Are You Cut Out for Social Media?

I've always liked Fred B's contributions to the film threads. I would follow him on twitter but all of his posts are in Danish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM86DdwT71Y

It is very easy to engage with social media in moderation and maintain mental health. No one knows discipline anymore. I love Twitter but I don't spend all day on it. I know lots of people who read *their entire timeline*, like every tweet. Insane. Social media is to be checked in on, watched when you have a moment's rest, like a river or a stream. I like skipping pebbles on ponds. The key is remaining the person and not becoming the pebble. The overextended metaphor ends here, with the post

― flappy bird, Thursday, May 21, 2020 3:33 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

no it's not, actually. it's no secret that these platforms / interfaces are designed to be addictive. people don't check their phones all the time because they lack self-control. they're hooked like junkies or alcoholics.

we have an entire society that's wrapped up in this shit, that's toxically dependent on total trash, scrolling, filling the void, unable to step away.

just do some basic research on the deleterious cognitive effects of social media. we're going to look back at children with smartphones and IG accounts like how we see smoking culture now.

Post something interesting here and there is a much better chance someone will respond in kind. Even if no one responds you may find it again yourself years later and get something out of it, it doesn't have that same sense of sitting there Unliked or Uncared for.

i like this about ILX. sometimes you're posting just to share. other times it's for the conversation / perspectives / tips. but occasionally you look in on threads and it's clearly just one person's little project, and that's okay, too.

It is very easy to engage with social media in moderation and maintain mental health. No one knows discipline anymore.

― flappy bird

a boy used to kick a ball in the yard

I did have to put in place a rule, i.e. I'll read x amounts of pages/chapters before picking up my phone again.

And then I'm reading a lot more links I get from twitter and here too, so if anything I'm just reading a lot more.

I like both of bodu jeru's posts, they explain why ilx is the best social media to me

*medium

The addiction thing is real.

more and more I am starting to think the issue is more my not being cut out for human contact, of which social media is just a subset

LOL I've just remembered Joe Biden was responsible for Fred's demise too. That guy's a menace.

like, for instance, right now I do not know the proper stance to have toward the shallot pasta. I did not know it was wrong to make it until like an hour ago. how many of my other recipes are attached to the designated wrong people? how would I know? (it's all a moot point anyway because I hate shallots and would never make it anyway; but that in itself also is a wrong stance, because according to the discourse it makes me a bad person because my food thus has no flavor -- something I don't understand because there are plenty of things without shallots or onions that nevertheless have plenty of flavor (like puttanesca, which the shallot pasta basically is), but the discourse is firm with no wiggle room

No one knows discipline anymore

flappy i'm not making fun of you here but you are a person who had to *quit* listening to the smashing pumpkins

xp don't like shallots much tbh, they seem incidental to any recipe, just use onions and garlic

(to clarify this is not me defending her, but rather this is saying that I so rarely know what the rules are until it's announced that people retroactively are horrible people for having broken them. like everything one can do in life that isn't obviously morally charged, like making a recipe for pasta, can be milkshake ducked at any time)

Perhaps not every moral outrage is worth engaging with

I mean once it is put out into the world that there are moral stakes, then "not engaging" is itself a position

It's ok to sometimes say you just don't care about the controversy du jour. None of us has the mental or emotional bandwidth to take a principled stand on every last topic.

Definitely not cut out for social media but I can find a comfortable/bearable place in most uncomfortable rooms. Also trying to retrain my brain to believe it’s alright to promote myself.

I mean that's the thing though, it is always "this is wrong," not "this is wrong unless you don't have the mental or emotional bandwidth"

What the shit are y’all talking about re: shallots and pasta??

https://twitter.com/search?q=shallot%20pasta&src=typed_query

Shallot pasta only has to bother you if you willingly engage in the posting wars. Whatever the controversy is there just treat it like the tabloid headlines in the supermarket checkout line. You never had to argue with anyone about Bat Boy’s predictions.

Ok a cursory look at that lets me know this controversy is 100% not something I care about at all.

Who has the energy to argue about shallots or even recipes rn??

apologies for not wanting to do something I've been told is wrong, I guess

I don't understand where you're coming from, I think? Why do any of those people mad on Twitter - in either direction, people who think it's an issue of racism or people who think it's an issue of performative identity politics - have moral authority to tell you anything is wrong? The people on both sides of that war should spend 48 hours in a padded cell IMO.

the counterpoint to that, though, is why do you -- or me, or anyone else -- have the moral authority to say that they're wrong and not worth paying attention to?

well, judgment

Because what you pay attention to is a personal decision. You're exerting moral authority over yourself, which I think is a pretty fair application of it.

off topic, incidentally I cooked alison roman's chickpea stew with coconut milk recipe today, it turned out good after I added a bunch of madras curry and some more red pepper flakes, but it has 33 gm of saturated fat per serving! I liked it but I'm not going to make that again often in the future

xp -- I doubt if you told someone staking a moral stance on something that "I'm making a personal decision" would be given literally any credence at all. nor is it a principle that holds up with anything else that's a more clear-cut moral issue ("sorry I murdered your buddy, but I just don't have the mental and emotional bandwidth to pay attention to people saying murder is wrong, you know?")

are we still talking about whether or not it's okay to like the pasta made from the recipe by the newspaper lady who made a boo-boo with the celebrity??

yes, but it is just the latest example of something where it feels like dozens more rules materialize by the week in ways that are not predictable in advance

just as you can use your own judgment about whether to pay attention to those, you can also use it to determine whether to pay attention to people who think you should or shouldn't pay attention to them in specific ways? you can also use it not to voice any opinions that would elicit adverse attention from them?? idgi

the most evergreen headline in the world is "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people"

I doubt if you told someone staking a moral stance on something that "I'm making a personal decision" would be given literally any credence at all.

That's what I mean, though, what gives this person taking their moral stance any authority over you? Just because they care doesn't mean you have to. The people fighting on Twitter are mad about something with zero stakes - no one involved has any influence on Roman's job or Marie Kondo's wealth.

For it to weigh on someone's mind, they have to let it in. At that point it's hard to feel bad for someone if the Twitter controversy upsets them - they made the choice to play the game.

it feels like dozens more rules materialize by the week in ways that are not predictable in advance

if this troubles you, perhaps it is an indication that social media and you may be somewhat incompatible. one good strategy might be to confine your first 'dates' with social media to group dates which include some trusted friends, or maybe a low-key, low risk meeting with social media at a coffee shop for a skinny latte and splitting a muffin. it may be too early to exchange phone numbers or addresses until you feel more sure you get along.

it is a psychologically hazardous inference to think that if you don't care about some thing (e.g. a hot topic of the day that 'everyone' urges you to 'care' about) then you 'don't care about other people'.

also to think that there are rules, that can be predicted in advance, about how one is to care if one cares. what people can and should care about isn't given by rules, that's the whole point of caring. you have to let your concerns guide you and stay open to having them changed.

taking one's lead from the conformist drives of the daily internet mob is not a way to be guided by one's concerns, and it's not something one should be open to.

I think maybe the problem is the second level nature of Twitter controversies that makes them ignorable IMO.

If a momentarily famous TikTok person misgendered someone - snipe at TikTok person on Twitter, okay, comfort the person misgendered if you know them and it upset them, absolutely. But then when it devolves into two teams and the argument is about social positioning as being on the right or wrong team, ruuuuuuuuuun.

"yes, but it is just the latest example of something where it feels like dozens more rules materialize by the week in ways that are not predictable in advance"

Who gives a fuuuuuuck

people who care about not doing something that people have said causes harm?

that's not what you're doing is it?

people have said that it would be! (it just happens in this case that the "wrong" thing intersects with a food dislike I have. but as above, having that dislike is also wrong)

how?!?!?!?!?!? i think there is a calibration issue here, the harms you should be concerned about first are the ones that you cause by your actions or by what it is up to you to choose. harms 'people' say are being caused (to whom? by whose actions, when?) are not something that it is fruitful to prioritize on the level of day-to-day attention to the internet

and DISLIKING A FOOD IS WRONG? katherine, this is a difficult conversation to take seriously

I do think people who dislike empanadas are cum tbf

*scum

xp -- whenever it is uncovered on twitter that a person doesn't like ingredients like, in this case, shallots, they are relentlessly mocked with the implication that they are a bad person

so ignore it. i mean I'm someone who lets things get to him way way way too much but you can control who you do and don't engage with. if you try to take a side in every internet, twitter, Facebook ,Instagram, Glooper (it's not invented yet, but that's the next social media site), and feel as if you have less value if someone on any of those platforms has cast judgment about you....you're going to be miserable fast.

I have to force myself off of all of these platforms for hours a day to avoid constantly driving myself insane. and I have to accept that somewhere, a greasy dude with hair like the guy from Eraserhead thinks I'm a piece of shit. and that's ok.

Cum empanadas

That’s a mental image that’s never leaving