Social Media is Garbage and I Cannot Stop Participating

Social media makes me feel bad. I know: a HOT take. I am the only one who has ever had this realization and you should celebrate me for finally cracking the code. You’re welcome! You may now live your life in bliss. Each platform has their own unique way of making me feel like a tiny little garbage human. And I already feel like a tiny little garbage baby human most of the time without social media’s help, so why not help amplify that feeling with many, many, many hours scrolling through social media?

I know that I am currently writing a blog post (my unsolicited thoughts) that I will post on Facebook (social media) in the hopes that you all (my unassuming audience) will read it. I understand that this is ironic (?) hypocritical (?) self-important (?) but this is where I am at. And if you are reading this, it’s where you’re at too.

I always tell myself I am going to limit my social media use. I tell myself that a lot. Quarantine has made that harder. I am on social media a lot, posting stupid shit on Instagram stories, yelling at Twitter, and being served insane ads on Facebook. I have even learned a lot about Gen Z via scrolling through Tik Tok for hours on end. Yesterday, I opened Tik Tok at 9pm and when I looked up again it was midnight. Do I enjoy most of these videos? No. But I am wildly fascinated by them. I am so glad that most of these platforms did not exist or were not popular when I was a teen. Being a teen was hard enough without having more access to content that makes me feel bad.

My main excuse for still using most social media platforms is that they are a requirement of a freelance artist. How will I find out about events or workshops or every single improv show on the face of the planet if I don’t check my social media every three seconds? I typically use social media for the purpose of promoting shows and creeping on Facebook theatre pages to watch the drama unfold.

I’ve been posting more lately, as evidenced by the creation of this monstrosity of personal thoughts made public. All the days are blurring together and if I don’t document them somehow it feels like they never really happened. I don’t really need people to know what Harry Potter house I am in or that I made scones or that my grandmother texted me a guilt trip about not having children. And people quite certainly don’t need to know those things about me. But I need them. I need to know that I can still bake and that even though I don’t like my reflection in the front facing camera, at least I still have a reflection and that means I am still alive. I think I am posting more just to remind myself that I am, in fact, still alive, and that I have a face, and that I have done things even if those things are menial and stupid.

I am sure people roll their eyes at my shit. I mean, I’m self-aware enough to know that no one really cares. There are plenty of people who will say, “Oh god, Hannah with her thoughts again.” But that is what social media is for: our unsolicited thoughts that we throw out into the world hoping they will get a little attention. And we can all pretend like we don’t want to have attention, but in some form or another we do. I simultaneously crave attention and also don’t want anyone to look at me ever again. This dichotomy causes my poor brain a lot of grief. It’s essentially always saying, “Look at me. Look at me! How DARE YOU. Close your eyes!” (Thank you to the movie The Favourite for this essential quote, which you can witness here. Olivia Coleman is a goddess.) Anyway, I am not big and loud in public. I am not the life of the party. That’s not my personality. I enter a party (haha me? at a party?) with a whimper, and most likely literally because I am begging whoever I came with to not leave my side all night. But on the internet I don’t have to be a pathetic party goer. I can be anyone right? I think I pretty much am still my pathetic-party-goer-self online. It’s just a little easier online to throw more out there and be a little louder. Hey! Look at my funny bit! I am a safe proximity away from viewing your unimpressed face! In fact! I can’t see it at all! For all I know you think I am the funniest person in the whole dang world!

Each social media platform brings about a different sort of sadness or worry or panic. They all have their own pros and cons.

Facebook is the OG (for me.) I am a little too young and had just strict enough parents that I never had a Myspace. (I was allowed 30 minutes of screen time per day and I don’t think I even went on the internet until I discovered Tumblr in 7th grade. Shout out to Tumblr.) Back in the day, Facebook was the only place you could dump 300 photos of the time you and your girls went to the mall, or in my case, went to Krispy Kreme, wore the fun little hats, and then went home and literally laid down on the street taking pictures. They were very artsy. One of my favorite features of Facebook is the “On This Day” feature because I like to see all my statuses from circa 2009/2010 that say something like “is sad :(“ or “homework. UGH!” We love to see what 14 year old Hannah thought the world needed to know.

These days Facebook is primarily a promotional tool. If you self-produce shows, it is the first stop on the social media overload of promotion. You’ve got your event, and probably a Facebook page that you ask everyone you’ve ever met to like and they probably won’t but they WILL ask YOU to like their page a few weeks later.

I don’t really make Facebook statuses anymore unless they relate to an event I am producing or directing or performing in. I’m just not much of a Facebook status sort of gal. That being said, other people’s Facebook statuses have a weird way of making me feel like a truly horrible person. I don’t know what it is, but every single one makes me feel guilty about something: not doing enough, doing too much, breathing. There is no winning, folks!

Instagram is probably my favorite of the social media platforms. I like the dumb stories and I like posting dumb pictures of my scones or my overalls. I like to look back through my own pictures and think, wow what a nice time that was. Not unlike most social media platforms, Instagram is ripe with people trying to make their lives seem amazing. We are all guilty of this. Pre-quarantine it was full of vacation photos, party photos, picnic photos. It is often times like watching everyone you know go to a party that you weren’t invited to. Sometimes it is literally watching everyone you know go to a party you weren’t invited to. Instagram allows for the cavalier flaunting of social life and we have just come to accept it. It’s okay that you weren’t invited to that party and it’s okay that we are posting a million pictures of it because they are really cute pictures, especially when put through HUJI. These photos are meant to give off the illusion that everything is perfect. Some people even have finstas (fake instagrams) to post more personal things to people they feel they can trust without exposing themselves to people they are obliged to engage with like parents or family friends or co-workers. I typically very much enjoy people’s finstas. My therapist asked me if I have a finsta. I do not. My social media is, to a fault, weird. I put a lot of dumb content in my stories because I don’t want to make a second Instagram. That is a lot of work and I would rather alienate everyone I know than put in the time it takes to do that.

Instagram mostly makes me feel like a tiny dumpster trash heap because of all the socialization that is (or was) clearly happening outside the comfortable walls of my apartment. I also feel gross, like physically gross, when I post too many Instagram stories. It feels like I have shared secrets or overstepped or I have just taken up too much space.

Twitter. What can I say about my darling Twitter? Twitter is the worst place on the planet and I check it obsessively. One could argue that I actually use Twitter the least, but I certainly look at it all the time. It’s like I want to get mad. Twitter reveals all the failings of human society in nice neat little blurbs. It exposes our poor listening skills, our inability to empathize with one another, and our desire to always be right. Every time I get on Twitter I want to scream my dumb little head off. OH! Sometimes I just want it to fucking explode. Get. me. out. of. this. hell. scape. called. life. THAT is how Twitter makes me feel. During the primaries, I had to delete Twitter off of my phone because it turns out I hate literally everyone who has ever breathed. Also, people love to post opinions like they are facts. GIVE ME SOME FUCKING SOURCES BEFORE YOU JUST GO OUT THERE THROWING AROUND NUMBERS.

But ,um, I re-downloaded it and I still have it because sometimes I have a funny thought that I need to tweet at 3 o’clock in the morning so that two of my friends will like it and one of my friends will acknowledge that they saw it but will not like it. Also, there are accounts specifically producing content about dogs and I like that.

Tik Tok is a new one for me. I don’t actually have an account, so I cannot participate in any meaningful way, but I have spent the past few days scrolling mindlessly through the videos. It is like Vine, if Vine decided to be slightly less problematic. (Remember all those problematic Vines???) It’s also like Vine in that literally anyone can decide that they are meant to be a star. It is fascinating. It is primarily Gen Z-ers creating trends and dances? They all dance? All the time? They love to dance! That is what I have learned. Gen-Z loves to dance and they also love to expose their friends who have slept with their boyfriends. And they also love to do this thing where they kiss their platonic best friend and be like now we are in love! I cannot stop watching. The drama. The excitement. The absolute distance from my life or anything going on right now in the real world.

I don’t think I will ever make a Tik Tok. That’s not really my style. I feel too old and also I much prefer to just watch them. It’s been a nice new distraction though.

I am not saying social media is bad all the time. Especially right now, it’s actually sort of nice because I can’t see my friends and I miss them, so at least I can see the dumb loaf of bread they baked. It’s also weirdly connected me to people I haven’t spoken to in years. I guess we are all a little starved for attention and human connection.

I’m gonna keep posting my bullshit online and I am gonna keep texting my friends every three days things like, “Was that dumb? Should I not be posting anything?” And they will be like, “I didn’t even noticed you posted anything because life is meaningless right now and so is social media content.” And we will continue in that cycle until I decide to just accept my role in social media or I quit all social media for good.