Being back home from winter break I’ve found myself clinging to my social media a lot. There’s really nothing to do here and nothing I feel comfortable doing since omicron is out doing her thing int the streets of NYC. I had so many plans to use all the new social freedoms I guess you could say I learned at college and apply it back to my life here at home. I had gained all this confidence, and social intelligence that I never really had before and I thought that meant that things would be different for me when I got back. And it was at first; I went to the movies by myself for the first time.
Of course the idea of sitting in a seat for two hours unaccompanied may seem pretty underwhelming, to me I could never really see myself doing it. I’d be too worried about if I looked weird being there by myself, but in reality nobody cares. Especially when you’re in a dark room where no one can see you. And I did it! I put on a cute outfit, got on the bus, and went to see Spiderman No Way Home alone. It was pretty good, the movie and the outing, aside from the fact that the girl next to me was eating nachos and I hate the smell of nachos—specifically the cheese, so I double masked it. It was that and then I hung out with one of my friends and laughed a lot, got my ears pierced (super fun) and did a little shopping—mostly watched my cousin thrift clothes, and then went back to the movies again, this time not alone, with my cousin to see Sing 2. I low-key love musicals (except for special tv episodes where they sing because if its not a consistent thing I kinda question how this plays into their world, but we move) and watching Sing 2 almost made me cry I have to see it again. I don’t know what was better (**SPOILER FOR SPIDERMAN SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANNA SEE JUST DO ONE BIG SCROLL) seeing Andrew and Tobey or the plot of Sing 2. I hate to say it but I think it was Sing 2.
So with all this, the break started off good and I was doing all of the new brave things I had hoped to do, but now we’ve reached a lull. I’ve been in the house for a minute and have really not been doing anything. One because of omicron—I know so many people personally who’ve gotten covid in the last few weeks I’ve been back, more than I’ve seen the whole pandemic. Two because it’s cold and you can’t really sit and hang outside trust me I’ve tried. Most indoor things feel gross to be at because there’s too many people and everyones scared about covid again so its back to if you cough people are giving you the ‘bitch you better not be sick’ death stare. All in all, I feel like I’m reverting back to my pre-college self in little ways. I also just think that’s natural for one you go back home; different environments can bring out different versions of yourself, but I wish I had a real life retainer to hold in place he changes and progress I’ve made not just from being in college, but one the course of the last year. It’s like my “teeth” are shifting, typing that is making me anxious, I don’t wanna put that into the air because I haven’t worn my retainer (it shrunk a while ago and I didn’t tell my mom) and I’m really scared, ya know, my teeth might *voldemort*(we won’t name it but it rhymes with lift).
Because of this boredom of being in the house I’ve been mindless scrolling on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest. These apps are my interaction with the outside world, and may say, I’ve had enough. Everything is so boring (my mom would say that’s my favorite word). Everything is so uninspiring, and dull, and loud, idk. It just feels like commotion. And this is not me being anti-social media, I like social media and am often pro-social media (hot take?), but for the last few days it’s just been so bleh to me. This is normal though, too much of anything is bound to have you itching for a break. So that’s what I thought I needed to do; I deleted all my social media apps listed (yes even Pinterest) and said I would stay away for as long as I needed until the monotony went away. I have deleted and re-downloaded Instagram at least five times today (probably more) and have been logging into Twitter and Pinterest from my laptop browser. Ya girl is addicted wtf. It’s not even because I feel like I’m missing anything, mainly in regards to Twitter and Pinterest, but because I’m just so bored and I really don’t have the energy to do anything else like read a fucking book or journal or make blog post. Everything just feels so heavy to do, but scrolling looking for Youtube videos and being and these socials seems so easy. Social media is good filler for a busy day when you have five minutes to scroll, but when its all you have the shit really seems dumb.
Instagram is a whole other story…
I love my instagram I do, I love posting stories of little things and posting on my feed (sometimes) and watching other people’s stories, but sometimes it feels bleh. Today I’ve just been questioning my whole Instagram presence. I have a lot of people I don’t know personally on my Instagram, like at all and the only thing we have in common is that we go to the same school, like never met them, no classes together, never interacted irl or online. Initially, it didn’t bother me but now I’m torn between its draining or it doesn’t matter because its just a stupid follow button its not real life. I enjoy my virtual spaces so much so I think that’s why it bothers me a little when it feel like things are out of order on there. I know I probably sound neurotic. On one hand Instagram is like the younger generations Facebook where you just use it to stay connected to people even if you haven’t spoken to them in forever, and that’s okay because maybe one day something big will happen in their lives and you can congratulate them, or it’ll be their birthday and you can dm them and say happy birthday which is always nice. On the other hand, why am I following someone I don’t know or talk to. I love when I have (or observe) people who may not know each other that well or speak but they slash like each other’s posts and comment nice things, I love that form of interaction and that’s not what I’m talking about here. What’s draining is having that follow, that sort or link, exist when there’s nothing really connecting the me and another person together that kinda bothers me sometimes when I get in these moods of feeling like social media is monotonous. Sometimes I wanna be small and have 200 followers (really the only amount of people I interact with outside of my 420 total including all of my friends spam pages), why say I have 420 when I only vibe with ~200, idk.
One other aspect I question is my approach to social media, my whole gist is that I share, a lot. Not anything too deep, but I am a sharer because I don’t know I just like too. I think a lot of the time I’m the one out of my friends that posts the most on social media (this can be argued maybe I’m just self-centered) so I question if I’m doing too much. Not in a sense of comparison, but rather everyone else is quieter, so am I being too loud?
Too loud to who? I don’t know, but sometimes I don’t post something on my story because I’m like I’ve posted too much already (like three posts) let me not post my every thought. Its complicated because while I feel like everything on here is not to be taken serious its for shits and giggles, we’re all on here because we’re bored, I also feel like damn why haven’t I mastered the art of shutting up on social media. The art of posting almost never, but still having 3k followers. I don’t care about how many followers I have, but saying you don’t care about followers is like saying you don’t care about money, even though it may not matter when you see someone with a lot they seem way cooler.
I don’t know if I want to be completely off-the-grid, or an influencer! And no, there’s no in between! At least it doesn’t feel like there is, lmao.
Then I go back to this shit is dumb because why does it matter? This is not real life, but at the same time it is a version of social interaction (which is a part of life) that is very real and impactful on the way we operate as a society so we can’t always brush off its effects by saying it’s not real.
I think that in my heart I crave limited access to me from people who I don’t know (or don’t like 😬), I alluded to this some in my why I deleted snapchat post. My following is as small as it is because I’ve always been selective about the people I had on my socials. When my mom first let me have Instagram she told me to put my account on private and only let in people who I know, and I’ve really stuck to that. There’s been times when I considered putting my account on public because I do post often (my selfies deserve to be seen!), but ultimately decided not to because I need to be in control to who has access to my space (virtual and irl). Maybe a reasoning as to why I post often or share a lot is because I feel comfortable with the people I have in my space. While I of course don’t personally interact with everyone there’s enough connections in our nexus to where I feel like having them perceive me lol wouldn’t not make me pass out. This is not to say smaller following = better. Everything I say is me speaking for myself because that’s all I know!
I don’t talk about social media a lot because I like to pretend like I’m super aware and therefore unaffected by the average problems of white millennials trying to control their Instagram presence, but yet here I am.
I do think that Instagram’s hidden likes thing is flawed. It’s helpful for the people who follow you because if someone is the type who compares their likes to other people’s likes it’ll help them out, but the method is flawed because what about me (she screamed)? As the poster, I can still see how many likes I got, but what if I don’t want to know how many likes I got. Kinda defeats the point if I can still see because despite other people hiding their likes the number of likes you get already has a pre-determined value. Meaning 60 likes is much shittier (as determined by society and the metric system) than 100 likes, and so on as we keep increasing because we know how numbers work. Feel like I explained that poorly, but instagram should just take my word and fix it!
One thing I think is kinda ehh is the new discussion around photo dumps. I love a good photo dump, but recently people on Twitter and Tiktok have been talking about the pressure surrounding photo dumps. Specifically how while they may seem to be the symbol of “make Instagram casual again”, they actually aren’t because these casual photos are just as manipulated. To this, I feel a bit iffy. Like many other people have argued, anything you post on Instagram is a performance of some sort. You are literally posting to be perceived by other people there is no way to casually do that even when people were posting avocado toast or blurry mirror selfies with a flash, or a photo of a book and a cup of coffee that was a performance.. The were sharing something in order to be perched a certain way or them sharing that conveyed a certain message so never in the history of social media (myspace, Facebook, etc.) has posting something been thoughtless, carefree, or casual, it was just the norm of that time and people just looked worse and cared less about quality. Most importantly, if photo dumps have been stressful to “curate” because of the non-verbalized pressure to perform casualness then don’t participate. You can stop! I know, it’s shocking, and it’s not as radical as quitting Instagram all tighter (not what people are saying to do), but your posts do not have to be photo dumps. This was just a side note on what I’ve been noticing lately. While yes, the pressure of social media can be toxic and impossible to quit (like I just admitted), photo dumps are not that serious of a soapbox to get up on. We all understand that Instagram photos aren’t depictions of real life so we take everything we are given with a grain of salt; I think the girls are just having fun.
I think everyone should just do what they want to do when it comes to the stuff they post. Photo dumps are fun, sometimes people put confusing ones together and they can even get monotonous themselves—Insert blurry photo, selfie, picture of elderly person, picture of landscape/nature, meme, screenshot of texts, food, BUT we should let the girls have fun.
To end, social media has a weird hold on us that I rather not dig to deep into because it just gets sad at the end and kinda complicated. When you’re stuck in the house overthinking, social media can become a little bit of a stressor. I’ve said a lot of ‘I don’t knows’ throughout this post because with social media I really don’t know. Social media is also still so new and we’re all still figuring out how to navigate it and the best way to use it. Sometimes it will suck and birth/spread ignorance, but often it will be a great way to connect people from all over and across time spans so in little ways I tip my hat off to it. I don’t think social media is inherently bad, I think a lot of people are, and humans got their dirty little hands on it and made it into something really really bad. I don’t know if I think it has to be destroyed to be improved…
Lastly 🙃, a little petty fuck you if you’re a person who unfollows, but doesn’t remove follower. You are a terrible human being who needs to seek psychological help, that is vile!!!