Who were you before social media existed?
an important question for our creatives selves.
I’ve been thinking a lot about social media and how it has shaped our creative lives, our generative process, our self-esteem (lots more to come on this later). As I reflect on this social world we live in, so strange and yet so all consuming, I can’t help but recall who I was before social media land.
I was around 10 years old the first time I visited a chat room on my friend Courtney’s computer. We gathered around the oversized monitor, pressed the dial up button to login, and picked the chat room that mostly appealed to us. These were typically rooms with names like…. Singles Chat, Bored, Artist Cafe, Birds as Pets, and so it goes on.
I was around 12 when I really got into AOL and would log on late into the night after my parents went to sleep under a sketchy username. The dial up was so loud I would pray to God they wouldn’t hear me as the dial up rang down the hall as I talked to strangers about personal things I rarely said aloud.
I was around 16 when I started driving and my mom let me borrow her beeper / pager for emergencies. A device that worked like a text app where you can send short little messages like, “heading home” or “just arrived.”
I was around 21 when I created a Facebook account. This was the beginning of a social era for sure. It was fun for a while, connecting with old friends from middle school, creating photo albums, posting articles and reading others. Then, it became tiresome with the same ole’ same posts that occurred day after day.
I was around 29 when I created an Instagram account with grids of photos that were horribly shot, mostly blurry with sepia filters and about twenty friends, including my mother, my second cousin, and grandpa. Eventually, I got the hang of it, the photos became more on purpose, the captions were like mini memoirs. That felt like a good fit. Then, like everything, it became a space of cloning, comparison, and self-doubt brought about by the number of likes/ comments.
I was around 38 when I started this Substack. It’s one of the better platforms I’ve used, since it really created room for long form writing and connecting with other writers across the board. It is also becoming the next “big” thing where once again, folks clammer for space to be in the room. What do we do with all of this? (more on this later.)
In short, who I was before all of these social media giants was someone who didn’t care what people thought, someone whose art and writing wasn’t popularized based on some 24 hour trend, someone who didn’t know to look for worth in things like counts or algorithms. I was a creative person that was messy, spacious, and free.
How about you? Try reflecting on this for yourself. Who were you before social media?
I’d truly love to know. I am going to write more on this soon, so stay tuned.
Xo, Megan
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