Anyone who spends time on social media knows that it is a loud echo chamber of all the things at once. Activism, yes/no lists, travel lust, food pics galore, nutrition information and disinformation for every diet under the sun, good news, bad news, false news, good people and some very mean people. Depending on who you follow, one person may be all about something, and another person staunchly against it. In many ways, this can be exhausting. The constant battle of voices, the tons of re-sharing of similar content, and feeling like you have to speak up about every issue in the world…
I’ve spent the last year trying to evaluate the effectiveness of the current state of social media. It’s full of cancel culture, trolls, people yelling at you if you don’t speak up about XYZ topics at the right time, and if you do it too late it’s “performative.” It’s no wonder it’s taking a heavier toll than ever on our mental well-being. Logging on and browsing can feel stressful if you feel like you have to respond and speak in a certain way. There’s a new constant pressure of always having to be on top of the news and sharing it with your followers, even if you have 100, you have a responsibility to speak up. Now, I’m not saying that in general this is a bad thing. We should absolutely hold people accountable for things like racial injustice, and treating others like they are less than anyone else. But, I really started to wonder how effective all of this yelling into the void really is. I know this might be a controversial point of view, and some may disagree with what I’m saying. Guess what, THAT’S FINE. It does not make my opinion or yours any less valid.
In general, I feel like the more we are speaking about a million things, the less things start to matter in how people respond or take in that information. If you are hearing about it on the news (which runs 24/7 and is everywhere), on social media from 200+ people… then we almost become desensitized to it. People then become mad if you don’t say anything, if you say things wrong and if you stay silent. It feels like a no-win situation. Of course, people have every right to talk about whatever they want. Just because their page is about food, doesn’t mean they can’t talk about politics or other topics. But, at the same time, is expecting people to speak on every issue asking a bit much?? Or expecting people to broadcast who they are voting for, who they support, what other things they vote for, etc, etc. It becomes a bit of a black hole, if you ask me. Not to mention, everyone has a bias when it comes to what we support and how we feel about everything. We ALL make the best choices for ourselves, based on the information we have. Despite the constant stream of information and quick access to google, no one knows everything and we do seek out information that supports what we already believe. It may not always be the best idea to only take information from people who are biased to lean one way or the other, on any topic. I truly believe our forward progress depends on listening to other viewpoints, evaluating our own and then moving forward together through both perspectives. Does this mean we all have to agree on things being one way forever and ever? No. In fact, that seems extremely unrealistic to me. What do we just want to become a society that all believe, act, and do the same things? That’s crazy.
On social media we’ve entered into this strange social contract with people we follow on the internet to be the voice on all things, even when they only specialize in one thing. We rely on them too much for information and get lost in even double checking that what they are posting is even factual, or checking in with ourselves to see if we even agree. It’s also interesting to me that we feel we have a personal relationship with people on social media and think we are allowed to dictate, criticize, and require certain behavior or responses from them. To me, this is insane. Hitting that ‘follow’ button, gives you no right to control, dictate or expect anything from the people you follow. If they don’t align with your values, or make you angry, or are just not your cup of tea, guess what… hitting that ‘unfollow’ button is just as easy. I don’t really understand when social media just became this time to follow, argue, and fight with anyone who doesn’t agree with your point of view. I am continually wondering when arguing with people on the internet has ever really been productive.
Cancel culture is another huge thing right now, and my issue with cancel culture is that we are quick to cancel anything that doesn’t align with our beliefs, or any person who has misstepped or said something awful (which we have all probably said or done something awful in our lives) – and in a very public manner. There are some things I agree should be cancelled, like racism, sexism, abuse, inequality, to name a few (I’m sure you’re mad I forgot something) and I don’t associate with people who are those things. I can admit, I got caught up in it for a while too. I thought it would make me feel better to say online that X person doesn’t agree with me, so they are cancelled! But, the more I felt myself doing it, the worse I felt. It didn’t make sense to me, and it didn’t make me feel better. I don’t think publicly shaming people is an effective way to create change. It made me feel pretty gross, and I really started to wonder what this said about me as a person if I felt the need to be publicly hateful. If you do think that behavior serves you, that’s your choice AND your right to partake. Does it mean I’m wrong and you’re right or vice versa? Nope. Also, here’s the thing, we’ve been doing this FOREVER in one way or another. It is a basic human tendency to choose things you like over what you don’t like. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean someone else can’t. It’s like me saying screw Kraft Mac’n’Cheese for not being gluten free FOR ME, and now everyone else can’t have it. Or I’m not vegan so vegan food shouldn’t be a thing. What? How is that helpful? We constantly vote and choose with our dollars, as well as our time and have been doing so forever. I see the argument that cancel culture is just accountability, and I think it’s gone way past that. Often, we don’t allow for accountability, which is by definition allowing people to accept responsibility or account for their actions. If we are quick to cancel, does anyone even get the chance to change? Or is cancel culture just shoving people in a hole, letting them die, judging people who still support that person/product/company and then moving onto the next cancellation? At what point do we allow these people to learn, apologize, and correct their behavior moving forward? Wouldn’t you want the ability to do that if someone in your life was ready to cancel you? Also, who is really being cancelled? Is it the person, company, etc or our ability to allow for mistakes and improvement? I am not really sure what we are looking to achieve by continuing to cancel everything and everyone we don’t agree with, especially when we have all made mistakes we are grateful to have the opportunity to learn from. Also, I’m not sure who made everyone the boss of everyone else’s lives and choices. Why is everything everyone does expected to be everyone’s business to comment on?
It also gets me wondering, how much are we living our lives these days based on what everyone else thinks is right instead of what we as individuals think is right? We take so much influence from those around us both for better and for worse, and I fear that we are all just starting to become two people – the one we show on the internet who is super woke (by the way, this word makes me want to puke) and then the person we are in real life who may not do those things at all. It’s interesting to me, and I feel it’s hard to know who anyone on the internet is. But isn’t that the funny thing too…did we ever really know these people? Everyone caters what they put online, whether they would admit to it or not. Whether you have 10 followers or 10k. Everything you decide to put on the internet is a choice, and we all filter that to a certain extent. There has become a very interesting dichotomy between what we expect from strangers on the internet, and what we expect in real life from people in our lives and even ourselves. Are we as quick to call out bad behaviors in our loved ones, or even ourselves as we are to people on the internet? If not, then I’m not really sure that it matters. We can influence the most change in people who know us, trust us and are willing to have those conversations. Does it mean that we will always agree with friends and family? Absolutely not, but I feel like those conversations are much more important than yelling into the void of the internet.
This brings me around to talking about how I am finding my voice in this very loud world. I’m still working on it. But you know what helps me, is remembering that I don’t have to show up on the internet as anyone but myself. In fact, that seems more important than ever to me, because so many other things I was doing because I felt I had to. I was speaking up on every issue, every horrible thing that’s happening in this world, I was loud during the election and I was MAD. I was mad at people who weren’t talking and I was mad at people who were. Let me tell you, being mad all the time is exhausting. We have every right to be mad at whatever, whoever we want and as often as we want, of course. Racial injustice should make us all mad. So should a lot of other things. But to me, it wasn’t productive. I was just stewing in anger and not really making a difference with it. Then I reached a point where I stepped away entirely because I was burnt out mentally, and my real life felt so overshadowed by all the negativity on the internet. I felt like I was being judged no matter what I posted. Or that I might offend someone, or say the wrong thing.
There is one thing I know. I am not an activist, I am not a politician, I am not a news reporter and I don’t really enjoy talking about those things 24/7. Guess what, there are people who do, that is their job and they love it. I feel like my trying to be those things does a disservice to those who actually are trained and educated to do that. I should listen to them, and learn from them. But does it mean that I have to be, do and share everything they post? No, it doesn’t. Will I say something when I feel in my heart that my voice is important in the matter? Absolutely, I am not quiet when I feel the need to speak up. Remember when I said the more we hear things the more desensitized we tend to become? Sometimes the best thing that you can do is LISTEN and not always feel like you have to respond to everything. We all have a way to contribute to things, whether it’s being loud and active online about it, or in real life, or whether it’s reading a book, or sharing it with friends, or it’s being quiet and listening. Just because we’re not saying things on the internet, doesn’t mean we’re not taking action. Nor does it mean that we are just ignoring the many grave injustices and horrible things happening in the world. We all need to find the balance that works with us when there is news coming our way from every angle 24/7, and decide how and when to consume it to protect our mental health and our sanity. Again, if you disagree with that, that’s fine. You are welcome to believe that for you, you need to hear loud and clear what the people you follow believe and you want to hear it often. I know that I don’t want brands and people I follow to be completely quiet about racial injustices because as a woman with Hawaiian, Asian, and mixed European ancestry, it matters to me. But does that mean they need to shout about it all day everyday to make a difference? No. This also doesn’t mean that regular old people with smaller followings shouldn’t talk about politics, activism or news. Share to your heart’s desire whatever you want! I think that we should be a little less judgmental about what everyone else is doing. At the very least refrain from responding to them at all to let them know you don’t like what they said or did, because who made you their manager? Maybe if we focused a bit more on our own lives, we could be happier and then in turn go out and make an actual difference in the world. It’s a losing battle spending your time trying to control others because all we can control is our own actions, thoughts, and what we put out into the world. There’s one thing I know for sure, being a jerk on the internet is never really warranted or productive. Let the trolls troll, they will always be around, but I honestly feel sorry for them because they seem miserable just trying to tear people down and fight with strangers all day long. I think we can all agree that we need more kindness in the world, and remember it all starts with yourself.
Most importantly, as consumers in an increasingly saturated market of so-called “experts” we really need to do our due diligence to vet the information that we are taking in. Someone on Instagram who has done a whole30 does not make them an expert on nutrition. Look for people who have credentials and education behind what they are saying. We need to be listening to experts, and not even just one because sometimes even within fields there are variations of opinions. We need to take in multiple sources, ones that challenge our current viewpoints and make a decision that feels right to us based on that. It’s going to be important moving forward that we be diligent in who we trust giving us what information. Even if we have people who are experts that we trust, we should still at least be open to listening to differing viewpoints. I believe this is the only way we can move forward and make a difference in this loud world.