I find myself conflicted as to what exact value I can offer on social media. Being that by choice I am only on one social media site, it is the site “Gab” of which I speak.
This website you are reading is a different matter altogether. On this site, whether I’m aware exactly of what good is coming of it or not(mostly not due to not using any form of analytics), I know I’m doing what is right. Here, it is just me, my thoughts, any insights, and all that God puts in me to share. But with social media…
Let me jump back in time just a bit.
When I was watching the events of 2014-‘16 unfold, I noticed something happening. I wasn’t fully aware at the time but I took note. While it’s true that people have always used avatars, fake names, or fake accounts on sites like twitter, as time went on and the first banishings were taking place, it slowly became a necessity(if one was to maintain a presence online with truly dissenting ideas) to have an account without any personal info linked. This is because along with banishment from sites, the tech/gov/media apparatus was beginning to persecute users for their thought crimes even outside of social media. Many of these anonymous users’ social accounts were a major source of info for countless people slowly awakening to the truth of things around them which they, like most, were previously completely unaware of. The level of brainwashing and propagandizing through psychological subversion was unimaginable. Yet, so many were being made aware of the hidden agenda inside of the big theatrics of politics, gov-approved school book history lessons, media and constant entertainment.
Fast forward back to present time…
Almost all of the twitter accounts that I once knew by heart are gone into the memory hole. Again, not having an account, I had user names stored in my brain and would simply go to twitter and type them in search one by one, then I’d scroll feeds looking for hidden gems that I had yet to be able to find through my own research, are all but gone. I must admit, the few that remain are now suspect to me due to their allowance. How could so many be banned for saying basically the same thing, and yet these few remain? I’m not sure and I could only speculate. However, if I visit the remaining few nowadays, I analyzed everything 10 times over and I simply don’t trust the accounts. Where one said “A” in ‘16, now they say “B”. Where one twitter approved anon said “never” in ‘16, now they say “now!” Just as I don’t trust any blue check mark conservative that was once considered dissident, yet now have the right wing talking platform on twitter all to themselves thanks to all competitor thought getting booted. You know who these people are. They give you news of 90-97% truth, with all purpose lying in that you DO NOT find out or dive too far into that meager 3% lie.
Ok, gab…
When I signed up, I figured I needed some way, some mechanism for getting any info I would share out to a greater number of people. This actually was pretty much my only option when even my 2 friends I have that use facebook refused to share any content from my site out of fear of being thought of as (enter politically weaponized scary name of choice here).
But here it is, six months later and I find myself wondering, is the site working for me in the capacity which I first intended? Never using social, I had to have a crash course on the psychological repercussions of having the thing. And so I’ve been very self aware as I’ve been, at times, fully caught up in it. That hidden thing that makes people refuse to unplug or close down their Facebook. This feeling of faux success when you make a meme, a clever post, or insightful comment and it gets whatever number of likes, comments, or reposts that satisfy the brain. The seductive and illusionary fable that somehow I’m doing something worthy of time and life and these thumbs up are the proof.
Here and now, I find myself reflecting on several facts. Anytime I post something from the website to Gab, it gets less interaction than anything else I do on there. I can make a meme and it’s there. It’s visible. There’s no clicking away. A person sees it and either likes it or doesn’t and they react accordingly by pressing or not pressing the like button. But, they can do this within seconds and keep on scrolling. Usually I will average a certain amount of interaction depending on the topic and format. But, I’ve found that to ask most people to read or listen to something that is going to take more than two seconds is like asking someone to help with your furniture if you move out of your house. It’s as though you’re asking the world of them. It’s certainly not their fault. This is our reality now. This is where we are at. It is what it is. Attention spans are at an all time low and our society is one that equates listening to someone read them a book through Audible, with actually reading a book. Allow me to assure you, it is not the same. If it was simply a reality that the content here just isn’t interesting or any good, I could deal with that. I have limited reach, I know no one and am learning as I go. I could accept that I haven’t sharpened my sword quite enough. But just from analyzing gab and graphing it out beside my other content, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case at all. These things and more are what lead me to question what it is I’m achieving by spending my time on social media.
What am I doing there? Why am I on Gab? Sure, i enjoy making memes but I owe any enjoyment in that to the fact that I love to create artistically anyway. There is an outlet in creating a meme and sharing it. I can understand this at least. And yes, I’ve met some nice avatars that say hello and bless me kindly… but beyond that, an avatar is exactly what most of us are on there. A picture, a bio, and an endless string of posts that either give insight into who the man is behind the avatar… or perhaps reveal a picture of someone that we are supposed to think is behind the avatar, all the while, it’s a fed, a foreign agent, a troll, intelligence operative, a subversive, or anyone for that matter. It could be anyone behind that friendly greeting and anime avatar. I can’t expect anyone to just accept my word that I am who I claim to be. The reason being, I myself find it hard trusting so many endless and faceless avatar accounts. Many of us are exactly who we say, but how would you know. We can’t show or give too much info because there is a political and spiritual enemy out there waiting to destroy jobs, livelihoods, homes, and families simply because we don’t believe as they do, or because we posted something that they are lying in wait to categorize as racist and have a shiny new political martyr to bat around before going full commie. These people get bored easily. They have no life, no family, no friends, and live to disrupt your peace. Of coarse we’re going to try to make it as hard for them as possible.
I decided to take this week off and seek out direction in regards to social media. So often on Gab(just as easily twitter, Facebook, whatever), I’m astounded to see the amount of people saying and posting pretty much the same thing every single day, myself included. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll see the same meme, not reposted by someone acknowledging the source, but just swiped and posted on their account. It’s not even the swiping that gets to me. As I said, it’s the sheer volume of how many times this occurs in a single week. In some ‘internal warning system’ kind of way, I’m not liking what I’m seeing. Besides the seeming redundancy of social media in general(all forms), there’s a red flag in the fact that anyone outside of the govtech-approved “conservative” bunch have been relegated to one social site. This is dangerous and has negative implications for free speech for so many reasons. What if we are in the midst of a situation where this is all that the last generation of Americans ever amounts to? An army of keyboard folks sharing quick memes and bite sized political text commentary across the net for the final 20 years, all while people who do not know how to sign into their own email without help are continually consolidating a power that makes certain that my last sentence is the reality. Through fake accounts, feds, operatives, and speech police, they assure that the forbidden truth never reaches out past a certain acceptable number of people or circle of influence as to make the dissenters think there is some form of hope in peaceful political reform, when in reality, we memed our destruction into existence through physical inaction.
I’ve never been one to waste time or to just be busy for busy sake. Again, I’m simply seeking my compass on this.
Thanks for reading 😏