I awoke to the sound of my clock radio at 7:30am the morning of Nov 6th. Always a somewhat annoying thing to hear on a weekday regardless of whether I hear music, or radio personalities talking because it means getting up and going to work.
What I heard that morning was particularly annoying though, as it was a news bulletin informing me of the fact that Donald Trump had been elected as President of the United States for a second time over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Now, there are many ways for one to wake up, but not many of them will result in the audible exclamation of “Are you f-ing kidding me?”
Let me just start off by saying that I’m Canadian. When it comes to the consequences of Trump being President of the United States again, I personally don’t have a lot of skin in the game. However, that morning, I found myself to be rather shaken. The situation didn’t make sense to me at all. Americans were deciding who would lead their government and had just 2 candidates to choose from. Why did so many of them choose the one they did?
As a somewhat active social media user (mainly Twitter/X), you can imagine that even a Canadian is going to be constantly inundated with information about the Presidential race. I am by no means a political expert, but I think I can recognize the experience, temperament and intelligence required to effectively perform as a world leader. I saw a lot of that in Kamala, and very little of it in Trump. In a choice between the two, you’d think it would be a slam dunk. As it turned out, it clearly wasn’t. What happened?
I’ve always known that social media can be dangerous, but have I underestimated just how dangerous it can be? Does it truly have the power to override logic and reason? Are we willing to accept everything as truth so long as it reinforces our personal beliefs? When did people expressing opinions anonymously become accepted as undisputed fact? We are at the mercy of computer algorithms that learn what we like and what we think, then we are constantly fed posts that show us only what we want to see. All designed to get us to click on something and increase a social media company’s ad revenue.
During my time on social media, I’ve seen a lot of people get in trouble for behaviour that a small group of people deemed “unacceptable”. Lives have been ruined over a single incident.
If any celebrity were to have done 5% of the appalling things Donald Trump has been accused of in his life, that celebrity would be cancelled immediately. They would never work again. Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual assault and he lost his job of pretending to be the President of the United States in a TV role. Meanwhile Trump has been accused of committing multiple sexual assaults, and he’s allowed to be an actual President of the United States. Twice.
I don’t want to make this all about Donald Trump, because that’s not what this is meant to be. Trump getting elected was just the final event that got me to realize that there was nothing on social media that I can benefit from anymore.
Basically…the fun was gone.
Like a lot of people my age, I got my start on social media with a Facebook account about 20 years ago. Back then, it was very simple. You mostly just connected with family members, and old school friends so you can stay caught up on things going on in everyone’s lives. And sure, maybe you’d try to look up ex-girlfriends/boyfriends or anyone you used to have a crush on, but most people would never take it to any extremes. So, for about a decade, that was pretty much all it was for me, and it was fine.
I didn’t take my social media use to the next level until about 8 years ago when I made the decision to take a chance at becoming an author. Acting on the advice of book marketers I consulted with, I chose to start a Twitter account in the hopes of making some connections in the writer’s community.
I started slowly by following other authors, liking/commenting on their posts. They would follow my account back in return. After a few years, my follower count grew to over four thousand. That sounds impressive, but it was still over a thousand less than the number of people I was following. I realized that if you expect to be a success on social media, then your follower count should be at least 10 times greater than the number you follow.
That certainly rang true for me. Being on Twitter did very little for my writing career. Any post of mine would get one or two “likes” if I was lucky. Rarely a comment. Mostly, they all went completely unnoticed. Nobody seemed to care when I posted about my bookstore signings. No one was interested when I posted links to where my books could be purchased online. All in all, I’d say that 8 years of Twitter maybe resulted in me selling an extra 2 or 3 copies of my book.
Despite all of this, I did enjoy the novelty of going on Twitter. I liked commenting on people’s posts; interacting with them when they comment back. We were all writers, struggling in one way or another, and it was nice to be a part of that community. There were a couple dozen accounts I would interact with regularly and look forward to seeing their posts.
Some people may build up these connections on Twitter to be something more than it is, but generally, you don’t really get that close with people. I was always very careful to not get carried away is this regard. Every once in a while, I did experience some moments of connecting on more of a human level.
Like one time during the pandemic, one of the people I regularly follow (and who follows me) was having to endure living with an abusive father and needed money to move out into her own place. One of her friends started a GoFundMe for her. I never thought that I would ever donate to something like that because I’m normally very suspicious about such things. However, I had been following her enough over the years to know that her situation was genuine. Plus, it was Christmastime, so I donated $50. The fundraising went well. She got a significant amount of money and was able to get a safe place to live. My contribution was small, but I always felt good that I took part.
While good moments like that kept me coming back to Twitter, despite my unsuccessful writing career, I slowly noticed the fun atmosphere was changing. Even before Elon Musk took over.
It probably started with JK Rowling. She infamously tweeted a weak joke about some article that had the words “people who menstruate” in it. The main subject of article was about how cities were making sure that feminine hygiene products would continue to be available during the pandemic. The article had nothing to do with trans people, but a few of them got mad because Rowling alluded to the possibility that only women menstruate.
So, as I see happen constantly on social media, a celebrity posts something that gets misconstrued by someone in a special interest group, then they use that celebrities fame to get attention for themselves and their cause; and it snowballs from there.
Of course, Rowling tried to do damage control. Unfortunately, she did it in the worse way possible. Her best move was probably to just delete the post and stay off Twitter for a few weeks until the “Social Justice Warriors” find a new target. Instead, she chose to post an intelligently worded essay full of good points, supported by facts. That is basically the kiss of death on social media. No one is going to take the time to read anything more than 280 characters. All it did was give ammunition for more attacks to be launched against her. Cut to four years later, and she’s become one of the most hated people on the internet. She can’t post anything without a couple dozen people calling her a “TERF” or “Transphobic”. The entire cast of the Harry Potter films cut this woman, who they once loved like family, completely out of their lives.
Slowly but surely, I saw Rowling sink deeper and deeper into the “Twitter Abyss”. The algorithms feeding her only stories that re-enforced her beliefs, coupled with the constant verbal attacks and death threats from people on the opposite side of her argument, pushed her deeper and deeper into a place where she could no longer see things from a different point of view. Nobody on social media wants to find the middle ground anymore. It’s become all about “owning” the other side.
I’ll concede that some are legitimate supporters of a cause they believe in, but a lot are just saying crazy things to get interaction. Somebody who wishes to monetize their social media account can only do so if their posts are liked, commented on, and reposted. I think news outlets should stop using social media as if they are reliable sources.
A user, protected by their shield of anonymity, continually spits out outrageously offensive statements, wild conspiracy theories and insulting comments on other users’ posts. All the while ignoring the dangerous consequences this behaviour can result in.
An internationally beloved children’s author was turned into public enemy number one, while a serial adulterer, sexual assaulter, sociopath felon was turned into a beloved President of the United States…I can’t be the only one who thinks this seems odd.
I’m tired of being ashamed by my gender with all the crass, offensive comments that get posted every time a woman posts a picture that could be considered even slightly “sexy”. I’m tired of walking on eggshells every time I post a comment, for fear that my words may be misconstrued and I’ll become the next person to be “cancelled”. I’m tired of blocking “porn-bots”. I’m tired of always checking my phone to see if I got any likes, and the hollow feeing of excitement whenever I do get one. When it comes right down to it, I’m just tired of constantly being forced to know what everyone thinks about everything.
It’s all just come to feel a little childish…and I’m too old to be feeling like that anymore.
So that’s it. I’m quitting. I’m not deleting my accounts, but I’m deleting the apps. I’m keeping my author’s website up in the hopes that my writing can still lead me somewhere, so there’s a slim chance that I may still come back. Social media can be very beneficial to anyone once you become famous. Until that day, I’ll limit myself to some occasional Facebook use. I’ve only ever used it for keeping in touch with relatives, so it could be pretty harmless in that context.
All-in-all I wouldn’t expect anyone I’ve interacted with on social media to care, or even notice that I have left. Nonetheless, goodbye, and I wish you all well. Maybe I’ll see you out in the real world sometime.