a history of my relationship to social media
like many of you, i grew up on the internet. as a newly immigrated tween, with language barriers in public and geographic barriers to my old friends, tumblr was my main connection to the world at large around 2010. but it also exposed me to hourly confirmation bias that the world is awful, my own brain is awful. it taught me that the social model of being online is one between creator and audience, between aesthetic posts and the people summarized into "10k notes"; the two categories did not interact.
when i became an Adult, i started posting on twitter, wanting to become one of those really Cool People with a following. after some time i had a hundred followers, a number teenage kyn could not have dared to imagine. i was overwhelmed that there were people who had nice things to say about my art! about things i was making! i wanted more. i wanted attention, i wanted people to tell me i was good at things.
then covid happened, and at the same time a serious plummet in my mental health as i was entering a third year of unsuccessful employment. twitter became a source of stress; i couldn't post as much as before and started losing followers, then would panic and try to catch up, and the cycle continued.
that being said, twitter wasn't all bad. i've struggled with self confidence all my life, and having a low 4 digit follow count did help with that. eventually, though, i hit the brick wall of realization that almost none of these people were my friends, and in real life i was still struggling to make and maintain relationships.
in 2022 my girlfriend invited me to cohost. elon was buying twitter, and i was personally experiencing an art slump that was lasting an entire year, so i jumped at the chance. the response to my literal second post, a little doodle of my own vtuber-sona with barely any explanation, blew me away. then my lovely friends all started posting art i'd done for them before. i have never had such a welcome into any space, let alone online. (i'm tearing up thinking about it right now.)
i posted more, and fought to pay forward that welcoming spirit i had felt. i posted doodles and selfies and silly thoughts and way too many cat photos. the lack of numbers meant i didn't have to worry if people didn't like it. if they wanted to unfollow me, i wouldn't know. if they didn't like something i reposted, or even if they did like it, i wouldn't know. i was freed from playing house being a content creator and finally allowed (by myself) to be a person instead of a mask. cohost didn't cure me of all my attention seeking -- just a few days ago i had a nightmare that as part of the shutdown, cohost revealed all users' Numbersâ„¢, and i found out that i was just a little nobody compared to everyone else -- but at least now i feel visceral discomfort when i open twitter and see a follower count immediately on my profile.
i've felt lost since the announcement of the cohost shutdown, not knowing where i want to take my online presence from here. cohost left me with hope that internet communities can really be just that, communities, but that's all that is -- hope. i need something concrete, a place, a home, something to replace my lack of ability to participate in the 3D world. to touch grass, so to speak.
well, i guess that gives me the answer. i guess my next steps after cohost is therapy and psychiatry. wish me luck.
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now listening to: morbid stuff - PUP
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