First of all, I don’t think TikTok is going away forever – you’re all being played by billionaires and con-men, and when the FOTUS (Felon Of The United States) assumes power and begins his fascist playbook, he’ll ‘miraculously’ save the app while not solving any of its very real security concerns. But if you want to give China access to all your information, you do you. (I put most of my damning nudity and nakedness and nasty stuff right here on my website so if they want to exploit me they can put ALANILAGAN.com on the international map.)
Second, I’ve been around before social media even existed. This very website was live before FaceBook or Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok or BlueSky, and as each one works to destroy itself, I’ve slowly disassociated and distanced myself from all of them. If I’m on these days, it’s to post a blog link, respond to friendly comments, and then I’m off. No longer do I engage as much, and I’ve been treading with a lighter touch over the past few years on a whole.
Third, as someone who’s been fortunate to have a decent number of followers on certain platforms (my Twitter zenith reached 75,000 before it became X, and my TikTok and BlueSky accounts are/were over 6,000, with the latter growing by the day) I can say with certainty that if any of those platforms went away, I would lose absolutely nothing because they have given me absolutely nothing. So when people lament and mourn the momentary inaccessibility of TikTok, I wonder what exactly they have been getting from it, aside from entertainment and amusement, not unimportant things, but not exactly necessities.
I don’t personally know anyone who makes a direct living off of social media – do you? And while I respect that people have made connections and found engagement with others through social media, in your day-to-day life, how does it actually impact you? Because it doesn’t really play much of a role in my daily existence. I wake up, greet my husband, go to work, talk to co-workers, text some friends, hang out with them, see a movie, take a weekend trip to Boston, attend a Broadway show, plan a vacation to Maine, have dinner with friends, see family, write this blog, cook a new recipe, jot down plans for the garden, go out to dinner with Andy, do my daily meditation, listen to a new song, listen to an old song, fertilize the orchid that is in bloom again, clean the guest room for a possible visit in the spring, work on ideas for our 15th anniversary and my 50th birthday later this year… all boring and dull and banal, and all more real and engaging than anything I’ve ever done on social media. The most mundane machinations of daily living will always be more thrilling than what you think you see online.
The world is about to get a lot darker, and social media is only going to get worse. Misinformation, lies, and cons have been festering for years, while fact-checking and evidence-based arguments are eroding. This website will always be as genuine and authentic as I can make it – but you are still only seeing an edited and curated glimpse of things (I don’t even want to see my hair in the morning). What works best for me now is keeping social media at a distance, not allowing it become such a part of my life that I get worked up or upset over the supposed demise of something called ‘TikTok’, and reinvesting in being present for the reality of my existence.
When we look back on our lives, I don’t think many of us will ever say, “I had the best time on my phone.”
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