We live in a society where it’s become more important to look cool and APPEAR happy on social media than it is to be a genuine person. That said, let me just start this post off with the main point and get it over with:  I am unbothered by how bothered people (apparently) are that I have deactivated my Facebook profile.

If it’s that important for people to discuss amongst themselves, to speak ill of it, to assume that it has something to do with them (apparently, several people decided that I had just blocked or removed them and that it was something personal to them), or to assume that my disappearance there (again – it’s not like I don’t take random social media breaks – clearly I take long hiatuses here, too, if you look at my post schedule for the last few years) has something very defining to say about the state of my mental health as though I don’t share openly about not only my mental health but my entire life EVERYWHERE: it’s just not that deep. It’s really not.

Neither my very open sharing nor my random complete vanishing acts are that deep. It’s not a plot, a ploy, or a campaign for or against anything. It’s just me being me, just like for the majority of everyone else it’s just them being them. It’s just being real. Authentic. Me. ((internal scream))

This post is for THOSE people – because those people will be people who know about this blog – and anyone else who ever negatively reacted to or spoke about a person they knew who decided to be “weird,” “mental,” “sensitive,” or viewed as otherwise abnormal because the person – GOD FORBID – deacctivated, deleted, hid, or removed a social media profile.

Honestly. Get over yourselves.

I have long had the open opinion that social media is the devil more than the angel in the “devil/angel/shoulder” triad. I’ve always been super verbal about this. I have also, however, always been a person who subjugated myself to the BS that social media tends to inevitably be and bring because I often feel as though I MUST meet the social requirements of family and friends who “won’t see or know what is going on with the boy” or “in my life” if I’m not on (specifically) Facebook (because, you know, THAT is the one EVERYBODY uses).

Admittedly, and especially during the time that my mom was sick or during times when I’ve had a lot going on emotionally during COVID and isolation, I have spent a lot of time on the book of faces sharing my thoughts and baring my soul. It’s easy to do when you keep a limited friends list (mine has been between 50 and 60 people, mostly family for a few years now).

It always starts the same way when I get back on the social medias: I reactivate or rejoin so that I can be in these groups (mostly private ones) for support around certain causes (with mom it was dementia, and I’ve also been heavily active in other groups about everything from specific mental health issues like anxiety and depressions to coping with alcoholism to photography to coping mechanisms and grief to writing prompts to cleaning tips and online, chronological recipe roledexes)…but I ALWAYS end up wanting to educate my f-list about things or share with people that I THINK are close and real friends (and let’s be fair – 80% are) only to end up offending someone because I have an opinion, EVEN if they agree with the opinion but don’t think it is something I should share on the interwebs.

So, now that an entirely too long preface to the fruit of this post (despite the fact that I started this post with my main point) is finished – clearly, my long form writing is out of practice – let me share with you this glorious, foggy Sunday morning (where I am) my list of 5 things that I have considered at length over recent days and feel that every person should remember (or be reminded not to forget if they haven’t already forgotten these things):

1. Social media is preferred by most to be an illusion of a FAKE existence/reality and you can’t be a genuine and 100% authentic person on social media without being punished or judged by SOMEONE at SOME POINT. End of story.

2. Nobody cares. It sounds apathetic, but it’s true. The majority of people on public social media (not your close friends on your private posts, necessarily) DO NOT CARE about anything you post unless it is a picture of something they find aesthetically pleasing or that they think is hilarious (think, for the most part, kittens and other baby animals). They do not want to read words and they do not care to expand their mind or expound on their thoughts (or yours). Personally, I even (and, frequently) get insulted for USING WORDS, big and small, too much on social media. Go figure, right? ((dry laugh))

3. If you already struggle with mental health issues like depression and anxiety or personal issues like lack of self-esteem, self-confidence or self-love, SOCIAL MEDIA WILL MAKE THOSE ISSUES WORSE and contribute to your pain more than it will help you to face your demons and grow (again, in some cases people have used social media to overcome certain fears and issues, and there are some wonderful private groups on social media and many sites and forums online that are incredibly helpful for some people, but for the most part it (public social media) is not a safe or healthy place for the already struggling mind/psyche).

4. Just like in real life (haha), people do not want you to genuinely love them, genuinely try to get to know them, genuinely take interest in them as an individual human being, or genuinely give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what shreds of truth and actuality they share on social media. They just want a lot of likes and compliments.

And, on that same note, those SAME people will be the people who ALWAYS pop up in your comments with some negative or completely abject and contradictory (to their own actual existence – because they’ll basically say that something is OK for them but not for anyone else) stance on posts that (again) really aren’t that deep. “Opinons are like assholes, everybody has one,” and if you don’t want to be shit on? If you’re going through a period where you are feeling less than or a time during which your skin is pretty thin? Stay off of social media.

5. Finally, the last but main point to remember when it comes to being on social media in 2020: at the end of the day, no matter how much you fight and bleed and protest and try to explain to the world through words and pictures what is wrong and how to fix it when it comes to political and social issues? The best way to accomplish that is STILL and always will be grassroots movements and activism, whether through writing or speaking, and otherwise making your voice heard in your own local communities and branching out from there.

You’ve got to remember that social media is just a bunch of noise at this point – a bunch of people with the intellectual advancement of a kindergardener (smart and not so smart kindergardeners) all yelling and raising their voices at once to share opinons, not facts, without first raising their hands and asking questions or hearing the objective opinons and voices of reason from people who know what the hell they are actually talking about.

Sorry, Trump fans, but it’s very much like Trump sitting in a briefing with Dr. Fauci to be briefed about COVID, not paying a lick of attention because he already has his mind made up and believes that he knows everything and doesn’t need one of the top infectious disease doctors in the world to help him (depsite the privilege that that is, in reality), and then getting on the podium in front of the whole nation and rambling on about how he is the most terrific person ever doing all the greatest and most wonderful things, playng down COVID in the few words that he uses to mention it, making a few insults about the intelligence of everyone in the nation for being anxious or afraid concerning COVID, calling leading doctors and professionals unintelligent and telling people to drink clorox (he says it was taken out of context, but…uhhhhh), going back to talking about himself for a bit longer, and then ending on a note of, “you’re stupid, this is not reporting, you’re a moron because you care about facts and not how wonderful I am, sit down, you’re fake news….”

Seriously. That’s what social media has turned into…

And, that’s why I needed a break from it – espeically now, during all of these insane election happenings… I would rather read a 20-minute read time blog post that educates me about something than look at your pointless meme about Trump’s tan or Biden’s age (and information skewing memes about dementia when you’ve never lived with, cared for, or been a caregiver to a person who actually HAS dementia), or waste my time trying to talk to people who are SO comitted to seeing the world in literal black and white and not understanding that there is SO MUCH GREY AREA and so much we can learn from each other’s thoughts and experiences.

Ultimately, for the people who inspired this post? My social media is mine, not yours. And yours is yours and no one else’s, so you should do with yours whatever you well please to do with it but don’t forget the realities shared above and don’t let it stress you out too much…and if it does or it begins to? Write it out elsewhere – in a blog, or even a text to me or a close friend. I mean, really – talk it out, whatever thing is bothering you. You do what you do, but don’t let social media have SO MUCH CONTROL over your life.

Sigh… I hope you’re all doing well. Thank you for listening to (reading) my rant. Please, share your thoughts and experiences in the comments. And? Look for photoblogs and random fun things from me in the coming hours and days. I went so far as to literally run away from my house I was so sick (physically) and stressed out. Minicay = photoblogs for your enjoyment, coming soon…