FROM SOCIAL TO SOCIALLY AWKWARD MEDIA

There was a time when just me being me was turning up the fun on social media, and I was polarizing. It felt like hosting a glamorous party every single night: spontaneous, unrestricted, alive. Witty humor was bouncing back and forth from posts to comments and from comments to replies. It was inspiring. It was creative. Followers were growing up in number by the thousands in record time. I made a lot of friends.

Why did I leave social media? ... Life. Other priorities. Too busy. No longer in the mood. Technology felt draining. And, for the most part, the internet was becoming like the forum of a lunatic asylum where the patients were in charge.

Why did I push myself back into social media? People asking me to come back, people getting mad at me for wasting my time not doing what I was supposed to do in life... I also feel it was the time.

It wasn't easy, because with social media, like with anything else in life, if you don't use it, you lose it. But I said a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and checked out all the platforms that matter, one by one. So, this is what I found that I didn't like:

One: A lot of selling, marketing, and advertising... A lot! So aggressive, as if all the corporate people want to grab even the little money left on the planet for the rest of us and then run and hide somewhere.

Two: A lot of impersonal content shared and re-shared at nauseam, with no captions, like no one is supposed to know why they shared what they shared. People afraid to communicate about themselves or what they think and feel. The AI fever becoming the thickest curtain to hide behind.

The image of a high-school nerd party came into my mind. Everyone sitting on chairs in a circle, not talking, and smiling awkwardly. The wildest thing happening is when someone stretches out a hand to grab a cookie. There's music playing, and everyone is thinking it's a party and it's supposed to be fun. But no one starts the fun. Everyone's waiting. It's so standoffish that even the noise you make while chewing on a cookie sounds like drum beating, and you feel like you're betraying your tribe. So, you bite from it twice and leave the rest of it on a saucer. The host's mom comes in and asks, "What happened, sweetheart? Didn't you like the cookie?" You smile even more awkwardly and say, "Thank you. No, I did. But I'm full."

I think the more we shrink online, the more we lose offline. And we shouldn't let the theory of the dead internet become a fact.

I guess this is why I'm supposed to come back. For the resurrection.