Bye Social Media, Hello Writing.
New Year, New ME?
Hello!
My name is Georgia and this is my very first blog post of 2025 and on Substack. I wanted to start writing here since I wanted to challenge myself to do more creative stuff this year to stay off the phone. Writing has been one of my favorite hobbies since I was a little girl because of all the different paths you can take to express the picture you are trying to paint for your audience. It is a freeing escape from reality and you are able to break out all the thoughts that are inside of your mind.
Anyways, the first thing I wanted to talk about on this blog is social media brain rot. Why is social media one of the main aspects in our daily lives when there are many other important things happening in the world? Like do I need to stay up to date with what some girl that I had in class in the ninth grade is doing with life. Why am I seeing some random family posting an intimate video of them sharing their first moments meeting their newborn baby on TikTok? Why am I seeing people share their whole lives online???? All these private moments are sacred to us and I feel like showing the most important ones ruins the significance of how special it is. I miss when I did not see these private moments that are a part of daily lives on the internet.
I miss the old days of social media when people did not feel the need to record everything and post it online for everybody to see. For instance when you are on vacation with your close group of friends, you don’t need to post everything you did on the trip. You can keep some of the moments for yourself. Concerts have also gotten worse due to people recording the whole show. Nobody wants to get up and dance anymore; they just want to record some crazy thing the artist is about to do onstage and hope it goes viral on their TikTok. Honestly, my favorite parts of a concert have been when I am off my phone and jamming out with friends because you do not get to hear your favorite songs live everyday. You will remember hearing that song better if you are more engaged in the moment instead of being distracted by your phone.
ALL OF THESE MOMENTS DO NOT NEED TO POSTED ONLINE OR RECORDED!
Picture: Getty Images
I personally have never had a good relationship with social media. Here are some reasons why:
Unnecessary comments
Stan Twitter
Toxic Friendships
Seeing people you don’t wanna see
Dating
Unsolicited content
False narratives
Unnecessary comments: There have been numerous occasions when I have posted something online and somebody did not like how the post was executed. The most recent instance that I could remember was when I posted this aesthetically pleasing dump of me visiting the Jardin botanique de Montréal. (I would highly recommend going to visit if you ever visit the city.) I put the photo dump together the way I wanted it to be, sent the post and before you know it one person comments that they did not like that I did not post the photo of myself first???? Since when was that a rule, the picture of the garden being first looks nice too and if you have nothing nice to say don’t say it at all. My anxiety heightened when more people I knew started liking the comment in agreement but in order to protect my peace I deleted the remark off the post. It was very unnecessary because you can't control how people post on social media unless you are helping them run the account. After all of that, I kept the post up just like intended because I think it slayed! Sorry to the people who did not like it to begin with.
Stan Twitter: I used to be on that side of Twitter (exposing myself here) until I deleted my account due to too much unnecessary online hate from the chronically online fans you see on that app. Sometimes you just want to post online in peace and suddenly there are like 20 quotes and 500 angry fans in the replies complaining that you are the worst person in the world since you said something ‘bad’ about their favorite artists. Guess what? I do not care, my opinions are my own. I’m sorry your faves music is not my cup of tea and I think I should be able to post my criticism online because any type of criticism helps you do better in the future as an artist.
Toxic Friendships: Due to people posting their whole lives online I see people express a whole new person they said they aren’t. For example, you start to wonder why one of your friends is talking to you less and then you see they posted a quick instagram story of them hanging out with the person who they told you they did not want to be around. It makes you think, were they being a completely different person around you the whole time? Were they not being truthful about how they felt? Did I do something wrong? I personally would not want to link up with somebody who gives off negative energy but whatever floats your boat I guess.
Seeing people you don’t wanna see: Some days you get bored at work and you have nothing better to do so you go online and try to find a funny meme and suddenly you see your old friends who ghosted you hanging out with your old friend group. Depending on how your day is going, that can ruin your whole mood. It makes me sad to see that kind of stuff because you think about all the good times you had together and then you feel ‘awkward’ unfollowing them because it “causes drama” in the girl rule book. From my standpoint, I think that is not the rule you should follow because why would you want to give somebody attention who stopped caring about what you are doing in your life. We should be able to use these platforms to have an escape instead of being reminded of some of the stuff we have been trying to forget.
Dating: I could go on for days about this one. This one time I was getting ready for a date and I was really looking forward to it since I found this person to be really attractive. We had a date set and everything and the person never confirmed the day that they still would be free to meetup. A few hours later, I gave up on going out since the person did not reply and then I saw that they posted they were out enjoying themselves with friends. Maybe they forgot but please let me know if you are not interested so I can stop wasting my time. Additionally, communication is important in every relationship no matter how big or small it is. So if you really want to get to know somebody you need to talk to them instead of developing a fake persona in your head from what you see on their social media.
False narratives: This brings me to the next topic: false narratives. As a result of the uprise in influencer culture over the past few years, I feel like we have seen plenty of people show a completely different version of themselves online than who they really are in real life. This person could be somebody you do not want to be around or could be dealing with a lot of personal things and you would never know because they seem to be the happiest person ever for their followers.
Our friends can also fit into this narrative too. In this online community, we all want to show what exciting things we are doing in our free time to show that we are “doing well.” In reality, nobody really knows how you feel until you reach out to them. Set up a coffee date or facetime call with your friends to see how they are doing personally instead of assuming they are happy because you see they are having the time of their life on their socials. They honestly could be holding on by a thread at that moment.
Unsolicited content: I can’t provide examples to everything I have seen but I feel like I have been an overload of unsolicited content on my feeds due to oversaturated content being thrown in our faces on a daily basis. I wish the algorithm would filter out these videos of pimple popping instead of sending me one hundred more. Nobody wants to see that. I personally can't think of one person who likes watching these types of videos but if you do keep them away from me. I could say a lot about this subject but we could be here all day.
Regardless of how you feel about social media, I will be staying far away from it this year. It would be hypocritical if I did not after oversharing my complaints on this blog post. However, like I said in the beginning, I think it's more important to use my hidden talents to create art for the world to enjoy instead of doom scrolling on it all day and not being productive. Also to check up on your friends instead of assuming they are doing good mentally because they look happy in their most recent photo. Yes, I might miss some of the attention I was getting on my socials but if people care to see what I am doing or how I am doing they have my number. I will have more free time on my hands since I will be doing less scrolling. To conclude, I hope this year brings you all more creativity and less brain rot.
Delete the social media apps off your phone and go touch some grass! <3
