I want as many people as possible to read this, but I would like to specifically reach the people who are under 28 years old, and those who are strong minded, know hypocrisy when they see it, are leaders not followers, execute common sense and understanding, and are disciplined and hard-working human beings who love themselves and love this country. This might be of help.
I am not asking you to do this, I am not telling you, I am only recommending and encouraging you to think about your place on social media. Most of you probably know why, but I’ll give you my reasoning (if you care which after many years of posting, no one really does 😂). So I guess you could say I’m just babbling about something about myself to all of you who wish to read (isn’t that the point of these platforms?). I hope your very short attention spans that big tech takes pride in can get you through this whole message. I’ll keep it powerful.
Many years ago, I had a MySpace account when everyone started talking about Facebook. This seemed like the beginning of the “go to the next best thing” phase. When I joined Facebook it was a place to post pictures, and I was in high school so when we had a party and someone took photos we couldn’t wait to see them. It was very exciting! I don’t think we had status updates yet and I don’t think we were able to comment on the photos, but it was fun nonetheless. It was even better in college for me personally because I was a secret something and I wanted to post cryptic status updates that were targeted at a specific person or persons and change my profile picture every 30 seconds, aka I needed attention. Imagine that!
Times have certainly changed since then. Almost my entire family is on more than one platform, I’m friends with hundreds of people that I never even spoke to in high school but yet know everything about them to this day, and now everyone is suddenly super political, super angry, super entitled and super censored. Ever since 2016 I started seeing people posting updates every single day about how angry they were in their lives. Now remember, I was excited to go on FB to see photos from the night before and now when I go on Facebook all I see are people who hate their lives or have something that they need to complain about every. single. day. I’ve definitely vented on Facebook before when I was younger (we’re all guilty of it), but what is this platform really good for nowadays? I thought the workplace was the only place to feel negative energy, especially if you hated your job, but when you come on social media to escape and do mindless scrolling, look at a couple funny memes, photos and videos of your friends, instead you’re getting sucked into a slew of negative images and updates and falling down the rabbit hole of the comments sections where people don’t even know each other but are threatening each other‘s lives. When did we become savage wild animals? I’ve been told countless stories of close friends suddenly becoming ex-friends and enemies because they don’t share the same exact views on topics we used to be able to debate about and then continue on with the day. Am I the only one who thinks this is absolutely insane?! Since when did that define you as a person?
I’ve been wanting to get off social media for a while but I think what really pushed me over the edge was when I recently shared the story about New York City Pride banning police officers from marching in the parade. Every day since 2016 I had to see and read negative shit from the same people; news stories that aren’t even based on facts or completely fabricated or missing very important information, angry aggressive opinions, and disrespectful comments. Just so much negativity and hate hate hate. I posted something that really hurt people, was fully backed on evidence (also known as the truth) and was EXTREMELY wrong, and not one person said a thing. I am tired of seeing the hypocrisy in humans. People have given up on thinking for themselves because they want to be accepted by people they never even met. I’ve never seen anything like it. I am convinced evolution will do its job one day and completely remove the human backbone.
I want the life that we had before all this. Before cell phones. Before text messages. Before social media. Before we started hating each other because of our private political backgrounds and our private health information. Before the government and media didn’t purposely divide us to get more viewers. When people were respectful. When people didn’t just say they loved and accepted everyone, they ACTUALLY loved and accepted everyone. I don’t know about you, but I want to wake up every morning and be happy. I want to hug my family and friends. I want to kiss my cat. I want to be social. I want to go on vacation. I want to sing and write and perform my music, and I want to live my life as if the only thing that mattered was my friends and family, being respectful to others, and treating everyone else the way you would want to be treated. Wasn’t that the life lesson we were taught since we were babies?
What I’m trying to say is look at all the craziness and madness that is happening. All of the misinformation, false accusations, and the complete brainwashing of lots and lots of people who wouldn’t know better otherwise. Look at all of the purposeful targeting. I believe this hateful downfall started with the iPhone, and then text messaging, and then became a worldwide power and control issue with social media. I don’t want to be part of this anymore.
As I conclude this message, I want to share a quick story that has stuck with me for life. When I was about 12 years old, my father didn’t let me stay out late with my friends on Halloween. I told him I was going to miss out on so much. He told me my friends would probably say that in the morning, and I would have to tell them I didn’t miss anything. The next day at school, that was the first thing they said, and I responded saying “I didn’t miss anything.” They kept saying I did, but couldn’t tell me one thing I missed. My father was right, and my life wasn’t ruined. You wouldn’t be missing out on anything if you gave up on social media, and I think most people’s biggest fear of leaving any and all social media platforms is that they would be missing out on, well, “something.” Newsflash people: the only thing you are missing out on is your own life.
