The Kalopsian Wave

Social media has completely ruined modern socialization, and I no longer wish to take part in it. For a long time, I have felt this disconcerting, pernicious rot infecting my mind and body, and I believe that social media is the main cause for it.

Growing up, my sister and I were only allowed to use Pinterest. I was so livid at our parents; feeling left out and invisible to my peers for my lack of online presence. 

In addition, our parents were incredibly strict towards any social interactions my sister and I had, which led us to become islands unto each other until our teenage years ended. We spent long hours in each other’s company, commiserating in our problems, discussing music we had found, and working on art. 

There was a time when I could sweep myself up into imagination- into days of prolonged thought, pondering one thing. I was fortified in who I was; I felt like I lived in my body. I felt present. I felt smarter, more focused, more driven. My feelings were so poignant and multifaceted. 

In the back of my mind, I have always felt intense disdain towards myself for abandoning this version of me, and am disappointment of how lazy and unmotivated I’ve become. 

It feels good to be loved online. To know the game and play it well. I think being loved on social media is worse than having no one care when you post. It starts feeding an artificial love, an empty calories type situation. It wasn’t until I was pondering deleting my account that I realized just how addicted I had become. I was turning around the decision in my mind as if it were as profound as breaking up with someone. I realized this, and I felt pathetic thinking that this was a big deal to me. I felt pathetic that an online scrapbook, which has done nothing but destroy the grey matter in my brain and feed me relentless propaganda, was something I formed such a huge emotional bond to.  

Feeling like I couldn’t live without it, and that made me realize I needed to. 

I deleted my account on the 1st of July. 

There is a study done with monkeys where a baby monkey is given both a wire mother with milk and a fake mother with fur and no milk, and the baby always picks the fur mother. I have been that baby monkey. 

My life is generally uninteresting, and I live most of my days in near solitude. I don’t get a lot of social interaction day-to-day, and that is something that pushed me to seek connection on social media more. But I realize now that I was cuddling into the fur mother… I wanted comfort and didn’t care if there was substance. I was satisfied with something that could never feed me. Ideally, I would have a real monkey mother- a work-life balance that enriches me socially and creatively, but until then, I think I need to embrace the difficult-to-grasp wire mother, for the betterment of myself. 

I do think that this is a stupid article- the fact that social media is such a profound thing to me, something relentlessly discussed and widely known to be bad. I’m not saying anything new. But I wanted to address it from my eyes. I am Humpty Dumpty, who fell off the wall. I’ve been a fragmented version of myself for a long time, and I have learned time and time again that I am the only one capable of putting myself back together. No one will do the hard work of self-improvement for me- I am the only one capable of that. Plus, if I am going to criticize others for STUPIDLY falling in love with AI chatbots I want to exonerate myself of any hypocrisy. 

I think social media does make people dumb and desensitized. It’s truly too much information all at one time, and it’s exhausting to bounce around subject to subject. There are times where within the first 5 minutes of being awake, I would have read about murdered children, the Glossier 20% off sale, a friend’s new engagement, and an Instagram reel of an AITAH reddit story over subway surfers. God, it’s so stressful. Why do I choose to continue to inflict this upon myself? 

I want to feel alive. I want to be present in my body. I want to have to take my time, I don’t want to feel rushed or interrupted. I’m early in my anti-Instagram experiment, and last night I went to bed at 9:30 after reading the DND Monster Manual for an hour. My dog Maggie curled up next to me, my laundry in the dryer.  It was nice to go to bed and actually be relaxed for once.

 I think humans should exert their free will every time they feel like there is a strong outside force pressing on them. Small rebellions keep us alive. What a joy it is to relish in this one beautiful life we have.

 I want to live every day present and alive in it. 

I will miss some things from social media, though, so I am hoping to obviate this issue with this blog. I want to make something free of the implicit competition of social media, something free of likes, validation, doomscrolling, and brainrot. I just want to share about my life and what I’m thinking about, and interact with anyone who wants to write in a sincere and meaningful way. 

I think this will be fun.