I'm constantly overwhelmed by the amount of tedious and draining responsibilities come along with maintaining a social media presence - and this is just for work. And it's never enough. Long ago I accepted the fact that I would never be "good" at it, or would boast at marketing conferences about how big my Twitter following was or how my company's Facebook tactics resulted in thousands of dollars in revenue. Instead I resigned myself to just prioritizing my personal social media efforts, and from that really just focus myself on Facebook and Twitter, in that order. Only recently I joined the Instagram set, but to not much success really. I don't have clever photo angles or subjects. So there's that. I've avoided Foursquare and Pinterest, and I am ok with that. Facebook consumed me, not necessarily the effort that it took to maintain, but what I expected from it. Happiness when someone thought a status update was clever...confusion when what I thought a smart picture failed to get many "likes." My constant addiction to posting pictures and making sure I didn't look ridiculous got to me on the morning of March 23rd. I am exhausted. And I realized that while the original intent of it is still a possibility. I learned that I don't need "you" to approve of what I look like, how clever I am or whether or not you "like" what I have to say. In all fairness, I don't need to value myself based on these things and I kinda was. It was never fair how much responsibility and emphasis I gave individuals or the medium. There's a lot more here than I care to discuss openly but I did realize a few things.
What I need is an expressive outlet. So then I remembered this blog. And here I am, two years later. I have deactivated my Facebook account for now. Not sure for how long and besides what I've just drafted here, not sure why, really - but it feels good to not expect, want or need anything from any of you besides sincere, good old-fashioned friendship. And I mean that in the most sincere, and selfish way. Thanks for reading.
1 comment:
I think what you did will be what many will do and that will finally change the boredom of social media as they are nowadays. Don't get me wrong. There was a time when it was exciting, Fb was full of surprises and unexpected fun. Then, the more popular it became, the least interesting. Of course one can use it differently, be there only once in a while. But when you stay away for days or weeks, you come back and not much has changed, I kind of loose interest. Same old same old. Twitter, in my opinion, is the apotheosis of ego married to insecurity. Who cares how many followers one has? Plus, staying away from both gives you back hours any day, and the pleasure of face to face conversations. It takes guts to pull out but I guess it is worth it.
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