Building A Life Beyond “Social Media”
Facebook & Instagram. Twitter (I will never call it “X”). YouTube. Tik Tok (cringe territory). Snapchat. All of those now mainstream “social media” platforms. And even some lesser known ones quickly gaining popularity, like BlueSky Social; a real alternative to Twitter, with the original look and feel as it used to be.
No More Social Media
However, for me there is no more Facebook or Instagram (or anything to do with Meta & Zuckerberg), or Twitter (hard pass on the Neo Nazi). I was never on Tik Tok or Snapchat, thankfully. I watch creators on YouTube I’ve already been supporting for years, but I no longer look for new creators to subscribe to, even when recommended. I don’t post my own content there and have no intention of doing so in the immediate future. Every once in a while, I’ll comment and have some engagement — otherwise, I’m rather quiet.
Why the Shift?
I’m over the algorithms embedded everywhere. I’m over the constant political gaslighting and propaganda here in the States. I’m over the flaming wars in the comment sections, the unsolicited “opinions” (hate & shade) from anonymous “keyboard warriors” falsely believing they know everything about anything and spewing paragraphs of spiteful, tone-deaf vitriol. I’m not interested in the mainstream hijacked political correctness, the label/identity wars, and the obnoxious virtue signaling. I’m absolutely disgusted by all the greenwashing and lack of truly sustainable solutions. Don’t even get me started on the virtual ad-pocalypse and constant push for rampant consumption and influencer economy on nearly every platform and website. Seriously, it’s becoming quite rare to go to a website with NO Google Adsense flashing random crap on every available inch of screen space. Personally branded blog posts are the worst offenders — why bother writing anything on the page when I can’t see anything but ads everywhere?
There is much more to complain about, but I’ve decided to keep this somewhat ‘professional’.
So, Where am I?
I haunt Substack and Tumblr mostly. I used to be a Tumblr some time back (5 to 7 years ago?) but it was largely giving 4Chan vibes so I left. Things have appeared to calm down and shift priorities now, with the flavor of content. I am planning to post the majority of my content moving forward between Substack and Tumblr, perhaps equally. Of course, on my website blog a few times each month. That means I’m posting Liminal Sphere related writings, some experimental pieces, some “behind-the-scenes” stuffs, and perhaps some video content in the near future.
I have a profile and a plethora of boards over on Pinterest (for quite a while now) that I frequent almost daily for ideas and inspiration. I’ve also been on Reddit to some degree for a few years now, on and off. Discord was something I was introduced to a few years ago as well, and still hop in a server or two every once in awhile, and also open to DMs from people I know and trust. However, I’m mostly offline, because that’s the real social life.
My Future in Online Connection
I’m experiencing a bit of an evolution, a paradigm shift, in the way I now approach the Internet. It’s no longer the exciting and expansive, almost boundless wonder it once was in my youth (elder millennial here). It’s a lawless, genuinely unsafe, Wild Wild West — full of questionable folk and bizarre creatures and real evils in human form. It’s a factory producing misinformation and misdirected or thoughtless AI-generated silliness. I’ll live on the fringes of that hot mess, in the dense forest of elder millennials and Gen Xers creating their own pocket communities as the last bastions of the Old Internet.
My platforms are places that align with my core values and grace me with the tools I prefer to share what I feel intrinsically motivated to share with those who need or want what I have to share. I now see the Internet as a place to be navigated with a healthy dose of caution and discernment. I see the Internet as a place to express myself to the world and my community no matter where they may be accessing this virtual realm, within reason. I don’t seek to overshare or commodify my life, but to simply add value in ways that are natural to me and my strengths.
Prioritizing Real Life Connection
Exactly that.
My focus is less on performing for algorithms and chasing vanity metrics. I never felt particularly interested in them anyways; the whole ordeal felt incredibly draining. Soul sucking. Creativity crushing. Still is, if I sit here and think about how I can twist myself into some grotesque human pretzel to gain the most amount of views and likes as possible on a daily or weekly basis.
I can feel the bile rising into the back of my throat.
No, but thanks.
I’m far more interested in exploring more of the places I live near. I now cringe and turn away from lists of “The Most Instagram-able Spots” *blegh* I want to find the hidden places that only locals know and safeguard against Internet denizens and interlopers with selfish intentions (often literally destroying these places). I want to meet new people through people I already know and trust, vetted by read human beings in flesh and blood. Hands I can shake, eyes and smiles I can see, backs to rub and shoulders to cry on in hard times. Oh, and solid torsos to hug often. I want to see the facial expressions of people present during long, meandering and meaningful conversations over late night bonfires. I desire the feeling of real books in my hands and the turning of paper pages with my finger tips more than the feeling on my fingertips on keyboards or my eyes burning from staring at a screen for hours on end.
Sure, millions will scoff and chalk that up to “millennial nostalgia” — but it isn’t just nostalgia of a bygone era (mostly pre-2016 life). It’s real life many of us have become distracted from and have forgotten how to live. We have been systematically been brainwashed into valuing digital “life” over real life.
I’m going back to prioritizing real life. The digital will always be secondary. Or even tertiary.