zfaust
I remember the creation of MySpace. I remember waiting for every opportunity to be home alone. Avoiding hangouts with friends, ditching family outings, and locking myself inside on summer days just so I could run to the computer room, log on to the shared desktop computer, and update my MySpace page.
I’d rearrange my top friends list, go down rabbit holes to find new artists and their latest EPs, and comment on the photos of those who commented on mine first. PC 4 PC :P
I was obsessed with this new form of being connected with communities. Growing up feeling different than my friends (thanks teen angst) I was desperate for any type of feeling that made me feel the slightest ounce of being wanted.
Not only that, but Myspace fostered a sense of individuality in it all. I could customize my page, add songs that I liked, upload photos of my life, and even flex my newly forming css muscles.
I’d love to say as the years passed, I’d slowly join each digital landscape, but I was immediately hooked to most of them. An internet junkie, I joined Facebook that same year. Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest entered my repertoire just as fast. I scrolled, watched, consumed, posted, and shared.
Day in and day out. I didn’t do it to be famous or to be an influencer either. That didn’t really exist back then, and even when people did have a large following, anyone on the outside didn’t really understand what that meant.
I did it because I was hooked. Obsessed with the idea that anyone, anywhere could know about me. And I could know about them.
I no longer felt alone. And no matter what, I was always with them as long as I had my phone. Although this little piece of technology has evolved with me over the last two decades, one thing has always remained constant: it has never left my side.
But one thing has changed: how I interact with these platforms. I still scroll. I still watch. And I still consume. But I rarely post. I don’t really share. And I don’t really use it to stay in touch with friends. And even when I do, I just share the occassional meme.
I became addicted to a diverse, beautiful landscape and over the years I watched it become poisoned. Despite becoming overpolluted with grifters, data collectors, and bots I remained, watching those worlds change for the worse.
Social media has become competitive over the last few years. As influencers gained popularity, and metrics became available to users, we began chasing engagement more and more. Not getting enough likes on photos of our vacations is insulting. No comments on our achievements guts us. And no shares on a video of us doing something good feels invalidating.
For creatives this feeling is amplified. Not getting enough comments and thumbs up on a post of our latest work made it feel like our work sucked. The lack of engagement tricks us into feeling invalidated in our work.
What we’d later come to learn is that our followers didn’t like our posts not because they hate us, but because the algortihms on the platforms are hiding our content.
This change in interaction makes me second-guess if I want to post anything at all. The landscape changed who has access to an audience. Who has access to their communities. If the post isn’t engaging, then it’s hidden.
This notion of perfection, freshness, and idealized creativity leaves me paralyzed. I don’t want to be a social media creator. I just want to have fun. Transforming from a sharer to a consumer still fulfills the bare minimum dopamine production, so for the longest time I was satisfied with just that.
But it begs me to ask the question: is it worth staying?
Most likely not.
The content on these platforms have no use to me. I no longer see photos of my friends. I no longer enjoy the regular updates from family far away. And I’m only shown the upsetting news in a neighborhood far away instead of what’s happening directly in the one I live in.
Sure I stay in contact with friends via the exchanging of memes and shitposts, but that just gives the platforms more of my attention. What happened to watching tv together? Or sharing a meal? Why do all of our interactions need to be hosted through these spaces?
This content is not useful to me anymore. It’s not entertaining-it’s stressful.
As Jess Henderson, the author of Offline Matters states, this content makes me “Too tired for action, too wound up to decompress.” I feel like I’ve lost all control of myself. All I can do is consume.
So maybe it’s time to break the chain. Make my peace known in the bio’s of my profiles, and log off for good. To return to a place of creation, and to forgo the realm of online consumption.
And if not return to uninhibited creation, then maybe just return to a world of boredom. Return to a life where perfection isn’t required to be seen. I can still go out and talk to the cashier at my grocery store, the elder on the bus, and the friendly patron sitting next to me at the bar.
At the end of the day I can still come here as well. Write my little diatribe, post a little visual, and keep moving on with the day. Unbothered by the metrics. Careless to engagement. And ignorant to the ever-changing algorithm. If you like something I shared the give me a call or tell me the next time we see each other.
I’d love to say this is a greater cry for more to leave those platforms, but it isn’t. Some people find genuine enjoyment, connection, and pleasure from scrolling, posting, and giving their attentions to the beasts. But for me as a creative trying to find my place in this world, logging off, deleting, and consciously wandering the physical and digital realms feels gentler.