having to choose a server- I don't understand how that works and how you would know which server your friends are on? And I am here. My oldest niece left social media and is here. I definitely think that my "Blogger" site combined with myspace days were my favorite internet days. I miss just subscribing to a lot of blogs and seeing what photos/music my friends were posting. I loved Myspace and IG (when it started) because I really just wanted to post photos and write little captions. I love taking photos and having an app to share them so easily was thrilling to me. But then it became what it is and it is much less thrilling but still my favorite place to post photos. I think that social media is a huge time suck and has a lot of other issues for society, but it also has it's good points and I wish there was a way to have more of the good and less of the bad. I think that this year I am going to try to write more actual letters again, and find other ways to stay in contact with those I care about. Maybe that will make leaving social media feel better? I think we have all relied on social media for being social in the broadest of ways and maybe we can get back to being a little more intentional and personalized in our communications? I also want to start making actual physical photo albums again. That was a huge part of my life in terms of documenting my life and memories before social media and now I know that I have started to use IG as my memory capturing space and now I feel tied to an app that doesn't care about me or my memories. It's weird isn't it? We all have a fear of leaving completely but everyone who has left seems pretty happy with their decision.
Boy, I feel everything you’re saying. I was thinking of coming up with a text list/email list, particularly to let people know about my creative endeavors. That way it would feel more personal and less like a blast of marketing.
Yeah. Back to a “call everyone I know” day.
Back to the days of listservs!
alt.apathy
I do most of my social media on the fediverse. No one owns it. There is no algorithm controlling what you see. There are many small servers with local control and moderation, and the people are more directly engaging with each other. Mastodon is like twitter in format, but better in practice. Pixelfed is like instagram in format, but better in practice, Peertube is lije Yiutube without sll the copyright scammers. Pick a social media thing you use, there is a Fediverse version of that, and all of these things interact with each other. There are no billionaires in control, and there never can be. This is the way.
I hadn’t heard of Pixelfed, that sounds awesome! The real problem, of course, is the network effect. Getting the publishing industry to move. What we need is Stephen King to join up. We’ve got him from twitter to BlueSky. A victory.
Yeah I think that a lot of people and industries have used ‘social’ media as a broadcast media or advertising media. I do this with music. I really only post on Meta platforms to promote my shows or albums on bandcamp. The problem with that is that I’m not being very social when I do it, and it doesn’t work well for me anyway. On Mastodon I follow a bunch of my favorite sci-fi authors, and tge engage there on a lot of topics ither than their books, and they respond to people who engage with them, so that feels goid for me as a fan, and I like these folks better now that I know them a bit. Do we want social media to be social, or do we want it to be an ad platform for us? I like the social side of it — like your comments forum here!
That’s a really, really good point. It’s disingenuous to call it a social network if I’m just endlessly self promoting. And if we’re all just doing that…who are we promoting TO?
All of this points to the question of why people even use these platforms in the first place. Instinctively we seek community, but then what do you do with that community? You just have people… there?
I generate visual media, I want people to watch it. I just happen to have a community of likeminded people who might enjoy it so I share it with them. Eventually, though, I don’t wanna give it away so it shifts into an ad platform to get people to pay for it in some way shape or form. And it doesn’t have to be visual media, I mean we’re all here doing newsletter/blog things. We’re generating the dreaded content. We may tell ourselves it’s to connect, but how honest is that?
We saw the transition to “marketing platform” happen in real time on MySpace and then get adopted by Facebook and Twitter.
I doubt that any platform can exist for long without the broadcasting becoming marketing at some point.
I think the only thing that will keep that from happening here anytime soon is the fact that monetization is built in.
But, again, we’ll see.
It’s hard to build following online unless your “product” can be delivered in short video form. I’ve bought wallets and card games from social media ads. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book or an album because of jt.
Really? I’m surprised to hear that, especially with music. Especially because it’s kind of insidious how this kind of marketing works in you. It isn’t hearing someone say, “buy the album” it’s having a song from that album be used as a sound in a bunch of videos, it’s a beef between Kendrick and Drake leading to “Not Like Is” getting a billion streams.
This is why marketing via social media works so well, it makes you feel like it’s your idea, meanwhile your algorithm has been training you based on what it knows about you. It’s referral marketing on steroids.
You’re asking all the right questions and I have absolutely no answers. I respect your honesty. I am hoping to whittle down my social media use this year, but to what extent? I don’t know. In the meantime, I will Restack this thoughtful post to my 2 followers.
😂thanks Michelle. I appreciate you. And your followers.
I deleted my Instagram today - and I feel nothing but wonder about why I didn’t do it sooner. The downsides of those platforms far outweigh the benefits, especially when I put aside my own personal reasons and considered their impact on society, the priorities of the heads of these companies and their stance towards world issues. I didn’t want to support any of them anymore through my own membership.
Thank you for sharing. I’m still clinging. Perhaps I can muster the courage this year.
I enjoyed reading this because I’m currently going through a crisis of cyber identity. At its core, it’s fear, exactly as you mentioned. The fear that we will cease to exist, at least not in the way modern society has defined existence. For me, that kind of self-erasure was necessary. To become human again. Not a slave. Freeing oneself is a harder process than any real captivity.
When I deleted all the posts from my personal Instagram account, nothing happened. I didn’t die. No one even missed me. And then, life began.
Thanks for sharing. Your exodus is inspiring. I want to know more about your cyber identity crisis.
The public is great, until they’re not. When you have a large audience following your work and life, as I did, they eventually start pushing boundaries. You offer value - they want more. But not necessarily your knowledge, they want you, the private corners of your personality so they can shape it to suit their comfort and punish you for the rest. I was so overwhelmed by the specific rhythm of social networks and how they manipulate your personality that I started acting like I was in a toxic relationship. Deactivate for weeks or days, then come back, repeat. Apologies if your comment was just a bait to get me to respond and boost the algorithm, but I’m new here. This space feels like an escape, or at least a transition between my need to be present among others and my infatuation with solitude. Maybe someone out there feels the same.
YES! All these thoughts. And today I got a notice about meta AI reading our messages, accessing photos and everything we’ve sent—it’s completely creepy.
Thank you Jeff for sharing this! I'm new here at Substack, and since the last couple of days I've found myself reading a lot of interesting and inspiring texts! This post caught my eye since I've always had an aversion to social media. I don't want to be there. Period. But I have still felt myself being pushed in there for several reasons - over and over again. And every time it ends up with me feeling sick and tired of the unreality that surrounds me in that world of fakeness. Since 2021 I'm totally social media-free, and I have never felt better! Because I'm free and live my life completely IRL! BUT, now I have a problem ... I'm about to launch my debut book here in Sweden where I live, in May. It's a selfbiography about the struggle of trying to be and express your true nature, in a society that wants you to adapt and fit in. Guess what the publishers want me to do...? Of course to get on the platforms! So I can sell, sell, sell and interact with potential readers (because that's what will make people buy the book, I hear). But in my book, I'm clear about my thoughts on this whole thing - that it's a trap. And that when you're in, you can't break free from the convictions that "this is where you NEED to be." Especially if you want to be an entreprenour, or in this case - a writer. Because what's actually IN the book, doesn't seem to matter ...? And this is where I'm at now; actually thinking of getting back in there again. Because if I'm not, maybe I don't really do my best to try and sell this book ... But this post got me to believe in my own thoughts again. And put a smile on my face, realizing that I'm not alone! So once again, thank you for sharing these valuable thoughts!
Thanks for sharing your dilemma. I highly recommend DEEP WORK. The logic and math of how little social media posts affect book sales is fairly decisive. There are other ways to build relationships with readers. On substack, my reader count is only a fraction of my follower count from twitter and other platforms…but the depth and quality of the relationships are profoundly deeper. The two don’t even compare.
Thanks again, I really appreciate your thoughts and recommendations on this🙏
Sometimes I hate that I feel addicted to IG. And I really only have FB as a way for my estranged mother to contact me if she wanted to... 8 months with no contact so not holding my breath. Either way if you figure out how to reconcile your relationship with social media let me know how you did so I can too.
I will most certainly share if I do. FWIW, I think keeping the door open for your mom is an excellent reason to stay on FB.
This post speaks in colors to me, being an unpublished novel writer and poet who is looking in more directions than a compass rose can provide to make head way into the world of writing. Social media really seemed to be the direction I need to take with my writing. However, with everything that has surfaced in this election and the billionaires who surround it, I have really placed extra energy into not using the social media apps which drill more issues to our surface and then make gross amounts of money from it. Of course I am talking about Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X and Amazon. I write because it's who I am, where every direction is pointing to.
I really relate and appreciate that your writing made me feel understood. Thank you!
Thanks, C.G. This is a messed up time to be sure—the most important time for art to rise.
Jeff, it was great to hear you sing a happy birthday song to an aging uncle. Thank you so much for that. Regarding social media, I rarely look at FB, usually just to clear all the messages that have accumulated, and I rarely look at IG, and surprisingly, I'm still here. I just don't want to take the time to stay up to date. I know I'm missing stuff from family and friends, and I care about that, but the time to sort for that and fight my way through BS is just too much. And now I'm older, and for the moment, still here.
Thanks, uncleDon. It was wonderful to see you and hang out with the cousins and your extended friends and family. I agree, the signal to noise ratio is very low on social media. What we need is an algorithm that filters out the bullshit!
Jeff-
I broke up with Facebook unwittingly (last summer, my account was hacked by some bad actor who posted violent, graphic pictures, unbeknownst to me. Meta's algorithm-driven, hunter-killer bots saw the pics, yanked them, and yanked my entire FB and IG presence within a day. I never found out what the photos looked like, who saw them, how long they were there...nothing. Just "This Account Has Been Permanently Deleted for Violations of Facebook's Content Policies." No appeals process, no 800 numbers, no email addresses to file a complaint or register a protest of innocence. 17 years of social media scrapbooking and memory storage- simply smoked. It was shocking, and I feared the pulling of this plug I considered a necessity might send me into some kind of spiral.
But it didn't happen.
After reeling for a few days, I noticed I had more free time. Time to dedicate to my special needs toddler. Time to dust off and finally finish that stack of books hidden from view years before. Time to stop and stand in the sunshine and get my face out of a goddamned screen. I don't miss Facebook or Instagram at all. Like at ALL at all. Losing these crutches; these doorways to sloth, has been the best thing that's happened to me in years. I entertain the notion of potentially reestablising some kind of online presence...somewhere, from time to time. But, for now, I am happily rediscovering the joys of kicking back on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and a good old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, pages-made-out-of-actual-paper, book. Reading feels like coming home. You should take the plunge and 86 all of it. Today. Social media sucks. I suspected it for a long time, but it took having it ripped from my grasp to believe it. You can do it, my friend. Let me know how it goes.
I definitely needed to hear this. I got summarily kicked off Facebook too, and by some miracle (or curse?) it all came back. It’s a crazy machine over which we have no control. I really appreciate your words, and I will take them to Heart.
I quit Facebook and Instagram. I quit Twitter during Covid. For someone who is a non-quitter, the lack of accountability on most social media platforms, not to mention the toxicity was more than my fragile boomer heart could deal with. Do I miss these platforms? Of course. I miss seeing my family and friends. But I have other means of communicating with them that really didn't depend on social media. I am calmer without it. I have returned to my first true love, that being reading. I am ashamed that I shoved my love of reading aside for so long. I am learning a new hobby. Sounds trite and somewhat pollyannaish I would say. But for me, at this point in my life, it is what I felt was best for me. With that said, I am ALWAYS open to new things!
I love hearing all the positive things you’re doing INSTEAD of social media.
"it was self-exploitation as a bid for attention"
WOOF, Jeff...never has something been more SPOT ON. And you hit on exactly what I hate about it all lately.
There are a few times when I catch GENUINE emotion on a YouTube video or something and it moves me so much because it's so RARE. (I think it's why people love the Tom Holland Umbrella video. I also love the Virtue Moir Moulin Rouge performance. And there is this happy dog video I watch over and over again.) Everything else is so performative - holding up a phone while we cry into the camera for likes in hopes that we sell more widgets or whatever. It's all so disgusting. None of it is real.
I made a ton of very good friends on message boards back in the early internet days and we have all followed each other around to various social media sites. I feel like it's how we hold on to each other. But every time we move to a new one, we lose a few more people. It's sad, but how many times are we going to pack up and move? Do we even want to anymore?
Thing is, even when it's authentic, it's performative, because there's a camera and you know it. And maybe it's time for quality over quantity. Thanks for reading.
Agreed! More signal, less noise.
I logged off FB, IG, and Threads a little over a week ago. I've been off X/Twitter for several years. Unlike you, cuz, I'm not a published writer nor will I ever be one. I just write for my own enjoyment on Substack. The only other social site I'm on is BlueSky which is in its infancy - but I do like it for its lack of algorithmic ads that pop up in your feed constantly like on Meta apps. Since leaving those Meta apps I have had far more free time. I'm reading more than I have in a number of years - already finished 3 books in the past couple of weeks and I'm into my 4th by Lafcadio Hearn (it's all about New Orleans in the 1800's). I'm also playing and composing more in my ill equipped but functional studio. I can't say whether or not I'll start using FB or IG again (the accounts are still active) but as of now I feel my wee brain is regaining some long dormant cellular goo. And I'm just fine with that.
I love that you’re writing and playing more! I’m on BlueSky as well, but so far it just feels like Twitter’s refugee camp.