You Know What? Social Media CAN Be Tamed

As you know from my last post, getting out of the 22-year-old funk is a lot harder than you think. 

It’s even more tough, when you live in a society where everything revolves around the virtual world. 

Yep, by this, I mean our ultimate source of validation: social media. 

If we achieve something great, we have to post and wait for half a zillion congratulations. 

(Because what’s an achievement without flagrant bragging on social media?)

If we go through a setback or have a fight with someone, we re-share a deep, philosophical post from Good Quote on Instagram. 

(Or if you’re me, you’d make passive aggressive statuses on WhatsApp or create an entire blogpost till the person who offended me figured it out and started apologizing like crazy. :P) 

If we go out, we have to post that we checked in somewhere.  

(A useless piece of information that will be useful only to a potential kidnapper) 

If we see someone do better than us, we’ll stalk ALL OF their social media profiles.

(And by the end of this search, we’d know the person better than they know themselves or even an astrologer who make lucky guesses for ‘predictions’)

If we have a gigantic fight with someone, we block them. 

(And they block us in return – believe me, THIS I have done many times with one person over the course of the last three years)

The points I mentioned above? 

I say this as shamelessly as possible: I’m guilty of doing all those things. And, I can say this with 100 % confidence, so are you. 

(Unless you’re living underneath a rock since 2001. Then THAT’S a different story altogether)

All these toxic habits have seeped into our day-to-day lives since the good old World Wide Web broke into our lives. Be it Facebook, or Twitter or Instagram, our lives aren’t just our lives. 

Everyone has a stake in them now, thanks to social media. 

Because of this overdose of scrutiny that we place on others and ourselves, it can be said that social media is super toxic. 

And it can be. There’s no way I’m denying that. 

Yet, in some way, this 22-year-old funk I’m going through? 

It’s making me hopeful about a possibility: 

Social media isn’t Miley Cyrus. It CAN be tamed.

Since the past couple of months, I’ve been grappling with a lot of changes. From transitioning as a student to an employee and a volunteer, from seeing people moving on with their lives… I’ve been struggling to come to terms with the fact that… 

My life isn’t the sparkly collegiate student’s life anymore. ☹

And with social media, that realization keeps hitting me again and again. 

After a while of puttering about and going off on a mentally taxing spiral, I decided to take matters into my own hands. 

I realized that I need to curate my social media experience. I needed to stop taking validation from external parties and start living my social media life on my own terms. 

And so far, this is how I’ve been successfully trying to do it: 

A) I curate my own social media feed, my way

Back when I was a naïve, foolish girl, I used to post photos that would be sure-shot ways of boosting my ‘likes’. Some, I’d filter the shit out of, because they went well with the colour aesthetic I wanted. Some, I’d filter the shit out of, because I wanted to hide my flaws. 

It was like, I was some sort of a celebutante, in my own solipsistic head. And my validation was there, in those reactions and comments.  

Yet now, after tasting the ‘real world’, I realized this thing: 

If I am going to be a moofat and honest person, I am going to be moofat and honest about myself. 

Gone are the days when you see glam shots of me.

(Well, as glam as you can get if you’re me – I am vehemently anti-makeup and not a model-esque looker)

Now, I was going to post pictures with a similar aesthetic filter – a template that hides nothing. From my dusky Indian skin to my zit marks – everything’s out in its undisputed glory. 

And you know what? I actually like it that way. 

B) Limiting my time on social media

As much as I’d like to credit this ‘measure’ to myself, I’d like to say: 

Facebook is now completely boring. Google+ is gone completely and Tumblr is totes passé. 

Now, my go-to medium is Instagram! 

Which, if I may be honest with you, is also quite toxic.

But this is only if you LET it be toxic. 

Instagram has a rare beautiful aspect to it, that’s quite underappreciated: you can actually control your feed a lot more effectively. 

If you don’t like something? You’ll never see it again! 

(Unlike Facebook or YouTube, where your ‘dis’likes will pop anywhere and anytime!) 

Moreover, if you keep liking positive content, more positive stuff will come your way. 

Since last year, I started following a lot of amazing handles, like @thefemalehustlers, @careercontessa, @bossbabe and @leanin.org. These pages have resulted in me discovering a lot more positive stuff on my ‘Discover’ feed. 

Also, my own feed has become a happier space. 

Which is why, even when I waste time on Instagram, I actually end up feeling happy after scrolling through it! 

Also, on Insta, you can put a time limit on, which will remind you to shut Instagram after you’ve crossed the time limit. THAT, for me, is a HUGE bonus. 

If it’s not Instagram, you can always watch stuff on Netflix! xP 

C) Limiting my interactions with people who hurt me

This is one of the most important things for me. 

If you’ve been someone who’s read this blog often, then I’m pretty sure you know the fact that I’ve struggled in dealing with toxic people all my life. 

Be it my old bullies, or some aggressively rude ‘pals’ or backstabbers for that matter – I’ve had a hard time letting go. 

Yet last year, a lot of nonsense went way out of hand.

An old friend (if you could call it at that), who was nice to me for the first five months of the year, flipped a 100 degrees and suddenly, became horrifyingly rude to me, to the point that the rudeness still hurts me till today. Another person who I knew since my childhood kept lashing out weirdly on social media through passive aggressive ways and kept behaving oddly. And there was a friend of mine, who suddenly became downright cold with me for a long time! 

I don’t want to play innocent. Maybe I might have done something rude to them, or maybe something must have happened which I don’t know of. But whatever it is, I fancy myself as someone who’s completely forthcoming and can take in differing views. So if they really have some problem, they could say it to my face, instead of displaying this kindergarten-esque behaviour. 

Seeing all of this,  I vowed to myself: I’m not going to let these people ruin my mindset. Either I’m hacking them off completely or limiting my interactions with them. 

Hacking off is something that I’m still unable to do. But somehow, with social media tools and algorithms, I am still able to limit my interactions with them. 

I mean, it’s better this way, to be honest. 

There’s no point fighting for something that’s not worth fighting for. 

***

Writing all of this was… cathartic. 

I don’t claim to be the nicest person in the world. But penning this down really made me honestly confront a lot of flaws I had. 

Thank you for taking your time out to read this! 

Stay awesome as ever, 

Much love,

Archie <3