Nothing important is ever really going on… (maybe five or six things a month.) We have this need to sensationalize the day to day, to feel unique by broadcasting every moment of our lives into the ether of the internet... We don’t realize that by doing so we’re even less unique. Because everyone else is doing the same thing. We’re all always filming, liking, reposting, and recording. Even if your particular video happens to “go viral,” it’s still you eating a banana in a bikini. Congratulations, you didn’t invent the telephone. There is no real contribution to society other than effectively distracting us for another fifteen seconds while we’re taking a shit. That’s not to say your life isn’t interesting. It’s to say none of our lives are. So, let’s move on with it.
I, as an “influencer” and comedian, have become preoccupied with the lack of “reach” my posts have been getting due to this elusive Instagram algorithm. My friends and I speak of the algorithm as if we’re talking about an omniscient god, narrating all our lives: someone hovering over our very thoughts. “The algorithm banned me.” “The algorithm is hiding my posts.” “I shouldn’t have hashtagged that. It made the algorithm angry.” “He-who-shall-not-be-named.”
I say I’m an introvert, that I’m intensely private, a “creative type. "Yet, I’m having conversations with robots all day (Alexa, Siri) and sharing a live feed of my every move on the internet. I’m so hooked on these robots that if I fart weirdly, I spend a half hour talking to Siri about IBS. And, then I wonder where my creativity went and why I feel so distracted. But, never during all this do I not feel terminally unique.
Call me a curmudgeon, but something has gone terribly wrong. We’ve lost “it.” Our minds? Our attention spans? An actual personality? Our personality has become the internet. #foodie #antisadnesswalk Since when did walking down the street become a complete to do and consuming sustenance, a character trait?
I understand there’s utility in the connection that comes from a community on social media. So, I’m embracing the FOMO of being offline, creating IRL, for only two weeks. Then it’s back to short circuiting my dopamine receptors all over again.