Is It Weird to No Longer Be on Social Media?

Facebook came to my college during my junior year. I signed up almost immediately, which means that I’ve basically been on social media my entire adult life. I was never an avid poster or scroller during my twenties, but once I entered the media industry, I learned to love/hate/be hopelessly addicted to Twitter. I am not proud to admit that, a few years ago, I sometimes spent half my waking hours on Twitter. I exited the site after Musk made it a repellent/pointless place to be. Then my Facebook feed became overtaken by AI accounts. Instagram isn’t really what I look for in social media — a density of jokes and information — and I feel too old (and impatient) for TikTok.

I now live on Reddit, but it doesn’t really feel like social media; my account is anonymous, and so is pretty much everyone else’s, so you don’t get the sense of connection to friends or acquaintances or recurring names. Am I just getting older and the culture of the internet simply moving on to newer models, or have the tech companies broken social media? (Or both?) The overwhelming reaction I have to these sites now is disinterest, even aside from the complicity of the tech oligarchs with the current administration. It’s never felt more obvious that these are simply advertising platforms, since ads seem to make up every fifth or so post I see on Facebook or Instagram. There’s something naggingly empty about Threads, and BlueSky seems to be a void where people. just. scream. all. day. long. (Apologies to my friends who are on BlueSky and post thusly; I love you, but you know who you are.) Reddit reinforces for me my disinclination these days toward pithy, decontextualized soundbites of news and analysis — something I used to love on Twitter — which is why I have moved over to this newsletter for communication.

Should I feel weird about exiting social media? I definitely do. Because I’m in front of a computer all day, I often feel like I’m making myself invisible. But I’m also enjoying opting out of the daily (or hourly) self-performance; it frees up my brain to focus on other things. I thought I’d miss the onslaught of information — I firmly believe we owe it to ourselves and to others to keep up, as best we can, with the news right now, even though it’s dire and depressing — but then I read the following excerpt of a novel about social media in a recent book review and it made me realize that it’s OK to not have my attention constantly hijacked by the algorithm:

An egg became more famous than the pope. A highly contagious virus raged through West Africa. A billionaire poured a bucket of ice on his head. A fashion brand exploited East Asian sweatshop workers. A young woman recorded all the times she was catcalled. Two African Americans were killed by the police. A man went around filming first kisses. A plane vanished en route to Beijing. A woman was beautiful. An apartment full of plants was beautiful. A vegan quiche was beautiful. A child needed money for chemo. Time disappeared.

I hope I get enough of my attention span back to read a novel again soon.

-Inkoo

—“What to Watch That Isn’t The White Lotus.” Someone at the office suggested this small listicle given the general discontent with the current season. I was delighted to oblige, given my own underwhelmedness with Season 3.

—“The Parental Panic of Adolescence.” I’ll confess that I’m a bit surprised that this small, four-episode, somewhat gimmicky show has become such a big hit. Maybe I shouldn’t have been; the boys crisis is real and I think there’s often a huge amount of confusion about how to even broach the topic. Adolescence supplies a good starting point, but its limitations emerge rather quickly.

—“The Second Season of Wolf Hall Surpasses Its Acclaimed Predecessor.” I’ve been mired in the 16th century for the past couple of weeks bingeing the two seasons of Wolf Hall, about the court of Henry VIII — he of the six wives — and the travails of the king’s close adviser, Thomas Cromwell. Season 1 debuted 10 years ago, Season 2 a week ago. They are both very good.

— “Mickey 17 with Inkoo Kang.” It was very sweet of my friend Drea Clark to invite me on her podcast to discuss with my other friend (and former editor) Alonso Duralde the latest Bong Joon-Ho film — a fiasco, IMO! I love Bong’s Korean films. I really, really do not care for his American ones. I was hoping he’d buck the trend with Robert Pattinson playing clones in a dystopian, extraplanetary future. Alas.

—“Disney’s Snow White Remake Whistles But Doesn’t Work.” I had a blast reading Justin Chang’s review of this flop-a-rama.

—“Buy All This, Look Rich.” I really enjoyed this comprehensive article about the online purveyor Quince, which I’ve never ordered from, but feel like I’ve heard about on every one of my podcasts. It’s only the story of a single company, but reveals a lot about how an e-commerce brand can get off the ground today, largely based on the exploitation of trade loopholes and our current dupe culture.

—“There’s a Spoon’s Worth of Plastic in Our Brains. Now What?” Everything you didn’t want to know about the microplastics in our bodies.

—“Jump, Jive and Fail: The ’90s Swing Craze.” This was one of the funnest and most informative culture stories I’ve encountered in awhile. Host Willa Paskin is pretty open about how much she hated the ‘90s swing revival, and that disdain — which she does NOT bring to the extremely interesting interviews she conducts with many of the musicians who participated in the movement — actually ends up making her story more insightful.