Is Social Media the Devil?
I strayed away from Facebook over 10 years ago. This was maybe just before the dreaded ‘’algorithm’’ had come into play. My reason for leaving? I had hundreds of ‘’friends’’, people I’d met sometimes years before but didn’t really know. And now I was becoming inundated with their bullshit. It was no longer the place to communicate it had been, a needed step up from Myspace. It felt more like Eastenders.
I made the natural progression over to Instagram (at this point still no algorithm in sight). This was more my speed, just pictures. No drunk, pouring their heart out on their wall only to regret it the following morning. It was just people I knew sharing pictures. One could only write one sentence too. So, there was 0 option to be political or self-indulgent.
Fast forward a few years and wow, how things have changed. How Instagram has become what it is, from what it was is almost an unfathomable transformation. It’s like a coy, pleasant child becoming a full-on murderous dictator (‘’he was such a nice boy, kept himself to himself’’). It’s a monster.
Before moving to France, I had been somewhat sucked back into the orbit of the dreaded Facebook. Every time I heard the website uttered it seemed to be coming from older and older people’s mouths. It’s as if it is predominantly something used by 65-year-olds now, but the way they say it is like it’s a well-kept secret. ‘’ Are you on the Facebook? ‘’ with a quick glance around and a whisper.
It’s become the new Bingo! I kept hearing about Marketplace from little old ladies.
The thing is I had a lot of stuff to sell quickly and my old friend Ebay wasn’t shifting things as rapidly as I would have preferred. So, like an old con back for one last job, I dusted off the cobwebs and reactivated my account. I’m not sure Marketplace is all it’s cracked up to be but it’s certainly another place to look for stuff and often has items not on the more conventional sites.
It’s particularly good in France as most English people can’t use the French Gumtree: Leboncoin. I also needed access to groups regarding the trials and tribulations of our new adventure (moving to France post-Brexit).
Anyway, this is not about the benefits of Facebook! You cannot access groups or Marketplace without being party to all the shit. Soon enough whilst trying to flog a teak chest of drawers or find out where the fuck I can get some Marmite I’m seeing things I do not want to see.
Even though I haven’t added or accepted any friend requests for about 10 years, they (FB) know all the people I’ve met in the last 10 and show me their guff and ask if I want to be friends. WTF. Bits and pieces pop up from former jobs and lovers. Things I don’t want to know. Things I don’t care about yet it conjures up feelings in me of jealousy which I don’t even feel.
Social media is a person you don’t like, telling you what your ex-girlfriend is up to or that the person in the job you quit, because you hated it, is larging it up in New York on the company.
It’s actually not even that you’re jealous. Partly because you have done these things but because it’s just information that you don’t want. A sort of pollution that transports you to a previous time unwillingly. So Many Lives of a Millennial cannot be a part of social media. It’s manipulation, a form of torture, I hate it. It tries to derail us from the present to our past.
An unwelcome and gross intrusion on our life and privacy! You see how powerful and disgusting the machine truly is when you abstain for a time. When you have spent years away the subtle changes that have been happening daily are collectively massive. Like a relative you haven’t seen for years is suddenly old, almost overnight.
It’s comparable to when the phone rings and you and you think who on earth is this cunt calling me. Who do they think they are? It’s fairly well accepted by anyone under the age of 40 these days that you absolutely do not call people unannounced. Maybe with the exception of a handful of relationships. But that being said I wouldn’t even call my best friend (who is under 40) unless it was an emergency.
The exception, I do have a handful of chums out of my total 10 (who are well over 40) and the way we communicate is via random monthly phone calls. Where we play a sort of telecommunication game of tag until the stars are aligned and we’ll chew the fat for half an hour.
But generally, don’t call me. Definitely do not call me if you’re not 1 of my 10 friends. Unless it’s to offer me money. So, seeing that this is the way mine and apparently 75% of the UK’s mind works* why the fuck would we indulge in this torture that is social media?
LinkedIn even seems to have an algorithm these days.
Then of course there’s all the obvious stuff that much has been talked about. The fact that it’s all a highlight, it’s not real life. When you see someone enjoying a work trip somewhere exciting you don’t see them building up the courage to answer their phone to their insatiable boss every day, all day, for things that aren’t important.
I once got called on holiday in Morocco to ask if we were still launching the new wine list today when the only reason it was delayed was because the owner who was calling wanted to reformat it. I really fail to see how seeing people’s fake lives, who you don’t like, can serve any purpose at all.
So, we will not be partaking in social media, it can fuck off.
Yes, it will probably increase SEO and so on but it’s a deal I can’t abide. I don’t believe in it; it makes me feel sick. It’s full of bell ends and they all have a platform. As The Waterboy’s mama would say ‘’it’s the devil’’.
*75% of the UK’s population is under 40.