Field Research into my Social Media Withdrawals
TL;DR: I keep deleting my social media platforms and running from my own success because of scary, uncomfy feelings. I am exploring these feelings of withdrawal, and the need for validation in a dopamine-seeking world, while considering the potential benefits of an offline existence. (Update: I have since made new accounts… more research to come.)
What the fuuuuuck was I thinking, deleting social media? There’s literally no better way to share my art online! Think of the community I built! All my followers! The engagement! Ohh! The horror!
I’ve been having a rough go at it this last week around this topic. Deleting social media is hard to do, and I’ve even done it before… abandoning an Instagram following of 13k, and way before that, a Tumblr blog with 10k followers… and most recently, my tarot reading TikTok account, that was a voice of vision to 8,000 wonderful strangers.
Why do I keep doing this?
Honestly, I wish I had all the answers. It hurts like hell. I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I also don’t completely understand why it hurts so much to have these platforms, either. It feels like a lie. I know I don’t own any of my content. For fuck’s sake, scammers have used my face and voice to try to take financial advantage of my followers… it’s exhausting, being face-forward in the digital world.
But I find it interesting that I have seemed to almost accidentally create substantial followings everywhere I go, and then I literally couldn’t care less. Why??? Do I not care about the people that follow me? Of course that’s not the case. Am I afraid of my own success? Okay… okay, now that’s starting to make more sense.
It’s 2025, and the digital world is political. There’s no denying this or hiding from it. The platforms of Instagram and TikTok have felt disingenuous to me for quite some time now… my artwork not getting as much engagement as my selfies, accidentally consuming more than my fair share of upsetting content, losing hours and hours of my life to an endless scrolling cycle that leaves me in survival mode for literally no good reason.
“But you need social media as an artist!” How about you chill the fuck out???
So what are we doing now? We are… well, writing, I guess.
That’s how I have decided to segway. My podcast, Right Now Let’s Enjoy, an audio series of me talking into the void with less than 100 all-time streams… and this blog, which gets less than five visits per month… this is how I will spend my time online from now on.
I shouldn’t care about the engagement, but I do. It’s only natural. After years of cool Instagram posting, I do find myself yearning for the hit of dopamine when I see the little red hearts on my screen. But that can’t be all there is to look forward to… right?
So that’s how it’s going. It actually really fucking sucks!!! But I am committed to engaging in a new way of being online, and this, just like anything else I ever do, is an experiment. I enjoy writing… in fact, I used to write so much more when I was younger, and all my past work has been lost to the void of self-sabotage… so now I will start from scratch.
There are plenty of hours in a day, a truth I have not been well acquainted with for the last decade of my life as it has been sucked away by doomscrolling. With all this extra time, I wonder what I will be able to create. Lately, I find myself less inclined to get behind my easel and more inclined to arm myself with a keyboard and good words. Who knows what havoc I may wreak on the internet. Maybe it won’t amount to anything, at all, ever. Maybe I just shouldn’t really care.
Back when the internet used to be cool, back in the early 2010’s, I was a force to be reckoned with. I’d like to get back there again. Just like so many beautiful people I know, my personality has been siphoned by too much consumption. Who am I, without my perfect IG feed?
Well, I guess we’re about to find out.
Much love,
