Social Media.
So, did you just throw up in your mouth a little, or are you not an Official Old Person?
I could use your help, Dear Readers. As my next novel, Beltrunner: Aftermath, nears its launch date, I just know I’m going to have to field questions from my publisher as to why I don’t have more of a profile on social media. I’m on Facebook, and I’ve been trying to be a little more visible there (for me, that means posting or replying to a post about once a week as opposed to once an epoch) but it’s the only site I’m really on. I technically have a Twitter / X account, but I don’t post to it. I think I have 18 followers or something. I don’t even have an Instagram account nor am I on TikTok or Snapchat or any other site. It’s Facebook a tiny bit and that’s it.
The other seasoned people who read this blog will no doubt say, “Good. That’s as it should be. Social media is a sewer/garbage dump/hellhole/morass of villainy. You’re better off well shut of it.”
But, see, fellow Old People, it’s where things are a-poppin’. It’s where the eyeballs are, for good or for ill. I can shout at the Kids Today and their Beanie Babies and their Tamagochis and their Miley Beiber and Justin Cyrus and Swiftie Talyor albums all day, but these sites are where. They. Are.
So. If I’m going to do this, is there a way to go on these sites but retain yourself in the process? Can I, to appropriate a Citizen Kane quote, do social media on my own terms? Must I inevitably become a creature of the social media swamp, lurching from one post to the next like some demented electronic Norma Desmond, mugging for the Instagram camera unaware that I am filming my own demise?
Good God, Sean. Calm down. It’s a social media site, not the monolith from 2001.
What do you all think? I’d love to have your opinions on this. Social media–something that can be used effectively, or a place that corrupts everyone it touches?
Be seeing you!
So, did you just throw up in your mouth a little, or are you not an Official Old Person?
I could use your help, Dear Readers. As my next novel, Beltrunner: Aftermath, nears its launch date, I just know I’m going to have to field questions from my publisher as to why I don’t have more of a profile on social media. I’m on Facebook, and I’ve been trying to be a little more visible there (for me, that means posting or replying to a post about once a week as opposed to once an epoch) but it’s the only site I’m really on. I technically have a Twitter / X account, but I don’t post to it. I think I have 18 followers or something. I don’t even have an Instagram account nor am I on TikTok or Snapchat or any other site. It’s Facebook a tiny bit and that’s it.
The other seasoned people who read this blog will no doubt say, “Good. That’s as it should be. Social media is a sewer/garbage dump/hellhole/morass of villainy. You’re better off well shut of it.”
But, see, fellow Old People, it’s where things are a-poppin’. It’s where the eyeballs are, for good or for ill. I can shout at the Kids Today and their Beanie Babies and their Tamagochis and their Miley Beiber and Justin Cyrus and Swiftie Talyor albums all day, but these sites are where. They. Are.
So. If I’m going to do this, is there a way to go on these sites but retain yourself in the process? Can I, to appropriate a Citizen Kane quote, do social media on my own terms? Must I inevitably become a creature of the social media swamp, lurching from one post to the next like some demented electronic Norma Desmond, mugging for the Instagram camera unaware that I am filming my own demise?
Good God, Sean. Calm down. It’s a social media site, not the monolith from 2001.
What do you all think? I’d love to have your opinions on this. Social media–something that can be used effectively, or a place that corrupts everyone it touches?
Be seeing you!
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