Before I get into all the manifesto-ing, I think I should take you on
It began on January 8, when Meta changed its hate speech policy. From allowing the dehumanization of women and transgender folks, to permitting users to call queer people mentally ill, to removing the prohibition on saying entire groups of people shouldn’t exist, to removing fact-checking, it became clear that Facebook and Instagram were going the way of Twitter.
Then, 10 days later, TikTok pulled a little disappearing stunt, going offline (before the ban bill went into effect, a ban that Biden’s administration already said it would not enforce) and magically returning with an absolutely glazing note of thanks performatively thanking Trump for saving them from a threat that never properly existed. The breakdown I saw my friends have when the app went down concerned me. When the app came back after a mere 16 hours, I realized how much these social media apps own their users.
There was very little break before Trump’s inauguration, where he put tech billionaires front and center. When Elon Musk did “what appeared to be” (and what definitely was) a Nazi salute, that was really the last straw for me. The richest man in the world, who bought and ruined one of the biggest social media platforms, felt so emboldened by the state of the States that he performed such an outrageous action ON LIVE, NATIONAL TELEVISION. Anyway, that ignited within me an experience I described in my journal as being “consumed by hatred of social media and the internet at large.”
Add to this a handful of videos of people beating their phone addictions (especially a really good series by Digging the Greats) and an increasing knowledge of the manipulations of the Algorithm and techno-feudalism, and you have a radicalization recipe that could convert this staunch phone good zoomer to a more… phone bad position. Because I’m tired of this bullshit— of enabling and funding the people who are actively trying to screw us over— I decided to take
I thought maybe I would do a month-long challenge like DtG, or throw away my phone, or at the very least delete Instagram (and vote with my wallet, or more accurately, my attention). I did none of the above. The challenge idea fizzled as I awaited the perfect starting date, I am perhaps too reliant on my phone for school (that’s an excuse; it’s also just in general) to cut it out of my life, and I “can’t” delete Instagram (or WhatsApp) because it’s the way I communicate with a lot of my friends, especially my friends from high school. (I did delete my art/photography account in favor of Cara, though. Baby steps.)
The solution I settled on is being more intentional with my social media use. After a week-long fast showed me that I don’t need Instagram to be happy, I uninstalled it from my phone. (I redownloaded it, but I use it, like, once a month. Deleting it made me realize just how much I hated Instagram. The amount is a lot, if you were curious.) I deleted and paused my YouTube watch history to try to free myself (at least somewhat) from the almighty Algorithm. And I built a personal site to join the slow web. (Hello Internet!) I have a lot of learning and doing to do, but I feel like these are good first steps.
Feel free to poke around here, or on Neocities.org, or IndieWeb.org, or wherever. Thanks for reading this long ass rant. (I genuinely sound crazy, but oh well.) Welcome to my site :)
