Whatever Happened to…?

There have been plenty of articles circulating (more than usual, lately?) about the benefits of quitting social media (SM), and I’m not going to get into if I agree or not, or even how I feel about it at this point. Everyone has to decide for themselves. I will admit that I’ve been increasingly unhappy with SM, but I’m still “on” various sites (see the little icons atop this website). I’m afraid of totally isolating myself (being currently physically isolated), and I want to use SM to make people aware of my novel, when it’s finished. But just recently, due to technical problems with my handheld device (smartphone) and wi-fi, etc., that I won’t go into, I’ve been forced to lay off the more phone-based sites (while already having been avoiding the PC-based ones). While at first experiencing dread and anxiety (coupled with tech rage), I very quickly started to notice that the less time looking at social media sites, the better I felt.

Then… I started on a little project (as one who has seen precisely four friends in person in the last six months will naturally do) of making a list of all the people I know. I’m talking about people who I would feel comfortable sending a letter or email—not necessarily a phone call, text, or coffee date—and not people who I’ve worked with, or otherwise crossed paths with, who I don’t necessarily consider “friends”—as lovely as they are as human beings. To make this list, I used my email contacts, phone contacts, social media contacts, and even the old card file I maintained in the days before email. The list got to be quite big. Most of these people I’ve been seriously out of touch with. With some of them, I used to exchange zines and long letters through the mail. Some were old roommates, bandmates, collaborators. As thorough as I was about compiling this list, I’m sure some people have fallen through the cracks. I’ll make it an ongoing project to keep updating it.

The thing I realized by having this long, physical list of names (and thus memories, and portals to memories) is that over time, we’ve undergone a shifting landscape of that part of our reality. I mean, it would be a natural thing, anyway, if you moved around a bit—different cities, different friends, to some degree. But the thing that really stuck me, that seems obvious, but maybe isn’t, is what social media effectively does is make people who aren’t on that particular social media effectively disappear. I mean, aggressively so. It doesn’t kill people and allow us to visit their memorials. It erases all traces of people, including your memory of them.

I realize that is both obvious and a bit hyperbolic, but here’s an example. Not to pick on any one site, I’ll make up a fictional one—let’s call it Identity Guerilla (IG for short). Let’s say you can only make IG function on your handheld device (smartphone). First of all, some people never got on board, either being loyal to, or already fed up with, a previous social media giant. Some people may not have a handheld device, or don’t want to spend the money to soup up their operating systems. But then, there are the people who were on IG, formerly—maybe you used to see them there every day, posting their lunch, or good times, or important message, or a different way to look at something. Then one day, with no announcement, they were gone. For whatever reason. IG doesn’t say: “Where is X? Are they okay? Maybe you should send them a handwritten, perfumed note! Or give them a call.” IG doesn’t even say “fuck that guy”—it’s worse than that. IG says: “They don’t exist. They never existed.”

I thought about this while compiling the names on my big list of people I used to know. I suddenly realized, hey, I used to see her on IG all the time. But no more. I used to “like” his posts, and he “liked” mine. But I have no idea exactly when and why they disappeared. Of course, it could be because IG now “curates” my “feed”—"for a better user experience.” Maybe it was IG who decided we shouldn’t be as close, anymore. Or maybe X just decided to move to Y, and leave no forwarding message. IG has no provision for forwarding messages.

It’s kind of like those old movies or books where there were social groups, and maybe everyone even had nicknames (not necessarily preceded by “@”). And there would always be this one person, who was maybe the most charismatic or rich or good-looking, who was the leader. And then he/she would ultimately tell people in the group who they could or could not be friends with, including members of other groups. Eventually, some of them would realize that this leader is a bully, a fascist, and there would be a physical confrontation, usually a fistfight. I know, that’s dumb, but we’re talking about movies and TV shows. Fistfights sell cola. In real life, of course, people just disappear. And if you don’t take it upon yourself to remember them, corporations aren’t going to help you, because there’s no money in it. We’re on our own—no penalty, no rewards. I guess that’s when we find out who we are.

—RR 9.15.20