The social media Rapture.
January 19, 2020 at 10:24 am (By Amba) (social media)
Even just cutting back on social media is like being one of those people in the Left Behind novels, wandering around in an empty world from which most people have been Raptured.
(And the Antichrist is taking over.)
(The two phenomena are related.)
Trying to fill and restructure a life “outside” these rushing pipelines, these lighted underground fiber optic subway tunnels where all the life has gone, will be a weird, pointless-seeming project. It will take a long time to work out. It will often feel quixotic, hermitic, and as I’ve said before, “vain” in both senses. Who am I not to participate? Who am I to try to gather passing thoughts instead of throwing them away like a seeding dandelion? This is a post-individual age. Outside the hive mind, you quickly start to petrify into a fossil. You have refused to evolve. You’re still lumbering around like the last Bigfoot when everyone else has shucked off their matter and transubstantiated to electrons. Come on in, the plasma’s fine!
Maybe it will be better out here, but there aren’t a lot of people to play with.
Maybe they all go on cruises just to have company. A nostalgic floating village for a week. Good timing.
Maybe I’ll actually remember how to form an intention and carry it out.
UPDATE: A conversation about this on . . . wait for it . . . social media! (Twitter)
Old blogfriend*: Terrible metaphor! Social media isn’t heaven. And you forget the tradition of thinkers isolating themselves from the masses, the “world”. Gurus on mountaintops, saints on pillars, communities in deserts, salons, societies of letters, schools in gardens….
Me: It’s only half a metaphor. It’s not that social media is heaven, it’s what earth is like when you’re Left Behind.
Yes, maybe using the word “hermitic” was not an accident. [At this point I realized he probably had not come here, just read the Twitter abbreviation.]
Old blogfriend: It’s your very own Walden Pond. Enjoy!
Me: Thank you for giving me a GOOD metaphor! ❤️
Maybe I’ll rename my blog Walden Three. :)
*Not identifying him because I haven’t gone through the laborious process of getting permission.
Ambiance 
Polly said,
January 19, 2020 at 4:16 pm
Most of what is on FB is NOT interesting anyway. It is very useful for certain things — to be notified of events etc. I think it’s much too valuable to just ignore, but it is not valuable enough to spend a lot of time there.
Trying to know what’s going on was much harder and more time-consuming before FB. So I think it saves me more time than it wastes. I don’t think of it as a place to socialize, or to get interesting information (aside from when you used to post there, I almost never saw anything interesting). It is valuable for what it’s good for.
I know other people who hate it and don’t make use of it. And I think they miss a lot.
oudawson said,
January 19, 2020 at 4:21 pm
I really intend to reply every day. I don’t know why it seems more time consuming than a reply on Facebook.
I can’t wait for our nostalgic floating village in less than a week. We will have lots of good company. And so much more.
amba12 said,
January 19, 2020 at 4:24 pm
There’s something lonely and naked about leaving Facebook to trudge to someone’s blog. It’s cold out there.