Deleting Socials

Two fish decided it was time for both of them to deactivate all their social media accounts.

They both had had enough. In the beginning of the social media age, they enjoyed seeing what their friends were up to. That quickly turned bad when seeing what their friends were up to quickly became seeing what their friends were up to without them. And now they don’t even see their friends anymore, just influencers and advertisements.

So it was time for the two friends to get off all-together.

"But what if we delete it and regret it and miss something important?" Raina, the first Fish, asked.

"Who cares?" Said Marie-Elena, the second Fish, "Anything that is important enough to be on social media will also make its way outside of cyberspace at some point."

Raina thought about this point for a moment and while she agreed that important things that happened on the web would make their way into real life too she just wasn't ready to give up on being totally plugged into everything that was going on in the world. What if everyone started referencing memes that she hadn't seen, or lingo that she didn't know, or worst of all, started hating someone that she didn't know she was supposed to hate and then what if Raina accidentally brought that person up in conversation and then everyone around her would be like, 'Oh my god why did you even bring that person up? Don't you know they're a complete POS and we don't talk about them anymore?' and then Raina would feel awful that she didn't know and ruined everyone’s moods and evening by not knowing and now she had to live with herself and hope that her friend group would forgive her and not hold a grudge and she never liked the person she had even brought up anyway but now people think Raina is like their biggest fan and none of this would have happened if she just stayed on social media even though she hated it.

Marie-Elena had logged into all of her accounts and was ready to go on a deleting spree. She looked at Raina who she assumed was doing the same.

"Are you ready, Raina? 3... 2..."

"I don't think I can do it after all," Raina said, defeated, "I'm too afraid of what would happen if I stopped going online."

Marie-Elena sighed. She knew this was a possibility. The dreaded FOMO rearing its ugly head. The internet was a narcissist and FOMO was its main gaslighting tactic.

(Sure, Fomo, Gaslight, Narcissist, all of these terms were terms that Marie-Elena wouldn't have known had she not been on the internet but that's neither here nor there)

The internet uses FOMO as a way to gaslight everyone into staying in an ultimately abusive relationship with the internet where the internet takes everything about you and sells it off for profit and you see a 10-second cat video with a 15-second ad break trying to sell you soap in the middle. But Marie-Elena also learned from the internet that you cannot make someone get help if they themselves don't ask for help.

"Look, I'm deleting all my social media," Marie-Elena explained, "I think it's smart for you to do the same, especially if you're getting this worked up over it."

"I know," Raina agreed, "But I just can't do it right now, I'm sorry, I know I let you down."

"What?" Marie-Elena was confused, "Look delete it or not, it doesn't make a difference to me. I'm deleting mine and we can go get tacos after cool?"

"Cool," Raina agreed.

Marie-Elena deleted all her social media accounts and felt instantly lighter. She felt free. Periodically while she was eating tacos with her friend, Marie-Elena would instinctually reach for her phone to check up on her accounts but remembered she no longer had them. It was a relief.

Raina checked her phone throughout the lunch. She knew she would ultimately need to delete her accounts but for now, she felt happy that she made the right decision.

Marie-Elena and Raina got together to have lunch or drinks a few more times. But that ultimately fizzled out as Raina would try to keep Marie-Elena updated on what was happening on the internet and Marie-Elena could hardly even understand anymore. Raina kept checking her phone and asking what Marie-Elena thought of the latest this or that but Marie-Elena had honestly no clue what Raina was talking about, and just wanted to hear about her friend’s life and share some of her own.

The two eventually lost touch and haven't seen each other in a few years.