Separating Myself from Social Media

For the record, I began writing the last post with the intention of it turning out like this one. Everything I write here should honestly come at no surprise to anyone. Separating myself from social media has been a pot brewing on the back burner for years and years. I got on with every intention of explaining it all. and of course, me being me, it went off track almost immediately. I think If I were to harness my ability to derail a topic, and somehow monetize it, I would be rather successful.

Anyway, here we are at what I actually wanted to talk about. I talked about my history on social media. My roots, where I came from, what I’ve seen. This is going to be about the place where all of that took me. And more importantly, where I’m at right now. And I know my feelings and views are not unique either. So I feel like there will be many who understand and relate to what I’m about to say. After being a part of this machine for so long, seeing it come up and be built from practically nothing, I like to think I know how things work by now. I mean, if you haven’t been paying attention and you don’t know how the gears are working to push things along, then shame on you, honestly. 

Though it’s not completely your fault. Or mine. See, while the gears are turning on the inside, they’re also rearranging things on the outside. So the various networks that we are currently trying to claw ourselves out of on an hourly basis, were not always like this. I’m sure you could look back and remember a time when Instagram was all about your photos. And not 10 of them in one shot that you had to scroll through. Just one, solitary picture. And that’s it. No videos, no reels, no crazy filters. 

Social Networks have evolved to keep us engaged in them. Their hooks have been sharpening themselves for years and they’re to the point where we didn’t feel them slip them in. And you know what? for most of us, it’s ok. Some of us need an escape. We need a window to the world. And as the apps evolve, that window is seemingly getting clearer and clearer. 

So what is the issue? Personally, for years, I was simply just taking in. Consuming. Plopping myself in front of that window and just watching as time passed by. And while it was entertaining or informative, it still left me feeling like I had nothing to show for it. And after so long being like that, it begins to take a toll on me. Like inspiration would land and plant a seed in my mind. Giving me ideas and plans to do things for myself because I see someone cooking something, or writing something, or creating something that I know in my heart of hearts I can do. Only, the seed would be left to dry out because instead of taking the time to water it, I was just scroll-scroll-scroll-scrolling on. Feeding other people’s seeds. Never tending to mine.

Which let’s be real, is totally fine. It’s life. It’s what I’m essentially asking of you, right? To sit here and go through all my stuff when I put it out. Keep up with me, follow, subscribe, blardy blar blar. But! There is totally a difference. Something huge that is worth noting, and it’s what I meant by seeing the gears working. So if you don’t know, now’s your time to pay attention:

A blog written and maintained by someone is a portal into that persons mind. By sitting here reading something, you’re becoming pretty intimate with my thoughts. Click around, read some more posts, and you might as well be buying me dinner. Subscribe for notifications and we’re having breakfast together, see what I’m saying? I hope you like pancakes. I don’t know, it’s the syrup for me. 

Social media? It’s an endless abyss of scrolling that will take your last breath and not think one bit about it. There is no love from it. No compassion. No intimacy. Well… I guess depending on where you’re looking but that’s not the point. What I’m saying is that your social feeds are there for your entertainment. But they are so relentless in their attack on your boredom, that they’re causing innocent casualties on your mind and body. 

Now, that’s not to say the people who put their heart and souls into their content on social media do not do so with a lack of love. Some may feel like they’re doing the work that will define their lives, being proud of every piece of content they put out there. While others may just feel like they’re another gear, stuck having to turn one way because that’s what’s expected of them. Never able to turn in the other direction for something different no matter how bad they want to. Whoever it is, I’m sure they’re very proud of what they create and I’m not taking anything away from them. My beef is with the media as a whole.

I was spending 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, 20 minutes in an appointment that’s running late, or 35 minutes sitting in a car line to pick up a kid, just… scrolling. And then I turn around and complain that I have zero time to do anything creative, or extra, or fun. Meanwhile I’m throwing away so much time just aimlessly being on the phone.

Poking around the screen. Flicking from page to page. As if I had a purpose for the process, and then halfway through taking it out of my pocket and unlocking it – *FFLEPPDDD!* – my brain just gets sucked out of existence. Opening apps I had already scrolled through, realizing “oh yeah, I already checked this.”  then closing it. Only to pick up my phone again, mere minutes later, to do the exact same thing I just did, coming to the same conclusion that I just came to! 

It’s like I’m living in the movie Memento.

Listen. I just need you to please appreciate the lengths I went through for this joke. The thought popped in my head,  I found a still from the movie, and went to work in my photo app. So I really, really hope it’s appreciated by someone.
If at least one person who knows the movie Memento (you should, because it is an AWESOME, mind-bendy flick, directed by Christopher Nolan) reads this and laughs, then I’ll be happy. 

Anyway. Something had to give. I knew I wasn’t happy just wasting away. I’m a creative. I need to be doing something on some sort of regular basis so I can feel like I’m… alive. If you know me, you know how long I’ve been struggling with the “I’m back to blogging/podcasting/writing/insert other creative hobby here!” conundrum.  I know I want to do something. Be something. But I also know that social media was doing nothing but holding me back.

So I’m separating myself from social media. Officially. No, I’m not deleting accounts and moving to the woods. Haha, you might be thinking what’s the point then? Well the point is I’m just not going to give them to myself as an option anymore. I’m not going to be a zombie to the feed. Does that make everyone who still rocks it on socials part of a brainless horde? Of course not. It’s just that me, who I am, how I am, knows there’s no productivity in it for me.

Somewhere down the line? Maybe. It remains to be seen but I’ll never say never. I know there are plenty out there who make their living on networks and that’s amazing. I also know there are plenty who get off their job and use their feeds to just chill and decompress. To follow friends or updates on their hobbies. No one is wrong for being on social media. I’m not dogging anyone for what they do and I’m not saying they shouldn’t do it.

But I know what I want. I know what I need to do. I know my goals I’m setting for myself. And if I was to let social media have 5 minutes of my precious time, then it’ll selfishly take 40. Because that’s what it does. It’s how it’s designed. If Instagram or TikTok feeds were created with your well being in mind, they would pause every 5 minutes and remind you to take a break. But they don’t. They’re endless loops of cute animal, catchy songs and dances, and bangin’ delicious looking recipes. How can we turn away? How can we be ourselves?! 

We can’t. And that’s the problem. At least, for me it is. Mr. ADHD over here, who goes to vacuum the living room, and then 3 hours later, is on his 12th side quest, somehow relating changing the lightbulb in the bathroom to the original task of vacuuming. Social media was designed to keep my eyes absolutely glued to it. And it all finally clicked. 

And even though I’m not going to sit here and preach about it, telling you that you need to change. That doesn’t mean you aren’t there reading this and wondering it for yourself. If you feel like I’m making sense and there is truth to what I’m saying, then do something about it. Take control back. If you know 90’s hip-hop, you’re familiar with Redman. He recently had an interview where he was talking about social media. How it’s programming us to think without thinking for ourselves. How it’s telling us what things we should do and like, instead of letting us experience finding these things organically. And it’s the truth. We’re becoming only what social media and everyone we follow is molding us to be. We’re losing our way and at this point we’ll need a lot of help to get back. 

For years I have been pretty negligent on socials. Just life being busy making it harder to find the time to update stuff. Because yeah, I could post a pic real quick and say a sentence or two about it. But on the other hand, I totally cannot do that lol. Posting to IG became a task, finding the best picture out of the hundreds I would take, then writing a mini blog post about it. Because you know, that was my only outlet. I was away from here so long, I used IG as a replacement micro blog haha. Also, there’s the small problem I have where sometimes I just can’t shut up. See? Mr. ADHD.

Not updating regularly, but still attempting to keep the relationships proved to be difficult as well. Slowly and sadly realizing said relationships only really lived on those socials. Which opened up a completely different worm hole of questions that I was not pleased with discovering. It was just more of a hassle to maintain socials than not. But I tried. 

Those trying times are over though. That’s why I don’t have any connections to any accounts here anymore. There used to be my IG feed on the side. Right under my tweets. I loved having my badges of all the different accounts I had laid across the top of the blog somewhere. Like a visible list of all the ways I enjoyed wasting my time, telling everyone to follow me everywhere so I could continue to not post anything for them to see. Hahahaha I was the best blogger, lemme tell ya. But look, I’m being honest with myself now, so that’s good! 

Where do I go from here?

Well. Here.

That’s the whole point of *gestures to all of this.* See, at some point late last year, I totally did have the urge to get back on the social media train. I had that itch to say stuff. To talk and get into being out there again. I even created Bluesky and Threads accounts because I wanted to try something new. That maybe it would be enough to get me excited to keep to it. But then something happened towards the end of the year and it took a long time to get back to a functional mental state again. And in that process I lost all ambition to get back on to any social media, seeing the current state of things. 

But… I still had that itch. The echo in my head reverberating forever on, telling me to be a voice somewhere. I had things I wanted to share, things I wanted to say. But I didn’t want to have them just on a feed somewhere. I didn’t want to pour my everything into a place and give my time, build connections and find my voice again. Only to have some rich asshole come and ruin it all because it seems like that’s a thing to do these days. It’s partly why – despite my love for my digital photo album on IG that I hold in such high personal regard – I don’t feel like posting on there like I used to. I’ve lost trust in multi-billion dollar corporations to do anything that would benefit me. 

So here I am. Making my own personal network on my blog. And if that makes me a self-centered prick, then I guess them the boots I’m wearing now. But I’m not doing it because I’m all high and mighty on myself! I’m doing it because I have things to say. And I have things I want to do with these things that I say. And I want to feel proud of where I say these things. To hold that sense of accomplishment high again.

What about my current social medias?

That’s a good question. Well, I have been thinking about it. I feel like I’d be one hell of a hippo if I were to go on this stupid long tangent only to say “OK, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME HERE!” But I stand by what I said, dangit! Even though that would be hilarious.

When I started relaunching everything on the blog, I decided and ultimately loved the idea of having zero to do with any social media. I wanted to focus on this. Honestly, I have always hated the behind-the-curtain stuff of blogging. The tedious footwork of posting to socials and the dreaded overbearing shadow that looms over every post: SEO integration. I figured you know what, I’m not dealing with extra things. I’m just going to get in there and pump out stuff and figure it out as I go.

But in reality, we all know how that would end up. I mean, i could sit here writing posts till the cows come home. But if I’m not telling anyone about it? If there’s no notifications going out to the masses, then I might as well be writing letters and mailing them to my dog. So I had to speak sense to myself. It took a while but here I am.

So what am I doing? I think I’m going to find a spot in here somewhere and have my current socials up. I’m not going crazy everywhere, just what I already have and where I know I’m going to be posting. So I’m thinking Instagram/Facebook since they’re hand in hand. Bluesky,  and Pinterest. And then whatever I’m going to be doing on YouTube. That way, if someone asks, I don’t have to have that awkward conversation explaining why I’m choosing to not be like everyone else. Like that one guy at the bar who you offer a drink to and he’s like “oh no, I don’t drink.” (Fun fact, I’m totally, 1000%, that guy too LOLOL)

When I’m done with a post, I’ll go ahead and just share it to wherever and call it a day. I’m not planning on hanging out or asking you to follow me. I’m not going to sit here and make you false promises about interacting and engaging. The accounts will be there, and you can follow it for updates if you want, boom, that’s it. 

I think this way, everyone’s happy. Everyone has something scratched that they need scratched and we can just go about our day afterwards. I don’t feel like it changes my stance on anything, right? I still feel the way I do about social media. But I’m not going to plant my flag, delete all my accounts, and fight this war against social networks and expect any sort of victory when I’m here fighting all by my onesy, savvy? 

So I guess that’s it. I feel like I beat this horse enough, don’t you? I promise, once I get these initial grievances off my chest, the regular every day articles will be much easier to digest. But until then.

Que Dios te bendiga

Los