why I started publishing on social media again
who in their right mind would publish anything at all, any time any day really?
Me, 3 months ago
Social media has for the last 10 years been a haven for attention seeking people that show off their perfectly happy life. That, and being a platform for targeted ads and people with an agenda. I'm proud of not having an updated social media profile, it means my self esteem is rooted in reality, not likes. Besides, who is really interested in what's happening in my life? I generally only care about other people's social media if they got married, got birth or got buried. Why would my content be relevant to others?
I have no social media apps at all installed. I focus on myself by only consuming Hacker news and journaling every day.
That was 3 months ago.
I've had this pessimistic stance on social media for a while. I upload photos maybe on my childrens birthdays. My social media presence has always been more or less dead. By never presenting myself to the world, I started internalizing relevant events into my journal instead of sharing them. After all, why would anyone be interested in my uninteresting and irrelevant life?
I met some new people at work. To avoid starting conversations on ground zero, I scrolled through the most recent of their social media to dig out some news. Nice, they have a dog and such. Cute. Taking drinks with friends, that's nice. Wait a sec, they probably did the same when following me back and found my stuff from 2019. That's not fair and symmetrical.
So it started with some insta stories. The sick thing is, people around me actually noticed and started off conversations with a head start, not starting with
so how was your weekend
But rather
so how was that Ed Sheeran concert?
Without social media, it would be tricky to change personality in a scalable way. I'd have to announce my new me to each and every friend, and bookkeep who knows that I've started going to concerts. It would get boring real quick.
So that's my current stance: Social media allows for personal news to be announced ahead of talktime, so you can spend your time together exchanging thoughts and have meaningful conversations, rather than announcing news at each other and playing catch up. That's socializing by talking about news. I'd much rather live life with you and create something new, here and now.