PSA: Social media is f*cking you up. Again.


A while ago (almost a year and a half ago, actually. I’m weeping at the passage of time as I write this), I wrote a post about social media and how it largely irks me, though I have yet to find a way to escape these shackles with which I am bound.

I’m happy to admit that my sentiments haven’t changed and I’m still a bitter old lady waving her cane around. I guess the youth I complain about also includes my own generation to an extent (though my smile lines and diminishing metabolism would like to disagree) because we pretty much still also shape what the future will be like.

Social media is a little different, though.

I think it’s always influenced by the youngest. I’m slowly withering away and there’s a reason I have no idea how to do Tik Tok dances; I still mourn the loss of “buffting” and I like thin eyebrows. The problem with the youngest ducklings, those spring chickens, is that they’re a group of conflicted people who don’t really know what they stand for – through no real fault of their own. Growing up in the age of social media means you’re constantly ingesting new information at rapid speed every day; you never had time to form your own opinions before thousands of others were thrust upon you (in Freudian terms, you kissed goodbye to the id at birth). Even before you made a Twitter account, the opinions you heard from others were shaped by recycled opinions they read online; there’s little authenticity in anything and validation is the goal. You melt at the touch of any sort of offence (see: snowflake), and simultaneously like to compensate for this fragility by going a thousand steps too far and making disgusting jokes under the guise of ‘I just have a dark sense of humour’. No, you don’t. You’re confused.

I’ve revisited my old post in celebration of Social Media day, and I’ve decided to give my two penneth again now that I’m a little older, not much wiser, and a bit less angry – but lockdowns forced me to spend an obscene amount of time online so I’m now obviously an expert in the field. 

Let’s discuss. Read more

Beauty Standards // To B(BL) or Not to B(BL)

 

 

Unless you’ve been hiding in the deepest depths of the internet away from everybody else, minding your business buying human bones and watching decapitation videos, you’re aware that BBLs, lip-fillers and everything in-between have crept their way into the lives of normal folk. Normal women-folk, should I say, because it seems that men aren’t subject to the same pressure with regards to their physical appearance. Sure, there are men getting beard and hairline transplants… but that’s as far as common, invasive treatments for men go. I also don’t think there’s a desire for ‘mum-bods’ as there is for dad-bods, but alas.

Once upon a time, most of us could only sigh in amazement as we saw celebrities with chiselled faces and voluptuous bodies. Now, it’s within reach for a lot of us who are willing to make some sacrifices to the quality of our lives. It’s scarily accessible; women can now opt to purchase a body modification for less than the price of a car, depending on how reputable she wants to go and whether or not she wants to actually live to enjoy the fruits of a dodgy doctor’s labour – and I’m sure there are a lot of women who will happily ride a bike for a couple of years if it meant they had two brand new bum cheeks to show off. I remember a time where these new bodies were mocked; her lips look swollen! She looks like she needs her nappy changed! Why does she look like a man who can’t smile? Does this not firstly highlight how ever-changing these standards are? Only now it’s not about new makeup techniques – you’re changing your features and sometimes putting your life at risk.

On the other hand though, I notice I mentioned “sacrifices to the quality of our lives’, when the truth is a lot of women are doing it to improve the quality of their lives. Beauty standards are so ingrained into the minds of some people, to the detriment of their mental health, placing them into a perpetual state of anguish because they’re not as attractive as the girls whose pictures their man-who’s-not-their-man is liking on Instagram. “Improving” the quality of your life based on a fickle beauty standard that will change within a few years, when your implants have sagged, your lips deflated, your nose bridge collapsed is… risky. I’m all for improving your appearance if you want to and you have the means – but never if you don’t fully understand what you’re getting yourself into. I’m especially against anybody undergoing a procedure but claiming to be natural, particularly if you’re in a position of influence. Read more

PSA: Social media is fucking you up

Out of touch with reality hoes

“Every form of addiction is bad , no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine, or idealism.”

 – Carl Gustav Jung

 

Imagine you sign a contract with a ghost, in which that ghost fucks you in the ass very violently all day every day for years in return for some meaningless validity. You forget about it until one day you just feel a gaping void down there and you urgently need to fill it with some toxic ghost dick even though it’s ruining your life now that you are aware you need it in order to feel normal and validated. That ghost dick, my friend, is social media.

Fuckin’ you in the ass as you read this.

I think I wrote something about social media a long time ago, both pros and cons. Of course, I’m a lot older and inevitably bitter now, which means my sentiments towards social media have become… hostile. I’m frequently talking a lot of shit on Twitter and posting pictures nobody wants to see on Instagram. I’m not old enough for Facebook yet because I don’t have friends with babies (step on it girls, yeah?) But the past few months I’ve been disgusted with social media despite being very active on it and I’m just.. sick of it. I’m sick of it all and I want to disappear off the internet.

In the grand scheme of things, social media is great, considering how far we’ve come in the world.

One of the best things is how easy it is to find information that mainstream news outlets won’t tell you – not in a timely manner, anyway. You can find out exactly whats going on in most parts of the world. Had we only the BBC and the Sun to give us information, we’d be perfectly ignorant, brainwashed individuals fitting for an Orwell novel. Probably racist too. But we have Twitter to spread videos of racist police officers, we have viral pictures of mutilated babies and children as a result of angry men in high places, we have pictures and videos of destroyed buildings in the Middle East, we have posts about developed and beautiful places in Africa and Asia where our old racist school teachers had us believe it was all barren and everyone was starving to death. We have pictures of missing children with contact details, and a simple click of a button from a few hundred people has helped find them. We know more about what’s going on in other parts of the world because we hear from people in other parts of the world; gaining information is easier, and it’s harder to excuse racism and xenophobia. Information is fed to us, we don’t need to dig deep for it anymore.

Social media allows people to go viral, it allows small businesses free advertisement and that’s beautiful. I’ve seen people successfully share their art, their photography, their writing, their messages. We have instagram, which helps keep us momentarily happy because of fire memes. The little things, you know? It helps you meet like minded people, might meet the love of your life, it helps keep friendships alive and hanging by a thread, but thats about where the positives come to an end. Now I can complain.

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6 steps to take after you've been friendzoned

I’m honestly sitting here trying to ignore the dull pain occurring in my arm right now, so here I am, having already failed at Blogtober, with another post.

So, girls and guys, we all know that unrequited anything is horrible, it’s a bitch, it’s the worst. Unrequited love, unrequited hatred, unrequited anything. I’m going to tell you what to do after being confined to the dreaded friendzone, or, more broadly, how to get over someone you never really had.
In all honesty, I don’t like guys. Let me clarify: I’m very much heterosexual, but it’s hard for me to like people.  I’m not saying I have super high standards, I’m saying that in my entire 22 years I haven’t really liked liked people. In school, I was never interested in guys or relationships and I would shut down any flirting straight away because the guys around me were lame. I’m not head over heels about anyone at the moment, except Bill Skarsgard obv, and I don’t really interact with men (or anyone). So considering that, you’d better believe that if I like you, it’s a miracle. So if I know I could get over being friendzoned, so can you.
Now, you might read that and wonder why I would even consider giving relationship advice, but despite my lack of experience, people always wish they had listened to me sooner. I think a contributing factor is that I’m extra careful (cough – anxiety) and it’s not worth getting hurt over someone that way. I’m not hugely familiar with the whole confessing-your-undying-love-and-being-rejected thing because that would mean multiple instances of having undying love and then confessing it, but know that I definitely know how to deal with it.
So, here’s what to do when you’re thrown in the friendzone of somebody you’re madly in love with (or just crushing on):
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Always playing on my mind [10 songs I'm listening to right now]

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I have taken a break from watching youtube videos of Scott’s alpha roar on loop. That one scene when he roars at Aidan, anyone????? Amazing.
Anyway, aside from doing that I’m also basically listening to the same songs on repeat whilst writing. Is it a good idea to play these songs on repeat? Probably not. I know I’ll regret it a few months from now when I try to listen to them again. I also have been making the rookie mistake of taking too many benzos before important events – like job interviews. The mistake being that taking them actually has the opposite effect of what I want them to have. Sure, I’m relaxed. But I’m a little too relaxed. Like ‘Haha. Yeah so then I – sorry, wait what was I just saying?’ relaxed.
Anyway, as per usual when I do this type of post, I am sharing a very important part of me and my everyday life; here’s what I’m currently listening to:
Some type of love – Charlie Puth
Apparently I really like Charlie Puth. Who knew? I’ve had this on repeat for god knows how long, I actually forgot other songs existed for a while. First I had Attention on loop. Then I found this. Ma boi Charles spitting straight truth.
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Be in the moment, always

I had a rant on my snapchat a couple of days ago, and it’s one that I want to expand on.
I used to take photos, all the time, at every chance I got. I was like an excitable dog, whipping out my phone to take a photo whenever I was really happy or I was with someone who made me happy or I saw something that made me happy. I used to write at every chance I got. I wanted to shout about everything to the world, because a writer has so much to say and wants to say it always. In words and in photos, for when words aren’t enough. A writer has an overwhelming desire to express themselves and have it known. Because even you’re not the happiest, you see the words and the photos and everything is kind of okay again. I used to snap away and post it everywhere I could. I look through my phone at photos I used to take and it just reminds me of a time when I was happier. Because that’s what I did. I took pictures. I wrote. I was a writer. That’s who I was.
But then I deleted everything. I deleted tumblr, and I stopped getting the urge to write and post. I deleted Instagram and I stopped taking photos, I stopped feeling excited enough to take out my phone, I stopped forcing people into my memories, I started to hate how I looked. I deleted Facebook and I became alienated from my family and the only way I stay in touch with my friends is through snapchat.
I talk about social media like it’s the devil, but the truth is it’s not. We live in a generation where social media is so prominent, so to tell you that it’s poison is wrong. If you have instagram, indulge. If you have tumblr, indulge. If you have Facebook, indulge. We are the social media generation, and if you grew up with social media, it’s almost unspeakable to suddenly get rid of it. Ghost when you’re happy, when your life is set up. Not when you still have growing up to do. Have a break every now and then to gain perspective. As long as your entire life isn’t social media, it’s fine. As long as you’re not using it to compare your life with others, it’s fine.
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