Achtung Baby

Social media rant, peeps. Here we go:

Hear me out. Imagine a giant library, filled with your friends, family, favorite influencers, celebrities, authors, Wendy’s (for some reason) and I guess, talking cats … Sounds amazing. And it is, as a spectacle. Now imagine everyone entering and exiting this space just to make statements. They’re all using their voices to talk but not directly to anyone. In a room full of people and wonders, they don’t make eye contact. They just come in, blurt their say and leave. No one is saying, “hi, how are you?” There are no salutations or cordial acknowledgments, just statements. Exchange is limited to how you react to the statement only after the person has left the room. You are left alone in the noise; the other person is not present. 

If someone did that in real life, what would you think they were doing? If they just came into the room, this library we imagined, your house, your bedroom—the lights are off, you’re falling asleep—they burst in, scare the cat off the bed, say whatever is on their mind and leave without waiting for a response, taking the temperature of the room, applying any court-sense whatsoever—just in, blurt, leave, no eye-contact. And that went on, hundreds of times throughout the night, thousands of times throughout the day …

It’s strange that this parallel looks so familiar, isn’t it? I think that’s what we’ve all conditioned ourselves to with social media. That’s what we’ve normalized.

I want to ask … is that okay? Do you feel good? How are you? Do you feel acknowledged, do you feel heard, do you feel a connection, do you feel—love? There are people connected to your social media accounts that love you, family members, long-time friends and colleagues … 

Those are LITERAL butter fingers.

Should you feel loved? Do you deserve to?

What is the news-cycle these days? 2 hours? Less? Way less? How long do we move from one entrenched, all-important statement to another before completely forgetting which one we started on? Pretty quick, right? Why is that? Why doesn’t anything stick?

It’s what you have when people don’t make eye-contact, when people just blurt statements in the middle of the room and leave. When you look at it, and imagine it happening in real life, it’s as if social media has been normalized to be as anti-social as possible.

No one wants to talk online but everyone wants to connect. It’s all set up to blurt statements and collect attention. We’ve just been turned into … babies. It’s been decades since it’s become fully integrated, but social media is still in its infancy and through it, so are we. It’s selfish, hungry, messy, adorable sometimes, full of shit at others, loud, easily manipulated, has a short-term memory - and it cloys for attention. Because that’s how babies act.

(This little guy is way more put together than me MOST DAYS.)

Problem is, we’re all expecting it to take care of us and connect us to the world and what’s happening in politics, entertainment, medical science, and whatever else we depend on, depending on whatever is important for us to pay attention to for our professional and personal lives, and most commonly, social connection, (hence the term, “social media”). 

Don’t get me wrong. I partake. I like seeing Wendy’s take Katy Perry down a peg, just like anyone else. But that’s just gossip. That’s all. And it’s the kind that gets blurted out in the middle of a crowded room while we’re trying our best to be heard inside this infinite nursery, an infinite nursery full of other people’s crying, squirming, sharting babies. Talking to them about the POTUS, or influence of corporations on your favorite movie franchise, talking to them like they’re some sort of fully-grown adults, hoping beyond hope, some magic day, they’ll develop functioning knee-caps, walk by your side, look you in the eye and reciprocate all of your attention. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll hear them ask, “What did you do today?”

A simple question. One they will genuinely care about the answer to.

Until then, what we have is—I guess whatever tf Twitter has turned into.

I don’t know. I grew up in the late 1900’s …

“I remember when we could sleep on stones. Now we lie together in whispers and moans.”