Social Media Hiatus

On the night of the election, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t rage quit Twitter in the way I might after getting my ass handed to me on a team deathmatch of CoD, it was more of a sort of sensory overload. A blown fuse. Too many amps through too small a wire. So many hot takes, predictions of victory, of defeat, of gloom. It was just too much. All too much.

So I logged off and haven’t really been back. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but it seems like eons.

First few days were somewhat hard. After twelve years on that blasted hellsite, I’ve grown addicted to the outrage, the news, and some of the people. I’ve made friends through Twitter, true friends. But for the most part, it’s a source of general anxiety, rage, distemper. And as much as I like being plugged into the news, it’s not really good for my well being. Or my heart.

After the first week, I peeked my head back in and found it was exactly the same. Like a party you leave, head out to the street to smoke a cigarette and while you’re there you happen to meet a girl and fall in love or, on the other end of the spectrum, get mugged and when you re-enter the party it’s exactly the same, same people, same music, same vibe, but you have changed in the moments you’ve been gone. I found that I didn’t want to engage with any of the nonsense.

I’ll might pop in once in a while and say hello. But not right now. I don’t have much going on bookwise right now - just working on a novel - nothing to promote. So… that’s about the shape of it. I might use this website as a sort of journal. It could scratch the exhibitionist streak that Twitter satisfies - performative proclamations! - but I can be more personal because no one really looks at this website.

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What I have noticed since I’ve been gone is that I used Twitter to voice random, bullshit, errant thoughts. Little jokes I found funny, little personal victories and defeats. All those dumb jokes are lost now.