I did something the other day I’ve been meaning to do since January: I deleted my Facebook account and any other account related to the Metaverse.  It took that long to jiggle loose the hook that was Facebook and required a strangely large amount of inner analysis in order to do so.  However, it answered some of my questions as to how it is that so many people continue to use a website that they despise.  Seriously, do you know anyone who actually likes Facebook?  No, they use it because, until recently, they had no alternate choice.

I had to ask myself why I was using Facebook even though there were so many things about it that bothered me, like the creepily accurate targeted advertising.  I’ve read geek explanations about the back-end machinations of the social media companies and how they’re used to figure things out about you, and after at least a year of careful observation of my own experiences versus these explanations, I call bullshit.  There’s no way I’m being targeted for some of the ads I’m seeing without something on my phone actively listening to every word I say.

I’m not techie enough to understand all of the ways this could be possible, but I know for damn sure I’m going to sever as many connections as I’m aware of to put a stop to that shit, and deleting my Facebook account seemed like a very direct way to do that since it was where most of the advertising manifested.  I resent the hell out of the capitalist world’s attempt to turn me into a vehicle for their greedy accumulation by selling me crappy shit I don’t need.  I’ve been dumb enough to click on a Facebook ad or two and actually spend money on what was being advertised, and it was shit both times.

Everything Facebook touches is shit, and for whatever reason, it took me a long time to figure that out, or at least to stop allowing my emotions to be manipulated into making me continue to use what is an abusive product.  Facebook no longer serves the social connective purpose that it once did, if it ever did.  It was always billed as a way to maintain a network of your loved ones, a centralized way of staying in contact with them, and it stopped being that a long time ago, ever since the implementation of the algorithms which are tuned to capitalist interests.  Now I never see my friends’ posts, nor do they see mine, so what’s the point?

I also had a supreme objection to the egotism of the Metaverse and Facebook and the way the algorithms disfavor any external link in an effort to keep its users in a controlled cyber-bubble.  Links to external blogs are routinely hidden, I presume in an effort to manipulate people into posting only on Facebook or more importantly, only seeing what is posted within the Metaverse, which I have discovered in just a few short days paints a ghastly picture of humanity that is entirely inaccurate.

Like many people in America and in other places in the world, I had a divided vision of the world that did not accurately portray either side of that division.  That vision was largely driven by my interactions on Facebook, which was my only real source of input for a long time.  Now that we all know what we know about how Facebook favors fascist content over progressive content, it’s much easier for me to see how my vision of the world was grossly distorted, causing me to miss positivity and only see negativity.

Stepping away from Facebook and onto a different social media platform, one that has humanitarian rules about how its users will engage with one another, has shown me a different vision of the world, one in which people are intelligent and friendly, even to strangers.  I’m more hopeful because I’m seeing more evidence of progressivism than I was before.  I suffered from despair on more than one occasion because I wondered where all of the other people who cared like I do were, wondered if they even existed.

Of course they exist, Facebook is just hiding it from us to protect their profits.  Well, I for one will no longer be a part of this game.  I will no longer be a target for unscrupulous advertising methods selling me utter shit.  I will no longer be manipulated into continuing to engage with a harmful, abusive internet platform by things like cute memes, I can get them somewhere else.  I will no longer allow my emotions to be manipulated by the algorithm that decides which of my friends will see my posts and who won’t.  I will no longer engage with a platform that actively hosts and encourages fascists while ignoring the protests of those they prey upon.

And I’m not really losing anything.  The shittier Facebook gets, the less people use it, so the less useful it becomes as a social network.  It’s now just a platform to sell you crappy merchandise, as well as a falsely negative worldview that benefits their profit-making structure.  I was able to actually make use of Facebook one last time by collecting the email addresses of all of my good friends, so now I have another way to get in touch with them.

I also established a presence on the aforementioned alternative social network (it’s Mastodon), which I have been greatly enjoying and am looking forward to using to promote my blog and artwork since I actually get engagement there.  Having something set and ready to replace the social network itch that Facebook scratched was psychologically important to getting free of that hook.  Facebook works because it operates off of a very powerful central concept: that we are social creatures who require connection to one another.  Without it, we die.

It’s also why we’re so reluctant to let go of it even though it stinks to high Heaven.  It’s because of what it represents: our social connections, and very old parts of our brain know that we need those connections for survival.  In the absence of actual social connections outside cyberworld, a platform like Facebook feels like a vital lifeline.  Unfortunately, Facebook has created an environment in which we have almost zero real connection while maintaining the illusion of connection, so its users are essentially sucking off a tit for comfort that offers no nutrition.

The long road to ditching my Facebook account wasn’t easy.  I had to engage in a lot of inner analysis and ask myself a lot of questions, usually more than once.  I also had to shore up my own sense of self-worth and self-esteem so that I would not need Facebook as a crutch to get those things in the form of reactions and comments.  I realized such a pursuit was silly, that I was placing my own value upon the gyrations of a machine that would offer me just enough to keep coming back, but never enough to satisfy.

I am now a fierce advocate for ditching Facebook and the Metaverse, which includes Instagram, and having people go back to blogging in an effort to battle sound-bite culture, which has given all of us seriously short attention spans.  Facebook and Twitter were serious contributors to sound-bite culture, which I remember being warned about when I took high-school history class in the 80s (shit I’m old).  Well, here it is.  We are now a culture that cannot handle information input unless it comes in the form of a bullet list, a 2-minute video, or a two-line status update.

We are all intensely creative creatures with rich inner lives worth sharing that go far beyond the tiny windows of expression the modern world affords us.  It’s said that a revolution is needed right now to enforce the changes the world needs so that the human race can survive.  Perhaps this is one of those little revolutionary actions that can make a big difference collectively.  If we all ditched our soul-sucking social media accounts and established healthier ones while picking up personal writing again, it would be the sort of thing that could effect massive collective change by virtue of the individual shifts that would occur.

I know I’m healthier inside for this shift.  I feel better.  I no longer feel like quite such an active pawn on the chessboard of capitalism.  My self-identity is more solid.  My self-worth is more solid because it’s not dependent on the reactions of other people.  The free offering of their email addresses tells me that my friends want to hear from me outside of the Metaverse, and so I do not feel severed from them having deleted my account.  I no longer need Facebook to tell me there are people who care about me.  I’m confident in that knowledge myself now, thank you very much.  I’m looking forward to continuing my work of individuating, now free of the shackles of Facebook.