People aren't living in reality, they're living in algorithms.

Remember when we'd log out and turn off our desktop computer and that would be the end of it?

“We knew you were gonna join when everybody left” is the first words I heard after returning the (several) missed group FaceTime call from my little siblings.

I don’t know why, but a lot of the times answering the phone for my friends and family seems like such a chore to me (sometimes I feel bad for not feeling bad about ignoring the phone calls), but once I answer the hardest part is over and conversation flows as if nothing has changed. I am grateful. I teased back “I’m glad y’all are used to me not answering the phone, because once I get my little flip phone I will probably be M.I.A. even more”. Next came the interrogation and “who, what when why and how?”.

Lately i’ve been tired of the things that come with owning an iPhone, a smartphone (period).

The random (and often inconvenient) FaceTimes i’ll get when i’m out, the idle scrolling, the unintentional, habitual unlocking of my phone for no reason other than habit.

It is unhealthy for animals- yes including humans- to live this integrated with technology. It is unnatural. If you keep up with the events happening in the world as well as the state of Earth right now you’d see this truth.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

At first, I thought i’d just do a social media cleanse. I cut off Instagram and Twitter, using only Substack, Pinterest and Tumblr. Several days went by and I couldn’t help but feel like “Ehhh, that wasn’t it.”

***

With the whole craze about the pseudo reminiscing of the “Indie Sleaze” era (which will never be a thing by the way), I thought back to my preteen/teenage days that I used to spend on Tumblr and Facebook. I thought back to how I’d be in class trying to to access Facebook (the cool kids didn’t use, nor understand Tumblr) on my middle school’s desktop computers. Looking for a fix, before I could make it home and login. Trying to connect to the school’s wifi on my iPod to make a status update. How I used to throw my bookbag down and immediately open my laptop and scroll on Tumblr till 1:00 am. Back to when once you closed the laptop, turned off the monitor the digital walls disappeared and you were back in reality.

We now walk around with computers in our pockets. Majority of people no longer living in reality, but living in algorithms. These computers never turning off, and neither are people’s “online persona”. Everybody is somebody now, and has an image to maintain. Carbon copies of eachother.

I’m tired of it, and I opt out.

Yes, I figured it out (for me at least). I realized social media isn’t inherently the problem. The amount of knowledge, relationships and art (music, paintings, movies, ie.) i’ve come across, gained and experienced using social media. I couldn’t imagine where i’d get such a volume of (pertinent/relevant) information so easily and quickly. Not just because everyday, normal activities are so integrated with technology today, but because i’m apart of the generation that literally grew up with and on the internet. We literally grew up with one another, and watched each other grow up on social media. However, the old people might’ve been onto something with the cursing of, and annoyance with technology.

We are now in an era where technology, and social media is being weaponized against us (poor/working class/disabled) and used as a tool of oppression. Not only that, but

technology has literally sucked the fun out of everything. The inconvenience is what makes shit fun!

The excitement of showing up to a party, seeing what everyone is wearing, who all is gonna be there, who is already there, what the place is looking like. Now Instagram will show you before you even finished getting dressed. The excitement of logging into Facebook and Myspace the next day to upload pictures from your digital camera. Now you can almost always expect professional, pre-planned “lifestyle” pictures to be posted. Nobody can dance without the peeping Toms camera lenses, recording to show all, even those who did not make it to the party. The excitement of driving to a mall to shop for clothing, shoes, books, etc. while enjoying to company of friends traded for soulless, boring, square packages carelessly thrown on doorsteps.

Most are oblivious to it, but technology has created a gaping hole & no amount of aesthetic chasing and overconsumption will fill that hole.

We’ve taken for granted and given up the little things take make life fun for “convenience” and “advancement”. Modernization; just another word used by white, wealthy people to guise their “fuck everyone over in favor of greed and maintaining the 1%” intentions. Everything (in America at least) feels like a cheap knock off now. The clubs/parties, Instagram, weed, furniture, food, music celebrities, “indie sleaze”, jobs, relationships, buildings, infrastructure all of it. And everyone is buying into it aspiring to live like the rich.

***

The big switch everybody has been suddenly talking about.

I did it.

Several weeks ago I bought a hot pink Motorola Razr flip phone. Yes, yes, yes! A flip phone (with a phone charm too 💋). Not the one with the touch screen that just came out, but a regular $80 phone. I’m no longer interested in walking around with a computer in my pocket while i’m out and about in the real world. I have no intentions on tossing my iPhone away completely (I purchased it in full, its pink and I desperately need GPS). I do however intend to utilize it more so as a tablet.

I really just want to be intentional with my time offline, even if that means just sitting outside with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me….

“How are you gonna take pictures?”
I have a digital camera, a DSLR camera, and a film camera.

“What about social media?”
All the forms of social media I utilize have a .com at the end and I have a laptop, so i’ll be alright.

“What about music when you’re driving?”
Radio is still a thing chile. Honestly listening to the radio will actually let me know about things going on in the community and maybe hear a new song or 2.

“How are you gonn-”

*CLAT*

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This one post touched on a couple of ideas i’ve been putting off writing about, so it’s kinda all over the place but this is where im at in life right now. I’ve been so busy with (procrastinating) styling clients, and going out. I’m in the process of getting a 2G phone plan (still on my search for a phone company who has not deemed it obsolete). Although im sure it’ll be cheap (no more than $30 a month), I don’t even pay my own phone bill for my iPhone I have now, so this is a very big commitment for me LMAO. But idk I feel like social media is just this big act/performance now and when you’re on it regularly the “performance” bleeding into real life is so obvious and I can’t take it. I want to go back to forums, and blogs and back when internet was just a fun, cool pass time. People looking to meet cool like minded people, play video games, showcase a talent, laugh or seek knowledge instead of people looking for the(ir) next viral moment in hopes of fame and fortune.