As someone that dances with death and flirts with her own mortality.. I decided to not engage with Twitter at all a year or so ago. My profile/account just sits there.. like an abandoned building that once had some life. I used to read the acrid words people would spew hiding behind internet facades .. so saturated with misogyny and hatred that even the kindest of comments sandwiched in between them would drown and dissolve..
I often wonder that as technology advances in the way it’s used .. will we be able to connect with whole human souls and hold spaces where we converse and debate healthily ?
To me, love is at the essence of everything.. will we see a paradigm shift in the essence of humanity ?
Thank you so much for you kindness and vulnerability Nikita ! Your words and the love and compassion that breathes within the spaces you occupy is miraculously healing and I deeply appreciate being able to safely express myself and connect with so many beautiful souls here. 🫶🏽
I deeply resonate with all that you've written. I truly admire the old schoolers who refuse to entertain SM, thereby protecting themselves and their inner peace.
I hope you are doing well now, sending positive and healing energy on your way.
I’ve been writing a series of essays which go a bit deeper on the psychological harm of constantly having to watch and read bigotry and social media comes up a lot in my interviews with people. Thank you so much for your generous comment, Rida, I completely agree that old schoolers have done well for themselves by protecting themselves this way!
"Whether we like it or not, our social media personas are who we are in real life" this sentence sums it up for me. When I created an instagram account in 2020 about books I was very self-conscious of how I may come across online as I didn't want to fall into inventing a fake online persona. I relaxed when one day a colleague who followed me mentioned that my account was just like me (meant as a compliment and in a very good way). I have been lucky to cross virtual paths with really interesting and genuie people -some of them I have also met in real life with and are just like they appear online- but the nature of social media, and the rule of the algorithm, makes it tiresome past a certain age to spend any time there as the content pushed our way is more commercial than inspiring. I'm glad we have Substack as an alternative and I'm seeing more and more of my instagram contacts coming over this space, so fingers crossed it remains as it is for a long time!
I agree and I certainly find substack far more authentic and community driven than Instagram. I know this space is still new to me, but I agree with so much of what you’ve said here - instagram went from a community driven space to a purely commercial one and then decided that the people who basically make their platform interesting - artists, journalists, book communities and fandoms should be charged for our audiences seeing our work. It’s actually been the downfall of many apps and websites - once your culture makers get annoyed and leave, you start losing users who only joined because they were interested in their work.
exactly! and by the way as a reader of your poetry I'm really glad you are also here and this space feels like an online extention of what you have transmitted to me already in your books : )
Yes, I had created such a wonderful clientele and community of Beaders and artists on IG in 2020, and a lot of them were momprenuers like me in my area. As time went on the need to create content just got to be way too time consuming, then it just consumed me. Getting off and using my page as a landing page and simple new launch place when I am ready to go back feels so much healthier. I hate all the ads and influencers selling every product. I love Substack! It’s so warm and real and personal. People are promoting their hearts and souls here! I feel like I’m supporting artists here and it feels so good!
I am determined to leave Twitter this year, for all the reasons you have listed. At the moment my dilemma is that it brings people to my substack, so for now I am just using it to promote my substack and I refuse to give it any more content other than that.
I think for a lot of us, this precisely is the case. Many people want to leave Twitter but they either rely on it for 1) work 2) connection 3) don’t want to lose years of work 4) don’t want to lose the audience they have spent time building.
It feels unfair to us all that we have to make this choice at all after years of building a community there. Sorry you’re having to deal with this too. 💔
Beautiful essay, and beautiful goal: "This is why I have decided to treat social media like I treat my real life." This is probably the clearest example of how to overlay pre-technology goodness onto the technological world that has the potential to harmonize the best of both ancient and modern modes of living, but has become little more than an incubator for ugliness. This is a good fight.
This seems to be very much the zeitgeist… and I so agree with everything you’ve written so eloquently. I AM on FB, but only because there is a group there that is the biggest community in my particular niche and I let them know about my latest (niche) Substack post. Sometime it brings new subs, sometimes not. I’m not wedded to it. I left Twitter BEFORE a book I wrote was published. The content was “difficult” and my agent gave me the beautiful advice to get off first rather than give the crowd a chance of a pile on. Did it make a difference to my sales? I don’t know, but I doubt it, and I’m sure that advice saved my sanity at a time when I found the whole book launch PR circus so stressful anyway.
I do occasionally post images on FB just to keep a human presence, and I’ve never had anyone be mean to me. Because how can you be mean about a photo of sunset over a vineyard, or a dog on a beach? I guess the key to my “keeping it real” for me is that I never post OPINIONS or engage in other people’s discussion about their opinions on social media. I have plenty opinions, but they’re for the people that matter in my life or work. The great thing about Substack is that I am happy to write about thoughts, ideas and opinions here. It’s different because I know exactly who my audience are and I treat them - as you express so well - like actual people in my actual life.
Thanks for this piece. It’s really helped me think through and articulate a few conflicting thoughts I’ve had on what I need to be doing.
Well said, Nikita. I'm going to be honest and just flat-out say that today's social media terrifies me. As much as I'd love to leverage it to promote my own work and network with other aspiring creatives, I just can't bring myself to use it. The algorithm is funneling us all towards endless confrontation instead of cooperation and I'm just not interested in spending my days needlessly spiking my adrenaline dishing it out with Nazis and other assorted racists.
Today's social media "discourse" is fueled by that same absolute disregard for other human beings, anonymity, and lack of consequences that lead to road rage incidents. In fact, I kind of just consider social media to be nothing more than digital road rage.
This is exactly why my page on IG is just a landing page! It’s a consumerism dumpster fire. Theres definitely some amazing people and accounts but it’s just not worth it for me anymore. I’ll keep my PoppyMaven account because I can’t throw away 4 years of hard work and the 12,000 followers but I won’t utilize it like I have previously! It took the life out of my desire to create.
This is such a thoughtful post on such an important subject. I have recently left social media because it was sucking the life out of, well, my life. I was choosing it over doing thing I dream of, like writing and reading! Scrolling and algorithms, negativity, ads, ads, ads, oversharenting, more ads, diet culture, toxic wellness, more ads, more consumerism..... it was all so much.
I hope more people choose real life, real conversations and places like Substack to learn, read and create connection instead of IG and FB and others like it. Still teasing out how to use IG for my jewelry business, which was doing so well. I just can’t take all the time and energy that app needs from me anymore. Time to pivot!
Yes, for sure! I don't think you're living in a bubble, as this post comes across as you willing to engage with those who disagree with you, but in a civil way. I think we can only handle so much, and treating social media that offers you any sort of sanity in this world is totally valid :)
As someone that dances with death and flirts with her own mortality.. I decided to not engage with Twitter at all a year or so ago. My profile/account just sits there.. like an abandoned building that once had some life. I used to read the acrid words people would spew hiding behind internet facades .. so saturated with misogyny and hatred that even the kindest of comments sandwiched in between them would drown and dissolve..
I often wonder that as technology advances in the way it’s used .. will we be able to connect with whole human souls and hold spaces where we converse and debate healthily ?
To me, love is at the essence of everything.. will we see a paradigm shift in the essence of humanity ?
Thank you so much for you kindness and vulnerability Nikita ! Your words and the love and compassion that breathes within the spaces you occupy is miraculously healing and I deeply appreciate being able to safely express myself and connect with so many beautiful souls here. 🫶🏽
As always Preeti, your response is so poignant, powerful and impactful. Thank you so much for this and for your generous heart. ❤️
I deeply resonate with all that you've written. I truly admire the old schoolers who refuse to entertain SM, thereby protecting themselves and their inner peace.
I hope you are doing well now, sending positive and healing energy on your way.
I’ve been writing a series of essays which go a bit deeper on the psychological harm of constantly having to watch and read bigotry and social media comes up a lot in my interviews with people. Thank you so much for your generous comment, Rida, I completely agree that old schoolers have done well for themselves by protecting themselves this way!
I am so looking forward to reading those essays one day.
Absolutely true . Life is just too short for all that nonsense. Well done on taking a stance 😘
Thank you Jeanne! ❤️
"Whether we like it or not, our social media personas are who we are in real life" this sentence sums it up for me. When I created an instagram account in 2020 about books I was very self-conscious of how I may come across online as I didn't want to fall into inventing a fake online persona. I relaxed when one day a colleague who followed me mentioned that my account was just like me (meant as a compliment and in a very good way). I have been lucky to cross virtual paths with really interesting and genuie people -some of them I have also met in real life with and are just like they appear online- but the nature of social media, and the rule of the algorithm, makes it tiresome past a certain age to spend any time there as the content pushed our way is more commercial than inspiring. I'm glad we have Substack as an alternative and I'm seeing more and more of my instagram contacts coming over this space, so fingers crossed it remains as it is for a long time!
I agree and I certainly find substack far more authentic and community driven than Instagram. I know this space is still new to me, but I agree with so much of what you’ve said here - instagram went from a community driven space to a purely commercial one and then decided that the people who basically make their platform interesting - artists, journalists, book communities and fandoms should be charged for our audiences seeing our work. It’s actually been the downfall of many apps and websites - once your culture makers get annoyed and leave, you start losing users who only joined because they were interested in their work.
exactly! and by the way as a reader of your poetry I'm really glad you are also here and this space feels like an online extention of what you have transmitted to me already in your books : )
Yes, I had created such a wonderful clientele and community of Beaders and artists on IG in 2020, and a lot of them were momprenuers like me in my area. As time went on the need to create content just got to be way too time consuming, then it just consumed me. Getting off and using my page as a landing page and simple new launch place when I am ready to go back feels so much healthier. I hate all the ads and influencers selling every product. I love Substack! It’s so warm and real and personal. People are promoting their hearts and souls here! I feel like I’m supporting artists here and it feels so good!
SO MUCH YES. Thank you for putting this so eloquently into words.
Thank you for your kind comment, Linda! ❤️
I am determined to leave Twitter this year, for all the reasons you have listed. At the moment my dilemma is that it brings people to my substack, so for now I am just using it to promote my substack and I refuse to give it any more content other than that.
I think for a lot of us, this precisely is the case. Many people want to leave Twitter but they either rely on it for 1) work 2) connection 3) don’t want to lose years of work 4) don’t want to lose the audience they have spent time building.
It feels unfair to us all that we have to make this choice at all after years of building a community there. Sorry you’re having to deal with this too. 💔
Beautiful essay, and beautiful goal: "This is why I have decided to treat social media like I treat my real life." This is probably the clearest example of how to overlay pre-technology goodness onto the technological world that has the potential to harmonize the best of both ancient and modern modes of living, but has become little more than an incubator for ugliness. This is a good fight.
This seems to be very much the zeitgeist… and I so agree with everything you’ve written so eloquently. I AM on FB, but only because there is a group there that is the biggest community in my particular niche and I let them know about my latest (niche) Substack post. Sometime it brings new subs, sometimes not. I’m not wedded to it. I left Twitter BEFORE a book I wrote was published. The content was “difficult” and my agent gave me the beautiful advice to get off first rather than give the crowd a chance of a pile on. Did it make a difference to my sales? I don’t know, but I doubt it, and I’m sure that advice saved my sanity at a time when I found the whole book launch PR circus so stressful anyway.
I do occasionally post images on FB just to keep a human presence, and I’ve never had anyone be mean to me. Because how can you be mean about a photo of sunset over a vineyard, or a dog on a beach? I guess the key to my “keeping it real” for me is that I never post OPINIONS or engage in other people’s discussion about their opinions on social media. I have plenty opinions, but they’re for the people that matter in my life or work. The great thing about Substack is that I am happy to write about thoughts, ideas and opinions here. It’s different because I know exactly who my audience are and I treat them - as you express so well - like actual people in my actual life.
Thanks for this piece. It’s really helped me think through and articulate a few conflicting thoughts I’ve had on what I need to be doing.
Well said, Nikita. I'm going to be honest and just flat-out say that today's social media terrifies me. As much as I'd love to leverage it to promote my own work and network with other aspiring creatives, I just can't bring myself to use it. The algorithm is funneling us all towards endless confrontation instead of cooperation and I'm just not interested in spending my days needlessly spiking my adrenaline dishing it out with Nazis and other assorted racists.
Today's social media "discourse" is fueled by that same absolute disregard for other human beings, anonymity, and lack of consequences that lead to road rage incidents. In fact, I kind of just consider social media to be nothing more than digital road rage.
This is exactly why my page on IG is just a landing page! It’s a consumerism dumpster fire. Theres definitely some amazing people and accounts but it’s just not worth it for me anymore. I’ll keep my PoppyMaven account because I can’t throw away 4 years of hard work and the 12,000 followers but I won’t utilize it like I have previously! It took the life out of my desire to create.
A big thank you to Notes for leading me here. Happy to meet another human being fully present no matter the place ❤️
Same! Love the notes aspect here! Just figured out how to use it myself to share this post!
Yep I’ve left most social media for that reason. I have noticed that my friends who don’t use SM seem to be happier and more at peace.
This is such a thoughtful post on such an important subject. I have recently left social media because it was sucking the life out of, well, my life. I was choosing it over doing thing I dream of, like writing and reading! Scrolling and algorithms, negativity, ads, ads, ads, oversharenting, more ads, diet culture, toxic wellness, more ads, more consumerism..... it was all so much.
I hope more people choose real life, real conversations and places like Substack to learn, read and create connection instead of IG and FB and others like it. Still teasing out how to use IG for my jewelry business, which was doing so well. I just can’t take all the time and energy that app needs from me anymore. Time to pivot!
Yes, for sure! I don't think you're living in a bubble, as this post comes across as you willing to engage with those who disagree with you, but in a civil way. I think we can only handle so much, and treating social media that offers you any sort of sanity in this world is totally valid :)
I find this so relatable! I've left twitter (and Facebook much longer ago) because the rampant incivility was hard on my peace of mind.
I’ve never looked at it this way. Let me try to treat social media like real life. The second to the last paragraph speaks to me most. ❤️
Thank you. This is so easy to remember. If I wouldn’t say it. If I would leave if it were said to me. Thank you.