A Cringe-y Walk Down Facebook Memory Lane

These days I try try try to just only look at Facebook for my own memories. Wow how selfish and self absorbed of me!

Wow I used to post a lot! 

I try to just stick with that little Memories button, and then not veer elsewhere. But you know how the lure is...it's strong. It's not long before I scroll down a bit, just to see what that first person there is saying. Oh but maybe it's an ad. So I have to scroll down a bit further. Oh good, there's something!

Oh sh-- I've done it again! 

How do I know? I start to get that empty scrolling feeling. That junk food weak brain feeling. Maybe I start to feel a little pissed off, a little trigger happy like I might just need to Say Something...but...for what? Maybe I start to feel a little inadequate. A little lonely.

Log Out. Maybe if I Log Out I won't come on again tomorrow. 

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Repeat.

Sometimes tomorrow. Sometimes not for a few days. 

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Probably this is a bit how an addict feels. A Person With An Addiction.

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Maybe I should just Post Something. There. Be a PARTICIPANT not just a CONSUMER!

You know one reason I stopped posting so much was that I'd run into people in real life, people who I hadn't seen in FOREVER, and they'd know all these interesting details about me and I'd find it so jarring--like, how did they know that? And I'd know NOTHING about their current life. They were consumers. Consumers of my own content, my own life. And I'd created this situation for myself. 

How many times these days do I get a Just Great idea of something to post. I go through and write it and get all passionate or excited about it...and then I accidentally hit some weird button and my whole post is gone and I have to start over!? I sit there. Should I start over? 

No, f it. It's a sign. Get off of here. Why was I going to share that anyway? To brag about my children? Why? To people who are mostly actually strangers to me? Who don't actually care about My Life much at all, who just consume my life for entertainment? Oh, was I going to post something really poignant, really That'll Change People's Minds? Really? 

There's not Changing People's Minds. That should come organically, internally. Not from some online bully pusher pushing their smug way.

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Sometimes when I look at my Facebook Memories I cringe. And the social media self loathing creeps on. I can't imagine WHY I said that. I can't stand the way I was operating out of some form of moral superiority. I'm sure it still happens. But I try for it not to.

I look at some of my old posts and I marvel at how much I've changed. How much my old self is so foreign to me, how much that old self was just falling for things, trying to keep a seat at (maybe) the popular kids table. Surface level thoughtlessly. Go team go. I identify as this. Because: Principles!!! And I believed them, those principles. Still do. It's just, now I feel I've been tricked.

Social media just dilutes us down to these weird cardboard versions of ourselves. It has changed us so much. Our culture, our politics.

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Back in 2009 was when I actually joined the social media realm of Facebook. People kept asking me to. They wanted me to post pictures of Greta. They wanted to "keep up" with me. They couldn't believe I wasn't on this space yet. So, I joined.

When I look back on some of my earliest posts, let's say pre-2013, well, they were so much different. They were just How It Is. They weren't trying to show off. They weren't trying to brand myself. They were just weird - mundane - sometimes funny comments to the world. An entry to a conversation. A hey I'm just telling you something, kind of like you're here next to me and hey did you notice?

They weren't TELLING YOU SOMETHING.

They weren't so curated. So On Brand.

Maybe that's still how many people are on Facebook, they are authentic and just here, hanging out.

Maybe. (?)

Remember that photo thing people did a few years back? Oh here's my first profile picture from way back ohmgosh isn't it HILARIOUS?!!! And wow I've sure AGED WELL, look at me now! Many of us realized um it's not that you've (I've) necessarily aged well (I mean, maybe you have but,) it's that you've gotten so much better at taking a photo of yourself, or at choosing that just right photo, or at editing your own photo, or getting just the right back drop for your photo! Right?

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We're all these weird curated cardboard versions of ourselves on here. Does that mean we should scrap the whole thing? (Like that's even possible...)

Does that mean it's all bad? Oh I'm sure not...unless you truly believe it was only created for the governments to spy on us then well...that's another post.

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In this time of heated political discourse, it's good to remember this. I see so much on social media that is truly hateful judgmental holier-than-thou, coming from people who espouse tolerance and acceptance. I also see people naively (to me) celebrating. 

I live in between these two worlds. Sandwiched, it feels. Silenced.

I live in a place where I'm afraid to say anything. Lest my future self cringes, lest my current (stranger) "friends" condemn or chastise--either side.

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Just like I was late getting onto this place, I was late getting off. I was late seeing it for what it created. 

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Those cute sweet stories, Facebook Memories with photos...photos of my growing family, though. They live here, and they truly refresh my feed when I enter their Memory. They don't make me cringe. The part there that makes me cringe is that I guess it's too bad those stories are not solely mine anymore. They are owned. They are consumed by others. There's a sacredness of life that I let slip from my hands, by posting all that stuff. And I'll never get it back. 

Either Or, though. Or 

Both. Sometimes we have to bridge the gaps. Of the world, we all are. Not above it. Not apart. Of. 

And, I guess that includes the online world too. 

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