Do you feel like you “get” social media, or do you just use it because that’s where all your friends and family are? This one seems appropriate for the day the blue check died.
I’m not sure who said it, but I’ve always loved the line, “Facebook is where you lie to your friends and Twitter and where you tell the truth to total strangers.” Those make sense to me. I use Facebook and Instagram to post pictures and see pictures and try to avoid anyone pushing their politics.
I love Twitter as an information gathering source. If something is breaking in real time, there is no better place. I especially love it on nights like the State of the Union or even the Superbowl because there will be some hilarious takes.
For me, it starts to make less with Snapchat. I understand why my kids use it as their primary mode of text communication, but why they’re obligated to send two thousand pictures of their heads to every human relation mystifies me.
TikTok is worse. When I’m on the stepmill at the gym, I watch Netflix, etc. Ahead of me, I can see all the young’s watching nothing but TikToks while they work out. Just mindless video after video from people they don’t know. It baffles me and worse, I can’t tell you the number of times my daughter has asked me to watch something hilarious and it reminds me of watching clips from silent movies or Groucho Marx when I was a kid and trying to figure out how my parents and grandparents sat through them.
TikTok videos all seem so basic and obvious. No windup or subtlety. And mind you, I’m not looking for sophisticated humor. I could watch beefy people fall off rope swings all day, but TikToks seem like 30 seconds of wasted time to get to someone making a silly face.
Even crazier, my niece has a huge following on TikTok. ALL of her TikToks are short clips of her handing a dinner plate to her boyfriend. You don’t see either of them in the videos. Just their hands and the plate of food. She has a few hundred thousand followers and she can barely cook. Most of the time, she’s handing him a cheeseburger and it generates thousands of comments about how delicious it looks.
Then, there is the metaverse. What the hell is that? I wear a headset all day so I can be a cartoon, only younger, thinner, and better looking?
Maybe I’ll understand TikTok when I’m in the metaverse?
I cut all social media in 2020 and never looked back. The only exception is LinkedIn since I use it to apply to jobs and field potential jobs from recruiters.
My Facebook era lasted 2006 - 2014. Slowly tapered off once my parents generation changed it from a place I could goof around with my classmates to a place where suddenly we had to be careful about what we post.
I chased clout on Instagram and Twitter in the mid-late 2010s. Paid for followers. Used Instagram as a dating advertisement landing page. Used Twitter to try and assert intellectual dominance over others.
Social media brought out the worst in me. 2020 was the final straw. All those insane clips of riots every day. People going to extreme measures to get attention. Im still haunted by a particular memory of a girl licking toilets for attention on Twitter. Somehow that went viral and showed up in my timeline even after I had gone to great lengths to only follow quality people.
I’m just done with it. Low value noise, all of it. None of it will be remembered 100 years from now. All that work people do to gain a following and make a name for themselves. Not even Trump or Biden or Whoever the f*ck will be remembered a few thousand years from now. Enjoy real life and real moments with real people around you. The rest is just static noise.
I've worked for my family business for 25 years now, starting in 1998. Incidentally, the same business I write from today.
The year was 2005. A high school friend, Christy, walks in, sees me and exclaims, "Oh my God I thought that was your car (yes I was still driving my high school car, don't hate) I'm so happy to see you! Facebook says you're dead!"
I was laughing my ass off! I asked how I died; she replied, "No one knooows....." in a spooky voice while making the spooky hand wiggling gesture.
I told her NOT to correct anyone, and only to post that you found out I died stopping a gas station robbery.
I feel this story sums up my relationship to social media quite nicely. And it's never really evolved. I have no Facebook, IG, TikTok, and I'm still not exactly sure how to navigate Twitter. Oh, and I don't have Twitter, either.
I do get social media, though, it provides a path to feeling seen and heard. The problem is people use it the same way they use fast food. Makes you feel same way too: consume too much of either and you become a depressed, dejected, self loathing sack of shit. Your brain needs real friendship the way your body needs real food.
All that is to say I suppose Substack would be my first foray in to social media, assuming it counts. I do have a quite a few friends on Xbox chat, perhaps that counts as social media adjacent?
As a quick aside to Bridget: I learned of Substack from your most recent Rogan appearance. I've this splinter in my brain for years now; when you started talking about your writing club, it kinda clicked. Outside of some pottery classes, I haven't pursued a creative outlet for sometime. As you continued to talk about writing I remembered that I used to really enjoy penning my thoughts before all those tedious goddamn college papers. Thanks for giving me a little push to get back on the keyboard and a little pull to put my thoughts out into the ether.
I’ll say it, I’m a millennial. We are the generation that saw the technology boom happen and went with it.
I guess I would say, it depends on which social media platform you’re talking about. Facebook? I feel as thought that’s for family and to stalk your former high school classmates. Instagram? I use the Stories feature a lot, because I just like the photography and graphics that people make. I love the artistic side of Instagram and, yes, I will occasionally post. However, it’s normally just random shit; other than if I were traveling. Then, you will see me posting a lot on the platform, because the places are so gorgeous.
I do have Twitter and, truthfully, it’s a place to be snarky. I get Twitter, but I don’t get it enough to have a massive following. I just shit-post and move on. I have a few people on Twitter that I talk to and engage with, but since I’m not looking for a huge following, I just enjoy it. I don’t have a blue check. I don’t care about Elon running the place into the dirt. To me, the more dysfunctional Twitter is - the better, because that’s when the best content is made, to be honest.
I am not on TikTok, because I am aware of the massive time suck that it is. However, I think the Reels feature on Instagram has become my substitute; mostly because I do not want to download yet another app.
The most underrated social media to me? Pinterest! You all need to get on there and just get lost in making creative boards. It’s so much fun and really does help your creativity. I use it a lot for work and crafts for the kids. However, my personal account is all about writing, costuming, and just stuff I like.
Overall, my relationship with social media is that each platform serves a different function and that’s fine with me.
I’m not sure who said it, but I’ve always loved the line, “Facebook is where you lie to your friends and Twitter and where you tell the truth to total strangers.” Those make sense to me. I use Facebook and Instagram to post pictures and see pictures and try to avoid anyone pushing their politics.
I love Twitter as an information gathering source. If something is breaking in real time, there is no better place. I especially love it on nights like the State of the Union or even the Superbowl because there will be some hilarious takes.
For me, it starts to make less with Snapchat. I understand why my kids use it as their primary mode of text communication, but why they’re obligated to send two thousand pictures of their heads to every human relation mystifies me.
TikTok is worse. When I’m on the stepmill at the gym, I watch Netflix, etc. Ahead of me, I can see all the young’s watching nothing but TikToks while they work out. Just mindless video after video from people they don’t know. It baffles me and worse, I can’t tell you the number of times my daughter has asked me to watch something hilarious and it reminds me of watching clips from silent movies or Groucho Marx when I was a kid and trying to figure out how my parents and grandparents sat through them.
TikTok videos all seem so basic and obvious. No windup or subtlety. And mind you, I’m not looking for sophisticated humor. I could watch beefy people fall off rope swings all day, but TikToks seem like 30 seconds of wasted time to get to someone making a silly face.
Even crazier, my niece has a huge following on TikTok. ALL of her TikToks are short clips of her handing a dinner plate to her boyfriend. You don’t see either of them in the videos. Just their hands and the plate of food. She has a few hundred thousand followers and she can barely cook. Most of the time, she’s handing him a cheeseburger and it generates thousands of comments about how delicious it looks.
Then, there is the metaverse. What the hell is that? I wear a headset all day so I can be a cartoon, only younger, thinner, and better looking?
Maybe I’ll understand TikTok when I’m in the metaverse?
I cut all social media in 2020 and never looked back. The only exception is LinkedIn since I use it to apply to jobs and field potential jobs from recruiters.
My Facebook era lasted 2006 - 2014. Slowly tapered off once my parents generation changed it from a place I could goof around with my classmates to a place where suddenly we had to be careful about what we post.
I chased clout on Instagram and Twitter in the mid-late 2010s. Paid for followers. Used Instagram as a dating advertisement landing page. Used Twitter to try and assert intellectual dominance over others.
Social media brought out the worst in me. 2020 was the final straw. All those insane clips of riots every day. People going to extreme measures to get attention. Im still haunted by a particular memory of a girl licking toilets for attention on Twitter. Somehow that went viral and showed up in my timeline even after I had gone to great lengths to only follow quality people.
I’m just done with it. Low value noise, all of it. None of it will be remembered 100 years from now. All that work people do to gain a following and make a name for themselves. Not even Trump or Biden or Whoever the f*ck will be remembered a few thousand years from now. Enjoy real life and real moments with real people around you. The rest is just static noise.
I've worked for my family business for 25 years now, starting in 1998. Incidentally, the same business I write from today.
The year was 2005. A high school friend, Christy, walks in, sees me and exclaims, "Oh my God I thought that was your car (yes I was still driving my high school car, don't hate) I'm so happy to see you! Facebook says you're dead!"
I was laughing my ass off! I asked how I died; she replied, "No one knooows....." in a spooky voice while making the spooky hand wiggling gesture.
I told her NOT to correct anyone, and only to post that you found out I died stopping a gas station robbery.
I feel this story sums up my relationship to social media quite nicely. And it's never really evolved. I have no Facebook, IG, TikTok, and I'm still not exactly sure how to navigate Twitter. Oh, and I don't have Twitter, either.
I do get social media, though, it provides a path to feeling seen and heard. The problem is people use it the same way they use fast food. Makes you feel same way too: consume too much of either and you become a depressed, dejected, self loathing sack of shit. Your brain needs real friendship the way your body needs real food.
All that is to say I suppose Substack would be my first foray in to social media, assuming it counts. I do have a quite a few friends on Xbox chat, perhaps that counts as social media adjacent?
As a quick aside to Bridget: I learned of Substack from your most recent Rogan appearance. I've this splinter in my brain for years now; when you started talking about your writing club, it kinda clicked. Outside of some pottery classes, I haven't pursued a creative outlet for sometime. As you continued to talk about writing I remembered that I used to really enjoy penning my thoughts before all those tedious goddamn college papers. Thanks for giving me a little push to get back on the keyboard and a little pull to put my thoughts out into the ether.
Practice help make use word good!
I’ll say it, I’m a millennial. We are the generation that saw the technology boom happen and went with it.
I guess I would say, it depends on which social media platform you’re talking about. Facebook? I feel as thought that’s for family and to stalk your former high school classmates. Instagram? I use the Stories feature a lot, because I just like the photography and graphics that people make. I love the artistic side of Instagram and, yes, I will occasionally post. However, it’s normally just random shit; other than if I were traveling. Then, you will see me posting a lot on the platform, because the places are so gorgeous.
I do have Twitter and, truthfully, it’s a place to be snarky. I get Twitter, but I don’t get it enough to have a massive following. I just shit-post and move on. I have a few people on Twitter that I talk to and engage with, but since I’m not looking for a huge following, I just enjoy it. I don’t have a blue check. I don’t care about Elon running the place into the dirt. To me, the more dysfunctional Twitter is - the better, because that’s when the best content is made, to be honest.
I am not on TikTok, because I am aware of the massive time suck that it is. However, I think the Reels feature on Instagram has become my substitute; mostly because I do not want to download yet another app.
The most underrated social media to me? Pinterest! You all need to get on there and just get lost in making creative boards. It’s so much fun and really does help your creativity. I use it a lot for work and crafts for the kids. However, my personal account is all about writing, costuming, and just stuff I like.
Overall, my relationship with social media is that each platform serves a different function and that’s fine with me.
Apart from WhatsApp and an occasional flirt with Twitter, I don’t. Unless Substack is social media. And WhatsApp is only for family and a few friends