Social Media Is a Sociopathic Wasteland
It’s time to reinvent ourselves
With each passing week, social media reaches new lows and I’m not necessarily talking about the sociopathic billionaires that sideline themselves from the dumpster fires that they’ve engineered. I’m talking about the user base and the increasingly alarming toxicity level. Only so many people can pee in a swimming pool before there’s a noticeable shade of yellow and in this case, social media is sporting something closer to a florescent, sun corona deep, glow in the dark shade of yellow. Social media had an era when it was an easy way to keep up with friends and family, an interesting place to learn and share ideas. At one point it even had shades of fun to it. Now? The public toilet. Imagine that people went to the swimming pool for one reason and one reason only; show up, drop their pants, do their business and go back home. Basically the definition of social media.
Sociopath media has basically become the mental equivalent of going into a construction outhouse that has been baking in the sun all day and sitting directly in 5 days worth of festering waste. I recently had someone tell me that he was feeling pretty crappy and when I asked him why his answer was that he spent some time on twitter. “Twitter?!” I replied, “Why would you do that to yourself? You might as well walk into a burning building.”
In case my point isn’t coming across, let’s get a few more examples of what it’s like spending time on sociopath media in 2020. It’s the mental equivalent of drinking bleach. It’s the mental equivalent to shoving a jagged metal rod up your own ass. It’s the mental equivalent to having paint injected directly into your veins. It’s the mental equivalent of gargling used motor oil. Ok, I’m done.
Seriously though. There are a lot of great, incredible and remarkable people in the world that do amazing and remarkable things. And then there are the people that spend their time on sociopath media. Okay okay, there’s still some good stuff on sociopath media and there are still some good people on there but it’s kind of like sifting through thousands of pounds of dirt to find a few flakes of gold. A large number of us only open our apps out of compulsion when we have a few idle moments, most of the time unironically when we’re taking a number two.
As a man who has run his own business, I’d be embarrassed if I had my name on these dumpster fires even if I was a bazillionaire from it. The word on the street is that many sociopath media executives keep their own children far away from it kind of like how cigarette executives would slap their own product out of their own children's hands. The days of having a fun interesting social connection is completely dead. It’s now a magnet for the angry dregs of society that are addicted to toxic echo chambers.
Differences in opinions are healthy for society, it’s like having biodiversity for our psyche when instead it has de-evolved to a place where an invasive species has destroyed the entire ecosystem.
Are you experiencing empathy? Don’t worry, we have the cure for that
The problem is that we all lose our compassion and empathy when we’re sitting behind the screen. We become internet crusaders, charging after anyone that disagrees with us while labelling other people and their different viewpoints as “disgusting.” Sociopath media has utterly destroyed our ability to have open, honest debate and discourse. Differences in opinions are healthy for society, it’s like having biodiversity for our psyche when instead it has de-evolved to a place where an invasive species has destroyed the entire ecosystem. Our society has become sick and sociopath media only fans the flames of finger-pointing and vitriol.
I’m just as guilty of this too, my mind has been warped by my own activity on sociopath media but I take full accountability. I’m the one that chose to do this and when I realized how my own mental health and belief towards other people was become warped and jaded, even towards perceived friends, I got the hell out of there. If you have any desire for personal, emotional or spiritual growth, sociopath media will work against you. Every minute that I’ve spent on sociopath media is two minutes or more that I have to spend refocusing and regaining my sense that life is worth sticking around for.
Don Quixote Syndrome
Sociopath media gives us a false sense of accomplishment. We all become social activists when the level of emotional involvement that we have is completely out of proportion to any physical difference we might actually be making. Most of the time we just end up virtually screaming at people that don’t have anything to do with anything, they are just people that have a differing perspective. Most of us fail to write to our local politicians because we’ve already gassed ourselves out towards some other doofus behind a keyboard that we might actually have a lot in common with. Like video games, we are fighting fake enemies and fighting fake battles while we’re convinced that we are engaged in something real and meaningful. It gives us the false sense and therefore belief that we are the good guys fighting against the bad guys by calling names and telling people that they’re disgusting from the safety of our homes and keyboards.
Like the tale of Don Quixote, it also gives us a false sense that we are engaged in a real struggle of epic and existential proportions. If people really believe that social media is the battleground for things like social justice, that only ends up stuffing the bank accounts of some pretty nasty people. The fate of the world almost feels like it rests on us preaching to the world through a digital platform while honest debate and discourse is dying in a painful and torturous way. Not only is disagreement discouraged on sociopath media, but it’s also met with outrage, hostility, name-calling and aggression. Empathy dies on this battlefield along with the ability to understand that people have a different perspective because they have had different experiences in life. Instead, sociopath media has left people to conclude that disagreements are the result of evil and nefarious individuals who seek to harm others in an effort to find pleasure. It leaves us as intellectual children, throwing tantrums when the echo chamber is disrupted.
Where Dreams Go To Die
Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of sociopath media is that it often causes us to forget that the internet is actually an amazing and powerful tool. We have more information available at our fingertips than previous generations had in an entire library or even a dozen libraries. When we resorted to libraries for information, it was more like a scavenger hunt. Does anybody even know what the Dewy decimal system is anymore? The internet can teach us incredible things, show us incredible things and put us in the cockpit of our own growth and personal exploration.
The greatest tragedy of our lives is accelerated by sociopath media by furthering a victim state of mind in which personal accountability slips right through our fingers as it gives way to blaming our bad and childish behaviors on someone else who we have come to believe is deserving of harm. Usually, because we don’t like their opinions. Anger, rage and disgust, while seemingly empowering, is quite the opposite. It strips us of our self-control and distracts us from things that just might be far more important. Finding peace, contentment, satisfaction and lasting happiness. Some people spend most of their lifetimes in this pursuit and would do anything to be able to spend just a little bit more time achieving the good stuff when so many more of us waste our time virtually screaming at others.
It’s Time to Reinvent Ourselves Through Personal Empowerment
Centuries of people before us found fulfilment so why can’t we? There are those that would argue, myself included, that there is far more power and happiness to be found in self-discovery and learning than can ever be found in being a member of virtual outrage mobs. Because there is one frightening and inescapable truth that we all deserve to consider. Sociopath media is a factory for fear, hopelessness compiled onto profound misery and despair. I was part of this online dumpster fire just recently and I have deleted that shit off my phone and it will be a cold day in hell before I allow it back on.
If the Matrix really exists, it definitely comes with the logo for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The time has come to reinvent ourselves and realize, once again, as past generations have, that life and the world around us has limitless possibilities. The internet is an incredible tool that can enable and empower us in almost any and every way and it’s being wasted on sociopath media. Our world would be better without it but it ultimately falls onto us, as individuals to make decisions about what we’re willing and unwilling to allow into our lives. Each of us could make a different choice, right now, to discover what life is about outside of social media. We need sunshine, we need physical movement, we need experiences. Again, the joy of all these things is being stolen from us and replaced with something that has made us, well… sick.
The other tragic truth is that sociopath media distracts us from the undeniable truth that we are lacking purpose, meaning and identity. We are lost, disoriented and confused about what will help us feel connected to our experience as a human being. Sociopath media gives us that false sense of purpose. It’s not just a lie, it’s a manipulation. We might even be able to go as far as to say that it’s a voluntary brainwashing program. If the Matrix really exists, it definitely comes with the logo for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We’re enslaved by the fake sense of validation through a like button or a retweet.
This. This is what has replaced real interaction, real intimacy and meaningful interactions. We’re weirdly addicted to it while it warps our minds like a drug. It’s become normal to publish an online commercial for our lives, working hard to promote how awesome it is to be us when there is only emptiness behind our eyes. This isn’t a reason to get out of bed, this is a reason to be truly afraid for the stability and collective sanity of our future generations. We actually owe it to our posterity to cut these infected limbs out of our lives.
If you really want to do something radical or revolutionary, delete your accounts, delete the apps and pick up a book. Go back to that passion project or that lost talent. Ask yourself, honestly, if you’re happy. If the answer is no then you must realize that the world and the people in it aren’t the answer. If there’s one lesson about happiness that I have learned and stand by, fervently, is that the answer to the happiness dilemma lies within. We create it in within ourselves and expand it outwards. This is an incredibly rewarding journey, we owe it to ourselves to explore it and alas, it is just yet another one of life’s treasures that is robbed from us by sociopathic digital platforms.
I believe that people are ready for a change even if they don’t know what they are looking for. I do know this, the answers that we seek are usually not where we expect to find them. We’ve lost our way, in part, because we’ve placed our trust in bad places. I don’t know about you, but when I learn that I’ve been lied to or manipulated I become furious before I take back my personal power. My trust is precious. Once it’s lost, it’s lost. I will forgive but I will not forget. We need to focus on what we can control, ourselves, and master that first. We need to find real purpose instead of resorting to these fake and insidious simulations.
Real meaning, purpose and identity is waiting for us if we choose to look for it. It’s time to reinvent ourselves and accept that what has been put into our laps is a desolate wasteland. It’s proven it’s value or the lack thereof. You can keep staring at your phone and getting angry if you want to. Me? I’m going mountain biking.
