{"id":42471,"date":"2016-06-28T23:39:26","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T03:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42471"},"modified":"2020-07-20T23:39:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T03:39:37","slug":"still-shunning-social","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42471","title":{"rendered":"Still shunning social"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been nearly two full months since I stopped checking Facebook.\u00a0 It\u2019s also been about that long that my brog\u2019s been down, keeping me anxious and feeling voiceless when it comes to routine and a simple enjoyment, but that\u2019s a different story.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned that Facebook notifications caps at 99, based on the periodic emails I get letting me know that I\u2019ve got 99 notifications since the last time I\u2019ve been on Facebook, and the number is no longer climbing.<\/span><\/p>\n

In that time, I\u2019ve more or less lost touch with people, as I don\u2019t know what exciting or mundane things that are going on in the lives of the 140+ internet personas that Facebook deems as friends.\u00a0 Birthdays have come and gone, and the odd random \u201cso-and-so has posted\u201d emails keep me in the loop that people are in fact gabbing away.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a few group conversations going on that I\u2019m aware are happening because Facebook notifies me that they\u2019re happening over email, but out of not wanting to break my chain, not because I\u2019m (entirely) antisocial, I\u2019m blind to them.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t seen any photos or any posts that have me tagged, because I\u2019m a hipster and obtuse.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, I\u2019ve been mulling over in my head when it is that I want to come back.\u00a0 I\u2019m enjoying the freedom of ambivalence, and the time I\u2019m not wasting both literally and the time spent thinking about the things people post, because I\u2019m not checking Facebook repeatedly.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read lots of books, watched some television and movies, did a lot of writing for a brog that I have no idea when will ever be back up and been on two trips so far.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that none of those things would\u2019ve have happened if I\u2019d still been engaged on Facebook, but I did have the luxury of being fairly clear-minded and undistracted by potential distractions.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019m also getting to the point where I\u2019m becoming an island of a man again.\u00a0 Just because I\u2019m choosing to disconnect doesn\u2019t mean that I expect everyone else to, and there are lots of people who aren\u2019t hipsters who insist on doing unorthodox things like denying themselves a mundane platform.\u00a0 People talk about things, gossip, memes, jokes, or stories that I\u2019ve been blind to because I\u2019m not checking Facebook.\u00a0 They\u2019re also having conversations through Messenger that I\u2019m being too obtuse to check, and it\u2019s not the responsibility of anyone other than myself to tune in than being filled in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thankfully there haven\u2019t been any substantial invites or events that have happened or are going to happen that I\u2019m unaware of, because of my brindness.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve thought about different times when I was just going to let go of the reigns and come back, but then something always happens that makes me reconsider.\u00a0 I realize that I\u2019m kind of sensitive to the \u201cfeel\u201d of a large mass of people, and it admittedly messes with my head when it just feels like everyone is pissed, or in most of the time, I feel like people are being disingenuous and are posting shit for the sake of trying to appear on top of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like right before the tragic Pulse Orlando shooting occurred, was one of those times when I figured eh, let\u2019s see what\u2019s on the old theFacebook.\u00a0 But then after the shooting occurred, I only fathomed the amount of outcry, so slacktivism and all the people who were posing all sorts of words that stated the same things but in different tones and inflections; I didn\u2019t want to see any of it.\u00a0 I agree it was tragic, and I have my own thoughts and opinions about how much it sucked, how particular American policies suck and other things, but I didn\u2019t want to be swimming in an internet battlefield of people with conflicting opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the thing, I want an internet landscape of calm and relaxing and funny and sometimes ironic, but such thing is nigh impossible.\u00a0 Since Orlando, there\u2019s been all sorts of shitty national or worldly stories that make me reluctant to see what\u2019s going on social media.\u00a0 The Stanford rapist getting a six month sentence, Brexit and the horrifying deconstruction of English society, and whenever anyone talks about Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton or even Bernie Sanders; these are all prevalent topics among others that light fires under most of the people I know, and I see sides of people that I admittedly don\u2019t always want to see.<\/span><\/p>\n

An internet landscape of calm and relaxing and funny and sometimes ironic is not possible when the vast majority of the news and stories that are posted in prevalent places are all with a generally downtrodden intonation to them.\u00a0 You know it\u2019s bad when \u201cgood news\u201d has its own section on news outlets, because the implication is that only the bad is worth talking about.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As it was once said to me at my first graphic design job, which was at a newspaper, \u201cif it bleeds, it leads<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 I chuckled, because I thought it was irony, but little did I realize then just how pinpoint accurate such a statement really is.<\/span><\/p>\n

When my options are really to continue to hope that society will someday magically lighten up or toughen up for the world is a shitty place, it\u2019s sadly going to be the latter that really has to happen in order for me to eventually get off my pedestal and just see what\u2019s going on in the worlds of the people I know.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been nearly two full months since I stopped checking Facebook.\u00a0 It\u2019s also been about that long that my brog\u2019s been down, keeping me anxious and feeling voiceless when it comes to routine and a simple enjoyment, but that\u2019s a different story. I\u2019ve learned that Facebook notifications caps at 99, based on the periodic emails … Continue reading Still shunning social<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,165,77,156,68],"class_list":["post-42471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-crime","tag-politics","tag-ronery","tag-social-media","tag-tragedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42472,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42471\/revisions\/42472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}