I See What I Did There
After work this evening, I took a moment to read through some archived online conversations I was having as far back as 20 years ago. YouTube was new, everyone had a subprime mortgage or two, The Decider was in the White House, iPhones weren’t a thing that existed, the music scene was crushing it, and so on. If you know, you mango.
I have good news and bad news, but it’s all the same story: things have always been bad. Like really bad. There were no good old days. Arguably, the best we’ve ever had it (in my lifetime) were those couple of years everyone was fighting about microaggressions and trigger warnings as if there was nothing better to worry about. Good times. Relatively speaking.
Are we worse off now? I don’t know. It sure feels like it to me, but upon reading these old conversations, people definitely felt like things were the worst they’d ever been back then, too. Possibly things keep getting worse? That wouldn’t surprise me.1 Is there a good synonym for “worse” that I could use here to break up the monotony of using the word “worse” over and over again in the same paragraph? I’m sure I don’t know.
I’ll tell you one thing that’s definitely changed over the years: people used to be funnier. I think America’s sense of humor began to decline in earnest around 2014, which, as it turns out, is when Gamergate kicked off. (I even looked it up.) It’s a chicken or the egg kind of situation, I’m sure. Well, no, obviously I have an opinion, and I’m right, but people will get all bent and SWAT me if I break their feels, so let’s drop it like a Hot Topic.
In other news, I’ve returned to social media after taking Jaron Lanier up on his challenge to delete all social media accounts for six months. It sucks. Social media, that is. Granted, I only have a self-hosted Mastodon account with a couple of dozen follows, and there are no algorithms or anything, but it still counts. I tried a few of the other platforms but deleted my accounts within minutes, because they were dreadful.
I highly recommend everyone read Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, right now2 and try six months with no social media. You actually have to delete your accounts and stay away for at least three or four months to get the effects. One thing you’ll learn is that those people you’re “staying connected” with aren’t all that interested in staying connected.3 You should run fast and far. Go find a new life in the suburbs or something. That’s what I did.
Footnotes
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The Hedonic Treadmill dictates that nothing can ever be good enough for very long, even at the best of times. ↩
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I have a half-dozen copies. I buy them in batches to leave in Little Free Libraries. I’ll give you one for free (while supplies last). ↩
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I can’t stress this enough: your internet friends don’t give a shit about you. You’re just words on a screen to them. Something to read on the toilet. No more meaningful than a label on the back of a shampoo bottle.4 ↩
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Don’t believe me? Start a newsletter. See for yourself. ↩