Leaving Social Media?

a 4-part series

Mar 3

*Francesca Woodman, From Space2, Providence, Rhode Island*, 1976

Just as physical institutions lack intelligence and awareness, so do institutions of the digital—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. These are the institutions (re)defining the future of visual culture; they are also, without question, deeply flawed.
Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism

Despite having a following on Instagram of 247K, I am planning my exit (or at least planning to greatly divest from the platform).

I created Guerrilla Feminism/The Guerrilla Feminist in 2011. I made a Facebook page that got really big really quick. I then created an Instagram account that got even bigger. Most of the time, I didn’t know what I was doing or where this thing I had created was going. It was briefly a nonprofit, then that fell apart (because creating and running a nonprofit is no joke). Now it exists as an extension of my work, however, unlike an influencer, the people are not there to see me. They’re mostly not even there to see my writing or other work. This has been okay, but in the last five years, feeling unseen and having my page described as a “meme account” has felt hollow and sad.

I am toying with the idea of leaving Instagram and social media altogether. It invigorates and scares me.

I wish I didn’t care that famous people, like Emrata or Alanis Morissette, follow me. I wish I didn’t squeal when the most popular girl from 2nd grade onwards found my account (Reader, I am so glad I didn’t have social media until college!). I wish I didn’t worry that if/when I leave, nobody will care or be interested in what I’m doing or what I have to say. Did they ever, anyways? I know some do, but it feels very skewed since my follow count is so high and the engagement is so low. But again, I’m not an influencer. I’m not a model. I’m a writer. That’s it. That’s all (and famous people can totally follow me here anyways and even pay to support my work!)

I have also felt pressured to keep the account as active as possible in order to get a book deal and then sell said book (my proposal has been finished for over a year, but publishers keep passing on it). My lit agent advises I keep the account active and I understand why. But I also know there was a time before social media. There was a time when none of us relied on this shit. There was a time before the tornado of “content creation” and “influencers” and “doomscrolling.”

I’ve also greatly changed my tune about whether these platforms are helpful to social justice issues and movements. Though social justice issues have received much more visibility through the use of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, I believe these platforms are now harming our movements. I would know, because I thought I could educate, inform, and amplify—and maybe this was possible for a time, but that time feels like it has passed.

Social media is dying and my biggest regret is ever having relied on it in the first place.

The truth is, social media has been on its way out for a while. Each platform has changed for the worse. Each algorithm is less forgiving than the next. Meta has been dying a slow death for at least a decade. Facebook is where Boomers, Gen X, and elder Millennials are put out to pasture. Most Millennials who have a profile don’t actually use it anymore though; our profiles exist as ghosts of what once was. Twitter began a rapid descent the second that guy bought it. Instagram, owned by Meta, began its own downfall because, let’s be honest, it’s no Tik-Tok. Instagram has tried to compete with the video creation giant with its “Reels,” but Gen Z is not having it (good for them!)

In this 4-part series, I will discuss how social media has done feminism (and other social movements) dirty, and what leaving these spaces looks like and means to our individual and collective freedoms.

I hope you’ll stick around 😘

🎉 Things of the Week

✨Reminders✨

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