one.hundred.twenty.six


my twitter is dead. my myspace is terminally ill. my facebook is fake. after 10+ years of being a social networking glutton: i am full. i can't eat another bite.

it's the end of an era for me. the internet provided me with a non-physical space to express myself and experience a camaraderie with my contemporaries that was lacking in my life in my teens and early twenties. myspace changed my life in so many ways; i discovered there were many kindred spirits all over the world that thought, dressed and felt like me, i found music that i never would have heard on the radio, i made friends online that became friends offline, i found love.

but now this social networking lark feels too fragmented. now it feels too time-consuming. now it feels too demanding to ensure my online representation is in alignment with who i am, or how i'm feeling, or what i'm doing 'right now'. now lol's and omg's feel empty. it's not fun anymore. there was a time when three days without the internet would have had me feeling lost, my life was on there you see; but when i shut my computer down...i effectively shut my life down. i didn't have the social life i felt i had; what i did have was an incredibly powerful illusion of a social life which i clung to with steadfast might. but even air can begin to feel heavy in a tightly clenched fist.

this is not about anybody else, just me. i have no position on what internet usage says about you and your life, i can't possibly know. i'm sharing this partly because people have asked me why i shut my twitter down, and partly because this unpacking of my thoughts is cathartic. be clear though, i do not hate the internet, far from it. i don't know who i'd be or who i'd know if i wasn't given the gift of dial up at 16 yrs old. i'm indebted to those that laid the tarmac on this information super-highway that has been so good to me for so long. but today, 'right now', i don't feel compelled to drive on it like i used to.

i work with people that i adore, that i laugh with all day long. i talk to new people every day, communicating with eye contact and facial expressions instead of emoticons. i call my friends on the phone and meet them for dinner and a movie instead of seeing them in my buddy list every day but not seeing them for months. i no longer want to create pages about who i am that force me to consider how i look to an imagined audience, i just live for me.

so this is now my only internet home. i am in the process of setting up a tumblr for my fiction work [i'm soooooooo excited!], but this is the only place i will use to share my thoughts. i'm still not sure why this blog has survived my internet shutdown spree, but i am sure it will be revealed to me in time.

so it turns out that the internet was unable to give me what i really wanted, and that what i have now is more than i secretly believed possible. consequently, you can no longer find me in the tweets, because i'm in the london streets [corniness intact]. my posts may be sparse, but my life is plentiful. it's kind of weird. i guess a broken compass will still guide you somewhere: and i guess i am here.

farewell social networking, i won't brb :)


6 comments:

  1. I love this post so much. Probably my favourite thus far. You've hit up on alot of valid points...surprisingly I recently re-joined Facebook, but I've found I'm not even interacting with people on it (so effectively, there was no point) except for work-related matters.

    I definitely agree that social networking has forced people to limit the natural interaction that I believe needs to take place for humans to simply be healthy, and I think you've inspired me to shutdown the Space too (as I don't even use it anymore LOL LOL)

    Anyway, go girl - lead the revolution!!! (and let's catch up soon x)

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  2. Love this. I have to agree with you. Lately, I have felt that the online world is trite and phony. I wish I had the guts to shut down my twitter/facebook (closed the myspace thing a while ago), but I am too invested right now. I'll just wait until I get sick of them like I did with myspace. Glad you're back in the blogging world though!

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  3. lol totally ma. i feel u. we both know of my disdain for twitter, but di's ego just won't shut it down. i still hate it tho - and everyday want to just pull the plug. i keep it there for vanity i guess.

    my last trip to new york was filled with one on one conversations over dinner and drinks at my friend's houses. i gained so much from those times, and i'm glad we weren't all texting, tweeting, status updating, etc. there is so much more to life than the internet!

    dope blog, sis :)...

    Di.

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  4. This is a great entry. Sometimes it is so incredibly difficult to relinquish the very thing (or person) that we are so attached to; even when we hit a wall and realize that this thing (or person) is hindering our emotional/spiritual growth. Kudos!

    This is great for you but it sucks for me. What the hell am I gonna read about at work all day now?

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  5. Unlike previously on twitter, I think we actually do have esp.Power, to the authentic! ;-)

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  6. Absoluetly! Agree. Just spoke with a friend recently, as to why I shut down the good ole facebook...There's life I got to catch and I might miss it chilling on facebook.

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