People can be really vile. I've only had silly little memes go viral and from those posts a similar hatred brews in peoples heads. Its actually absurd, but I do wish to draw these peoples blood and observe their resting heart rate- inspect cortisol levels and all because this sort of behavior has got to be destructive to ones body.
i wonder if it's that most people who are chronically online are also miserably comfortable only in the most curated vibes of their algorithm, and so they feel a need to lash out at anything that seems outside the norms of their little digital sanctuary,—which is funny because twitter and instagram are most certainly not digital sanctuaries, even if they're maybe disguised as them.
Was gonna ask for your insta to see the silly little memes but then i remembered lol
I have to agree. I also suspect that our current algorithms worsen black and white thinking but I have nothing to prove that with other than a growing suspicion. The platforms aren't designed for audiences to critically engage with what they are seeing, only for numbers to be driven up or down. I can only hope people leave the familiarity of digital malaise and engage with a more physical, more frictional, reality.
Oh absolutely,—and on a similar note I think a lot of the infighting we're seeing on substack comes from the mere existence of public-facing stats like subscriber counts, numbers of likes, the floating checkmarks. Everything becomes a numbers game to a certain extent and it's a fight to get those numbers up.
my question is now- what would a numbers free and/or private social platform look like? would it garner as much attention or is constant emotional activation the one of the reasons for the mass use of social media? would people use it as much if it didn’t set them off in this way?
i don’t want to live in a social media dominated world, and i stay hopeful for a future where more regulations in regards to algorithms are put in place.
I do think that Tyler Bainbridge's Pi.fyi app is as close as I've seen to a social media app that's trying to move away from a mere numbers game. Maybe Are.na too tho idk what that would be described as.
hey thanks!! and yeah i do, and then i run them through a little browser-based photoshop knockoff to clear away the background and have them freefloating as section separators.
This is my first time posting a piece with this idea, and i think i’m gonna stick with it going forwards.
loved your voice here!! + yeah I stopped using instagram properly a few years ago and now it makes me a bit sick to imagine being so perceived. like wdym people I went to high school with have to know my every move?? not having it, so much lighter without
oh my god yeah absolutely. It was crazy to realize suddenly how much of my dread at being alive came from just the sheer amount of social media clutter that i subconsciously associate my person to,—it's toxic, plain and simple. really have no desire to go back. it's soo freeing.
'my tendency for falling into a manic libidinal ~urge~ to communicate, when paired with the instantaneous communications technology I always have around me, is a self-reinforcing cycle of mania and guilt.'
Feel this one for sure.
I have nothing like the experience you have had because nobody gives enough of a shit to go around posting "I hate you" under my instaposts lol. But In the few awkward interactions I have had, I definitely found that a polite but firm response if there is anything to respond to, and then a swift block to the face, are extremely healing.
On a separate note, I deleted my Instagram a few months ago and have been feeling so much better since. It's honestly kinda weird looking back and wondering why I ever used it
yeah it’s wild how it helps. there was a lot of emotional baggage tied up with my instagram from when i was like 19 that i wasn’t aware of until i dropped it. feels good.
I got accidentally locked out of Instagram a few years ago, half-heartedly tried to get back into my account, and then forgot about it and realized that I actually wasn’t missing anything. It was very liberating!
right!! it feels good to detatch yourself from it, just rewatched the social network last night and i feel like that movie’s spot on with facebook (and instagram) being a glorified high school yearbook,—carries a lot of emotional baggage even if not on the surface, yk?
Honestly, this whole article resonated with me. I myself find that I am battling with restoring my daydreams after being complacent with too much screen-time for so long. I've always found it refreshing that I keep my personal life and presence offline because I want my life to be more than an account. It's freeing to reform and find yourself.
felt the first part in my soul looool. i don’t use instagram obsessively but i have been permanently wired to twitter for the last 13 years and have a little bit of a following on there and it is so vicious and miserable. for some reason people love shouting at me and being massive dickheads even over some of my more banal posts, and at first i put it down to my communication style being blunt and saying exactly what i mean with no hidden subtext that people are so eager to twist in bad faith, but then i realised that actually everyone on there just loves to have a main character of the day to yell/laugh at over very little because they’re addicted to blood and spectacle. i think you unfortunately just had a period of being the main character (only advice i can give is the meme with the guy saying “first time?”) but it really sucks in the moment – the worst part is the feeling that your image is never actually your own and the anxiety that you mention that it is completely out of your hands. kind of wish i could just nuke my entire internet presence but i’ve been on social media for so long that it’s become too unwieldy now
I loved reading this! Thank u for sharing such a generous & introspective view of the world. Considering archiving all my pics on instagram now & starting anew just for the fun of it
Yeah, IG is poison. I gotta keep it, bc bands, venues, etc.; but I only go on it when I gotta clear away the dross, at like 3 am when no one can see me there. Of all the platforms, it's the worst. At least on Xitter, the slime molds announce themselves.
Far as writing goes, treat it like I treat playing jazz; you're gonna hit wrong notes, but just like right notes, they're here and they're gone. Play what you hear.
“I think I’ve always wanted to be an internet celebrity, deep down I thought vainly that I deserved something like that. Obviously this is not healthy. Obviously it’s not true, either, and yet Instagram’s implicit promise says otherwise and here I am after ten years of using that app, feeling as if my brain’s been forever deeply scrambled.”
jesus christ yeah i have never come close to virality but i gained a very small meme page following that got me enough attention to torture myself over the potential of making something of it as hollow as that desire is. i’ve basically abandoned my ig except for promoting my stuff on here. been trying to shift my attention to substack as i can use it with way more intention but its crazy how even a little bit of instagram destroys the brain. getting closer and closer to freeing myself from it completely thank u for this added straw on my metaphorical camel.
really enjoy your work & im sorry about the twitter trolls
appreciate that! yeah it feels like i've been put into this weird haze and who knows what it really is but the juiced up social media maelstroms don't really help
I remember scrolling Twitter, while waiting on the 7 train and coming across that photo of you, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of where I saw you before lol. But anyway, keep doing you man
haha it’s crazy right. when i opened my anonymous lil twitter account after hearing about it, it was the first thing i saw on my feed and all i thought was “!”
People can be really vile. I've only had silly little memes go viral and from those posts a similar hatred brews in peoples heads. Its actually absurd, but I do wish to draw these peoples blood and observe their resting heart rate- inspect cortisol levels and all because this sort of behavior has got to be destructive to ones body.
i wonder if it's that most people who are chronically online are also miserably comfortable only in the most curated vibes of their algorithm, and so they feel a need to lash out at anything that seems outside the norms of their little digital sanctuary,—which is funny because twitter and instagram are most certainly not digital sanctuaries, even if they're maybe disguised as them.
Was gonna ask for your insta to see the silly little memes but then i remembered lol
I have to agree. I also suspect that our current algorithms worsen black and white thinking but I have nothing to prove that with other than a growing suspicion. The platforms aren't designed for audiences to critically engage with what they are seeing, only for numbers to be driven up or down. I can only hope people leave the familiarity of digital malaise and engage with a more physical, more frictional, reality.
Oh absolutely,—and on a similar note I think a lot of the infighting we're seeing on substack comes from the mere existence of public-facing stats like subscriber counts, numbers of likes, the floating checkmarks. Everything becomes a numbers game to a certain extent and it's a fight to get those numbers up.
my question is now- what would a numbers free and/or private social platform look like? would it garner as much attention or is constant emotional activation the one of the reasons for the mass use of social media? would people use it as much if it didn’t set them off in this way?
i don’t want to live in a social media dominated world, and i stay hopeful for a future where more regulations in regards to algorithms are put in place.
I do think that Tyler Bainbridge's Pi.fyi app is as close as I've seen to a social media app that's trying to move away from a mere numbers game. Maybe Are.na too tho idk what that would be described as.
I'll check those out, I want to compare formats
I like your little doodles (complimentary). Do you do them yourself?
hey thanks!! and yeah i do, and then i run them through a little browser-based photoshop knockoff to clear away the background and have them freefloating as section separators.
This is my first time posting a piece with this idea, and i think i’m gonna stick with it going forwards.
loved your voice here!! + yeah I stopped using instagram properly a few years ago and now it makes me a bit sick to imagine being so perceived. like wdym people I went to high school with have to know my every move?? not having it, so much lighter without
oh my god yeah absolutely. It was crazy to realize suddenly how much of my dread at being alive came from just the sheer amount of social media clutter that i subconsciously associate my person to,—it's toxic, plain and simple. really have no desire to go back. it's soo freeing.
'my tendency for falling into a manic libidinal ~urge~ to communicate, when paired with the instantaneous communications technology I always have around me, is a self-reinforcing cycle of mania and guilt.'
Feel this one for sure.
I have nothing like the experience you have had because nobody gives enough of a shit to go around posting "I hate you" under my instaposts lol. But In the few awkward interactions I have had, I definitely found that a polite but firm response if there is anything to respond to, and then a swift block to the face, are extremely healing.
the block button does do wonders, that's true
Dude you're a storyteller✨
On a separate note, I deleted my Instagram a few months ago and have been feeling so much better since. It's honestly kinda weird looking back and wondering why I ever used it
hey thanks man
yeah it’s wild how it helps. there was a lot of emotional baggage tied up with my instagram from when i was like 19 that i wasn’t aware of until i dropped it. feels good.
yeah it's so weird how we often don't realise the baggage these things hold until we drop them. i guess hindsight is golden🫠
glad you're feeling good about ditching it!
I got accidentally locked out of Instagram a few years ago, half-heartedly tried to get back into my account, and then forgot about it and realized that I actually wasn’t missing anything. It was very liberating!
right!! it feels good to detatch yourself from it, just rewatched the social network last night and i feel like that movie’s spot on with facebook (and instagram) being a glorified high school yearbook,—carries a lot of emotional baggage even if not on the surface, yk?
this was really good, thanks for a really great read!
Honestly, this whole article resonated with me. I myself find that I am battling with restoring my daydreams after being complacent with too much screen-time for so long. I've always found it refreshing that I keep my personal life and presence offline because I want my life to be more than an account. It's freeing to reform and find yourself.
You have a strong grounding voice in your writing. It just makes your work all the more amazing!
felt the first part in my soul looool. i don’t use instagram obsessively but i have been permanently wired to twitter for the last 13 years and have a little bit of a following on there and it is so vicious and miserable. for some reason people love shouting at me and being massive dickheads even over some of my more banal posts, and at first i put it down to my communication style being blunt and saying exactly what i mean with no hidden subtext that people are so eager to twist in bad faith, but then i realised that actually everyone on there just loves to have a main character of the day to yell/laugh at over very little because they’re addicted to blood and spectacle. i think you unfortunately just had a period of being the main character (only advice i can give is the meme with the guy saying “first time?”) but it really sucks in the moment – the worst part is the feeling that your image is never actually your own and the anxiety that you mention that it is completely out of your hands. kind of wish i could just nuke my entire internet presence but i’ve been on social media for so long that it’s become too unwieldy now
I loved reading this! Thank u for sharing such a generous & introspective view of the world. Considering archiving all my pics on instagram now & starting anew just for the fun of it
you should definitely give it a go!!
Yeah, IG is poison. I gotta keep it, bc bands, venues, etc.; but I only go on it when I gotta clear away the dross, at like 3 am when no one can see me there. Of all the platforms, it's the worst. At least on Xitter, the slime molds announce themselves.
Far as writing goes, treat it like I treat playing jazz; you're gonna hit wrong notes, but just like right notes, they're here and they're gone. Play what you hear.
That’s some of the best writing advice i’ve ever heard, thanks for that
“I think I’ve always wanted to be an internet celebrity, deep down I thought vainly that I deserved something like that. Obviously this is not healthy. Obviously it’s not true, either, and yet Instagram’s implicit promise says otherwise and here I am after ten years of using that app, feeling as if my brain’s been forever deeply scrambled.”
jesus christ yeah i have never come close to virality but i gained a very small meme page following that got me enough attention to torture myself over the potential of making something of it as hollow as that desire is. i’ve basically abandoned my ig except for promoting my stuff on here. been trying to shift my attention to substack as i can use it with way more intention but its crazy how even a little bit of instagram destroys the brain. getting closer and closer to freeing myself from it completely thank u for this added straw on my metaphorical camel.
really enjoy your work & im sorry about the twitter trolls
appreciate that! yeah it feels like i've been put into this weird haze and who knows what it really is but the juiced up social media maelstroms don't really help
I remember scrolling Twitter, while waiting on the 7 train and coming across that photo of you, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of where I saw you before lol. But anyway, keep doing you man
haha it’s crazy right. when i opened my anonymous lil twitter account after hearing about it, it was the first thing i saw on my feed and all i thought was “!”
you’re brilliant. proud to know you dude <3
omg thanks sm sarah, proud to know u too!!
Remarkably honest and introspective. Really enjoyed this
hey thanks so much for reading and commenting!!—i really appreciate it, it means a lot
I always forget you're not actually in New York. Or something like that.
You and me both
I think he’s cosplaying and actually lives here he just hates us.
i live in chicago! i promise!