Social media detox; trans discourse vent; reactionary bullshit 🏳️‍⚧️

12/29/24

1.

Introduction

I think I need another social media detox.

Last week I took a break for a few days, and it was crazy. I felt a lot better when I got back on social media after. But now that I've been "cheating" and basically back to my regular internet usage, I'm feeling like crap again.

It's easy to forget that I'm just reacting to other people's reactions to things, or forming my opinions on other people's opinions, without any regard for the root matter at hand.

2.

Trans Stuff

I struggle with this when it comes to trans stuff especially. There's so much inflammatory content out there—and I'm not talking about the crap from transphobes and Republicans.

Inter-community politics grind my gears like nothing else. I get so worked up over all of it. I really dislike how the trans community has evolved over the past decade. It's become less about gender identity and more about political clout. People are "queering gender" to stick it to the man, or accessorize their anti-establishmentarianism beliefs.

I won't go further on it right now.¹ Because that takes time, effort, and requires me to slow down and gather my thoughts. To validate those thoughts, I need to think about my own experiences, gather evidence, and make a thesis synthesizing al lof it. It's reasonable, methodical, and organized. I want to read a few books that study identity politics, etc, so my arguments are informed and educated, less opinion-based and more-evidenced based.

I don't have patience for that right now. I just wanna be mad! It's easy to be angry. It feels good. It feels productive—even though you're just chasing smoke. It gives the hungry little rat in my brain something to do. I'm just running the same wheel over and over and over.

I see some shit online that pisses me off, so I get pissed off too; and the person who said the thing that pissed me off, they probably just said it in response so something else theysaw that pissed them off—and since we're pissed off for different reasons, we'll each walk away confirming our own priors, feeding into this endless cycle of reactionary bullshit.

I used to just tell myself it doesn't matter because the internet isn't real life. But this past election has proven otherwise. The electorate swung to Trump not because of facts and real life, but because of all the lies and disinformation the internet and right-wing media outlets shoved down their throats.

So, yeah, the internet does fucking matter. And watching the trans community devolve into shitty politics and terrible optics has been hell.

I know what the answer is: we've got to start fresh from the ground up. It's why I came back out of the closet and stopped going stealth.² The only way to drown out the noise is speak up and be honest about our own beliefs, identities, and experiences.

This solution doesn't just apply to the trans community. It applies to everything. And that really fucking bites. We're up against a wall of disinformation and bullshit backed by billionaires and Russian troll farms. Both the left and the right have fallen victim to this psyop pyramid scheme.

Well, I'm over it. It fucking sucks.

Even after coming back out, I've been trying to tiptoe around stuff like this. I feel like I need to thread the needle, play my cards right, not offend anyone. Who cares!

I have just as much a right to speak my mind. I think a lot of us liberals/center-left/normie people have downplayed our feelings to separate ourselves from the far-left and far-right. At least I have. But I'm just so tired of watching these extremist fringe groups spout nonsense, while the mainstream media amplifies both, and I'm forcing myself to just watch and be polite and wait for my turn to speak.

Whatever happened to just shutting up and chilling the fuck out? Whatever happened to picking one thing and letting other people take care of the rest? Everyone has to have an opinion on everything these days and a label to match. People are defining themselves by their politics, and the politics of their friends, and the politics of their enemies.

For example—take the trans community. You can't be a politically active trans person and not also be expected to be a Marxist, anti-capitalist, ACAB socialist radical queer, support this, support that, whatever the fuck—because being trans isn't just a gender identity. It's a political calling card. Trans activists have astroturfed every far-left movement under the sign for clout—and people turn around and wonder why so much of the general public thinks we're all crazy leftist extremists.

People aren't approaching trans topics with actual gender identity in mind. They're approaching it politically. Everybody is approaching everything politically. Nothing just means what it says anymore. Everything's got all this context and underpinnings of rhetoric and intersectionality with other shit. It's just exhausting.

Go back 10 or 15 years and bring up one of the LGBT activists from that time, who pushed for actual legislation or worked on court cases etc, and put them in front of the LGBT community today. I'd bet money they'd get lambasted by some queer zoomers for being a milquetoast normie.

I don't know what the answer to any of this is. I think more people need to step out of social media and return to a decentralized internet. People need to make more blogs. People need to build RSS feeds. People need to actually sit down and make a choice about what they're interacting with online—and why, how, and when.

3.

TLDR;

A lot of the time it feels impossible to remove ourselves from this modern media maelstrom. To dismantle all the whack as shit that's going on, it feels like we have to start from the inside.

But who the hell ever put out a fire by jumping into the flames?

Nobody!

The question "How can I combat the beliefs I disagree?" is a the wrong starting point to begin with. "Combat" shouldn't even be part of it.

You don't change minds by arguing with people long enough. You have discussions. The whole point of the internet was to enable dialogues between everyone in the world. I want to get back to that internet.

I want to interact, not just react.

So, yeah. I'm pissed off about a lot of stuff. And not just in a "I saw a post/comment/article I didn't like" sort of way. I've been watching my community get eaten up from the inside out by an ever-growing coalition of political influencers, who forward rhetoric that deviates further and further from the original goals of the community³ and no longer servers to represent trans people like me.

I know I harp on trans stuff a lot, but that's only because it's the easiest example I can think of, and one I'm actually qualified to talk about with merit. But this sort of thing is happening everywhere to a lot of different people over a lot of different issues.

I'm just so sick of getting sucked into all the bullshit. Why do I feel like my only options are to either go off-grid, hide the fact that I'm trans, and never interact with the community again—or come back out and jump into the ring and start throwing hands? Is it because the internet tells us whoever talks the loudest is right? If I just shout my discontent for long enough, maybe I'll get what I want.

Of course, it doesn't work like that. There's a third option.

4.

Gameplan

This is the gameplan I've come up with for myself. I'll probably copy this into its own separate post so people don't have to listen to me bitch and whine beforehand lol.

1. Step back. Isolate from the places that only serve to drive discord and drama. It might feel like I'm just keeping myself in the loop by staying on social media, but remember: all I'm doing is watching people fight each other over opinions that were formed a thousand variables away from whatever they're allegedly about

   • no reddit
   • limit my time on Mastodon
   • stop looking up shit that I know is only going to piss me off
   • stop relying on social media to base my opinions or learn about current events

2. Reintegrate with the thing I care about in a healthy manner, that doesn't involve the internet

   • read a book
   • read lots of books
   • watch documentaries
   • look at archives for essays, anthologies, zines, etc
   • cross reference the texts I read, write down notes, and write up my own thoughts
   • consult history
   • research what adjacent issues overlap with the thing I care about, and look more into those

3. Build up coping mechanisms to fall back on when I feel the urge to jump back into social media, and explore why I feel that urge in the first place

   • what about my own beliefs makes me feel the need to find validation from other people?
   • what parts of the internet provide this validation, and how?
   • what does it look like if I just validate my beliefs myself?
   • what am I looking for when I turn to the internet, and how can I provide that to myself offline?

4. Once I've got all that figured out, return to the internet with a goal and a purpose

   • if I have a goal or purpose, I won't get distracted by the bullshit
   • focus on my own thoughts, don't worry about what other people are saying
   • join in constructive dialogue; disregard pissing contests

5. If I feel myself getting sucked in again, dip out and use my coping skills

   • if shit gets too heated, walk away
   • do something fun
   • switch gears and focus on creative things for a minute, or explore new parts of the internet like blogs, webrings, etc

6. always remember:

   • the internet at large is trying to get me hooked on its shit every second, every click, and every view
   • retreat back to smaller spaces, like my own blog, if it gets to be too much
   • algorithms are not my friend
   • half the content I'm seeing is probably just regurgitated slop puked up by bot zombies
   • people are dumping billions of dollars into trying to swindle me for clicks—the best thing I can do is waste their money and fuck off!

✘ Posted on — 12/29/24
✘ Last modified — 6 months, 3 weeks ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/social-media-detox-trans-discourse-vent-reactionary-bullshit

Footnotes

#blog #internet #mental health #politics #trans