Social
Maybe it’s ADHD. Maybe it’s a need to be involved. Maybe it’s recognition. Maybe it’s the urge to be immersed and surrounded by the hobby in all forms. Fuck, maybe it’s Maybelline. I don’t know.
I’m lucky and unlucky enough to be of the age that I was in my 20s during the advent/surge of social media. I signed up for every account I possibly could, injecting the internet with my pretentious bullshit on every dotcom I possibly could. Friendster, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, and more niche/hobby related sites and message boards. Trying to cultivate a “me” amongst the inflated, faux personalities of the day was an embarrassing goal. I blogged on Xanga (two blogs, actually) and created a heavy metal themed blog called Sixfeetunderthegun that I maintained for a while and got a little traction. I went to college for journalism and wanted to get a little use out of it. So, I focused on reviews, reporting, and even got a second writer to jump in now and then. But, at the end of the day, it was the same as everything else listed in this paragraph…for attention. Selfish goals for the wrong reason.
Timewarp a decade or two and my on again/off again relationship with social media was an eternal struggle. Sure, it’s nice to post a pic so far-flung family and friends could check in. But, it was also nice to post what music I was listening to so people would notice. And, despite arguments that there’s “nothing wrong with that”, it felt icky. Posting just to post, just to get attention. Commenting on celebrity posts or retweeting someone I admired just to get that possible dopamine click.
The whole time, I knew this was stupid. A month or so ago, I decided that I was done with it (for now? Probably for now), so I deleted the apps and unbookmarked the sites. I’m still debating closing the accounts, but WHAT IF I NEED THEM????
This is a topic I could and likely will post about in chunks because dissecting it isn’t a small task. But, for the purposes of the now, I’m sticking with this blog. I’m not creating sidebars and links and promoting myself (yet?). I just want to do this to satiate that decades old cyber-social need without spreading myself across myriad networks. And to narrow my focus to things that really matter to me, not to comment on a topic on which I couldn’t give two shits just to get a like or a “Hey, me too!” from some rando.
If I had to slot my qualms and hesitations on leaving social media, I’d have to put RPG news/personalities/interaction in the top level. 99% of all of that came from social media. Or, I thought it did. But, when I zoom out, most of what I got came from stories or links friends shared, from blogs I’d read (often linked from social posts), or from news feeds. And those are just fine. A million years ago, I’d wake up and type in URLs or click bookmarks to read news. RPGnet, Critical-Hits, blogs not unlike this one. And that process is absolutely fine.
I bitch about alone time and never getting a second to myself and I was just compounding it with social media addiction. Breaking that habit and morphing into this will hopefully be healthy. If not, that’s fine. Life is pivots.
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