Back in the oldest days of the Internet (late 90's, early 2000's), I used to post on discussion forums, which were privately-owned and topics usually centered around a common interest: being Black, being a teacher, celebrities or whatever your passion was. Some of us created our own little super cute websites with all types of colors and graphics...I had my guestbook and definitely of course, wanted visitors to my site and wanted them to sign my guest book.
Years later I ended up putting together my own discussion forum centered around inspiration and Christianity. This is so hilarious to me because I absolutely do not subscribe to that religion anymore. This was 2006, so yeah, I just didn't know the real history and I still believed in all that stuff
Anyway, I said all that to say, that I have always enjoyed communicating with people online on a regular basis. It used to be interesting, fun, and worth the time. Of course yes, there was still major drama and online wars lol and all that stuff, but experiencing that on a privately-owned board with hundreds of members or a few thousand members, is a heck of a lot different than what's happening now.
On a private board where you can actually contact the real, human owner of the board, you had a voice, and you hopefully had some type of common ground with the board owner otherwise, why would you be posting on their site? You hopefully had some type of common ground with the members, otherwise, why are you posting in the same space?
((The owners of these platforms have nothing in common with me, and that's their problem. For instance, I believe in equal human rights for Black people. None of these platforms share that belief. And they got the nerve to think they have "community standards."))
Anyway, of course there were massive forums with hundreds of thousands of members where you couldn't contact the site owner if you had a problem, but I was primarily on forums where I knew something about the owner, and most of the time, the owner engaged with us and was a full part of the board's discussions. That's what's called a community!
Social media is not a community.
The main reason I joined Facebook, more like Hatebook, back in 2009 was because everyone from the forums I liked, was abandoning the forums and heading to big social.
I remember being reluctant to sign up and not wanting to. But again, since I always had some type of website that needed traffic, I would have signed up anyway as social became dominant, however, the way this all happened was just all wrong.
Forums died way too fast and facebook went from mostly seeing your friend's list food photos to...just ugh. The format changed too fast. And hey, I don't need a timeline feed, I know what to feed my own mind on my own time.
But if you think you can win against a machine, naw, it's just not possible. If it stayed food photos or just private friend's list, it would have been more manageable mentally. It still wouldn't have been good for me, but the impact wouldn't have destroyed my mental health.
Even many bloggers abandoned their own sites. Pretty soon, social media was critical to having an online business. You kinda had to be on there, a lot, in order to get the word out about your business. Unless you already had great search engine traffic or a big advertising budget, the consensus was that you need to be on social media to get traffic, to get customers, to get people to your email list, to get sales and blah blah blah
Technically, that is more true than not; however, the point is I still put too much time into social media, and saw/read so much crap I wish I'd never known was possible.
Just basically, even though I have never liked humans, I still never imagined that the disgustingness (hey that's a word?) and depravity was this deep amongst so many people.
You know how you just think it's only some people that's so full of hate. You think that the majority of people at least believe that people shouldn't be gunned down by cops, for example.
You would think most people will say that it is wrong for someone to have authority to execute someone just because they were "scared" or "thought they had a weapon" or "thought they looked like someone." Trash! You would think....no one could ever blame a 17 year-old child with Skittles and Iced Tea for having done anything wrong. Just a kid!!
I can't. The list goes on and on. There's also people shaming children and just loads of Black stereotypes, hardcore racism, blah blah blah on and on....
How are people like this? It blows my mind. No souls, just plain evil, and it's tragic that I ever had to know these type of people exist and that they can type and post on the same site as me.
That's horrific. I always assumed those types were drooling in a cave somewhere. No, they are actually walking around and functioning and I'm like, how can such hateful beasts function.
They're everywhere...all in practically every comment section, podcasts, all the social media forums...everywhere. I never got too much into IG, TikTok, Twitter so I just focused on FB for this post but they are all the same filth. All the same.
And I'm not just talking about people who support police brutality and other forms of deadly racism, but people who wanted Brittney Griner to rot in a Russian jail, people who said "rules are rules" regarding Sha'Carri's unjustified treatment for the Olympics, people who come into celebrity or public figure's comment sections with negativity, people who talked about Gabby Douglas and Simone's hair, the Shade Room, the Breakfast Club...all that type of BS. That entire mindset is just as deadly as lynchings
The mental and emotional damage has been overwhelming and so not worth any amount of money
I absolutely love creating content! And I had a few bucks coming in so it was extremely difficult to train my brain to let go off all this potential for big financial success.
I've let it go intellectually and physically, I rarely use social media anymore but that rarely needs to become 'never.'
Social media is about 95% out of my life though, but it's taking way longer than I'd like for it to be out of my mind completely & for me to be healed from the garbage I've read from garbage ass people
The trauma from all the police brutality cases would have been so much lower for me had not I ever been on social media, and actually even on discussion forums. Basically, when that type of injustice started happening I didn't need to be online, anywhere in any capacity besides me own site
2012 Trayvon Martin is when I wish I would have known to leave big social media, as well as the private owned forum, it was only 1 that I was posting on at that time.
Regardless of the platform, I didnt need to be anywhere near people online unless we're talking like very small like-minded group.
What I started doing was dedicating myself to inspiration, education, uplifting and created an education program to help honor Black children, and this type of work put me even deeper and deeper into the depraved and disgusting minds of people out there.
I don't regret creating my program because it was a wonderful experience offline, when I went in person to the schools and worked with lovely, amazing Black children (middle school age).
So basically my therapist said social media didn't cause my trauma but it added to it. And boy did it ever...add layers and layers of so much more crap for me to heal from.
God I wish I'd never known the type of people that are out here and seem to be the majority of the adult population of all ages, races, genders, nationalities, income levels, religions...doesn't matter. Most people are anti-Black and trash! Anyone who believes in negative Black stereotypes is anti-Black
God I wish I'd never known their thoughts, opinions, memes, statuses, youtube videos, reels, podcasts, think pieces, none of that trash. Why did I have to come across anything they touch...which is practically, everything...the media, the Internet, society... anti-black. With every few exceptions, they've touched it all, yet still whine
I have hope and know though, that I'll get all my joy and peace back, and that these type of people will just dissipate out of my psyche.
You have to like, build a fortress and put on the armor to protect yourself spiritually, mentally and emotionally. I'm working on it and will get there!
😀🦋🦋
