I have started a diet of sorts. In this diet, I do not shed pounds. I shed complications, which come in many sizes, shapes, and colors. The latest shedding involves Facebook and Wells Fargo. It’s not that I dislike either one, but they have become superfluous. You have to feed the Facebook machine with personal data constantly; otherwise, you fall behind. And I still have two other bank accounts, so why I stayed with Wells Fargo longer than I care to admit is anybody’s guess. Sure, I like red stagecoaches with yellow trim as much as the next guy, but that’s just not enough. As I wrote two weeks ago: sayōnara, boys.
Next up: LinkedIn. I have thousands of contacts there, but they’re connected to a job I no longer have in a world I no longer inhabit. They’re mostly good and decent people, except for the occasional psychopath. One guy in particular lit into me for sending him a proposal for leadership training. I thought he had asked for it. He screamed at me in all caps like a LinkedIn honey badger. If LinkedIn had a mascot, the honey badger would be a good one. But the truth is, I still don’t know what the platform is good for. I’m about to be LinkedOut.
Other things in my sights include SoundCloud and Tumblr. This blog posts weekly on Tumblr, but I’m not sure the return is worth it. It looks like it’s mainly for people interested in Japanese cartoon porn. Maybe it’s Korean. No, that’s K‑Pop. SoundCloud seems to be a repetitive service. Whatever I load there I can upload to YouTube and be done with it. I have a YouTube channel with seven followers. Not 7,000. Not 700. Seven. But I figure I’m a writer, not an “influencer.” I put that last one in quotes because they remain suspect in my mind. All of them.
Then there’s my website. The only thing it really does is keep GoDaddy happy and me confused with passwords. I have finally identified what I am calling an algorithm for choosing passwords. I’m not sure if it really is an algorithm. Just like I’m not entirely certain what a meme is, although I feel much more confident about it now than I did, say, two years ago.
I like X and YouTube—too much, I’m afraid. I watch a lot of the latter and have been on a Five Eyes jag lately, watching podcasts from Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, annoys me no end, but I like the catty comments about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on other shows. The lesson here is that you have to be extremely selective when choosing what to watch. My general rule of thumb is to avoid anyone wearing a baseball cap turned around and pretentious Europeans. Somehow, I get by.
This is all headed toward a simpler, slower, slimmer me, to continue the dieting meme. My sense of self must be strong. Either that, or I really am as thick‑headed as some have accused me of being. The reason is that the information and sensory overload of postmodern life has made me more guarded about what I let into my life. Who I let in. I don’t find it hard to filter out noise and distractions. They are annoying, of course, especially construction machinery with their incessantly piercing backup beeps. But filter them out, I do.
I am not culturally hip. For instance, I have no idea what OnlyFans is, but from what I gather, I want to keep it that way. Color me narrow‑minded. Or ignorant. I have enough work to keep me occupied until my last breath. I’ve been in a playwriting frenzy lately. I have a knack for eavesdropping on people. I used to sneak photos of them on my cell phone, but my daughters threatened to take the phone away. So, I had to stop.
You might call this a spirituality of ignorance. I prefer to think of it as a spirituality of slip sliding away. I am less and less involved in the world and, because of that, slipping deeper into reality. To paraphrase Paul Simon, the closer I get to my destination, the more I am slip sliding away.
I think that’s the plan. Homo proponit, Deus disponit.
Images: Erin Mabee. Want more? Click on Amazon above right for other publications or go to Robert Brancatelli. Visit other blog readers under “Who You Are.” Leave a comment by clicking on the Comment tab above. Happy anniversary, the Szemeredis. Happy birthday, Grandma Brancatelli. Happy Flag Day, America.
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Rob, I think it is great that you are on this social media diet.
I have never been on Facebook and, from what I hear, people are bailing out of that platform in droves. I have been (and am still) on X and LinkedIn, but only as a place to post one of my increasingly infrequent commentaries from my own web site, and as a way to draw people to my blog to purchase 1,000 of my books. Or , more likely, maybe 1.
Other than that, linkedIn isipdeed pointless, and X is a sewer.
My own website was established back when I was actively consulting and writing, so it is overkill for me now. I don’t really need a website to draw consulting clients that I no longer want, and I can send commentaries to journals, and write another book, perfectly well without a website that now costs me about $1200 a year to maintain and trouble-shoot.
Still, the web developer did a nice job of putting it together, and it does provide an archive for my past pearls of wisdom. I will make a decision on this soon, but you see where I am heading. Saw a photo of myself recently, and I am looking a bit chunky.
Vic, I think it’s a good idea to keep an archive/repository of your work and maybe a place for photos, especially with your growing family. I have a lot of photos on Flickr. But the rest of it is pointless. I still keep X because of a publisher, and I am keeping Soundcloud for audio recordings. But you’re right. I think websites are going the way of email and thumb drives. Incidentally, with all the medical exams I have had lately, I was surprised to discover that images are kept and passed along on CDs…Now, if they ask for a fax number, I guess they’ll just have to s=mail it to me. The PO keeps chugging along.
Got off all social media about three years ago. Haven’t missed a moment of it.
A couple quotes you might enjoy.
“LinkedIn, connecting a lot of people for absolutely no reason whatsoever.”
“MacBook Pro, a $3000 Facebook Machine.”
Nice.
Good for you and your ‘unplugging’! I noticed you were no longer on Facebook when I was looking for another ‘R’ name and the only Robert who showed up in my search was Robert Frost.
Robert Frost is on Facebook? No, I am unplugging. Subscribers to the blog won’t be affected, but FB is deleted.