Social-Feedia

A 20 Minute Read!

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I remember a time when communicating with humans was done face to face or over landlines. It seemed simple and less complicated. Nothing was distracting during conversations, other than chatting while on the phone and doing chores, and of course this multi-tasking was really only available once home phones became wireless, otherwise we were leaning up against a wall and twirling our fingers in the curly cord, trying to see how many curls we can fit on our pointer finger. This way also allowed for us to be conscious in our conversations, because we literally had to stand in one area and actually listen.

Fast forward time and here we are now, fully living in the virtual metaverse. All lines of communication are on cellular devices with social media at our fingertips. We can connect with friends, family and converse with strangers. These devices have allowed us to virtually do anything. However, we certainly don’t want to admit that it comes at a cost.

I can’t express enough how much time we actually waste on these social media apps. There are many social apps that keep us busy, and with so many ways to stay connected, we don’t realize the serious disconnect to the outside world. We rely solely on social platforms and are hooked to binge watching videos. We post daily and spend time creating a post, everyday. People have recently begun to rely on these social platforms for business and social connecting, which leaves them a prisoner to their devices.

I know this, because I was once a social media queen. I work in a booming entertainment industry and had multiple jobs that kept me a slave to my device and social media. Everyday was something new to post and everyday was watching competitor’s and trying to outdo them for attention. Everything became about marketing myself. I began to market my businesses, my talents, my skills, my job, and all the while trying to keep up with those award winning soccer moms, and chef Maria with making amazing home cooked meals, and Lucy with her ability to buy her kids anything they wanted. Everyday started to feel like a failure, even though I was actually doing great.

Humans have relied on these easy money making opportunities and have found a way to connect with their 15th cousin from Tahiti. It’s no wonder we are all living in groundhog day, miserable. Each day we check our messages, emails, stocks, business analytics, prep our photos and videos, reply back to comments, scroll through videos, and without realizing that regular texting, our phone calls and real job priorities require our attention too.

Social media is designed to create easy access to buy and consume. It’s turned into a marketing scheme and is essentially keeping tabs on your purchases, conversations, Google searches, and even more personal,  your text messages, phone calls, and tracking your location and apps you use on your phone. Have you ever been in conversation and mentioned buying a new bike and then suddenly you’re seeing advertisements as you’re scrolling through social platforms or the internet? Everything you do is tracked through your phone and creates a target for interest.

I spent so much time running and operating social platforms, that finally one day I crashed. I spent years as a social media queen for my businesses and marketing like you wouldn’t believe. At some point I wanted to change the outlook to what I was doing in my life and fast forward even more, an “oh” moment happened, and like a flip of a switch everything was turned off. I ran every major platform at the time, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc and had multiple pages in each. I was assigned to countless sites, and ran 2 professional websites. At one point I had over 100 sites I regularly visited for various things that pertained to myself and my businesses. Then one day, like Thanos, the snap happened and I erased myself.

It started with Facebook and ended officially with Instagram. Years ago I left Facebook. It reminded me of being at Walmart. Nothing wrong with Walmart unless you’re a target kind of person, catch my drift? Facebook was Walmart to me. The amount of pain, suffering, drama and WORK on that site was enough to put me over the edge. It actually ended when a best friend of 30 years of mine ended our friendship over a woman that I was Facebook friends with from my hometown, whom apparently slept with her boyfriend. My best friend clicked on this woman’s page and found all the mutual friends she had with this girl and messaged us (including myself) and demanded we “unfriend” this woman. Mind you, my bff stayed with her cheating boyfriend.

After trying to discuss the situation with her and pointing out that I had no issues with this woman and certainly didn’t want to be in the middle of her personal life happenings, she accused me of not being a “real friend” and actually unfriended me on Facebook. That was 5 years ago and we haven’t spoken since. This woman was like a 3rd generation friend. Our mothers and older sisters were best friends as well. Everything we had done together and even lived together at one point in our friendship, all ended over social media. 

Sadly, what was worse was that I had just reopened my Facebook after taking a year long break from it, and after closing my Facebook business. Once that happened I realized Facebook was the cherry on the cake for a kind of drama I wanted to dodge completely. Flabbergasted that social media determined friendships, It left me with a sour taste in my mouth and it was the start of something that was much deeper than just “connecting with loved ones.”

Instagram became my happy place for a while. I bounced on and off, but eventually became full time. I enjoyed the different avenue than Facebook. It seemed cleaner, nicer, less drama and more of like a fan-base than a family page. I used mine to market modeling, my businesses and my personal motivations. It became a staple.

However, small red flags started to appear with various life stuff and eventually my motivation photos became the target of horny guys hitting me up with inappropriate photos in my DM. It seemed as though my inspirational posts and quotes I would share with every photo I’ve ever shared of myself, weren’t read at all. People just saw the PHOTO and judged me very harshly.

I had family and friends unfollow me and it seemed that my inspirational posts were twisted to fit their judgment and ideas of me instead. 

Eventually, Instagram ended shortly after losing another “best friend” over social media. Still clueless today, but I gathered that she didn’t appreciate me posting on the days she was posting or within a few days of her posting, and she accused my content of looking similar to hers. Sadly I admit I was inspired by that ⅔ post setup by her and nearly everyone I followed. It seemed like everyone was posting the same way, which made your page look cleaner, organized and less congested with photos and videos. So, I posted a quote, then photo, then quote, and so on. Before she ended our friendship I had actually completely changed my page content, setup and look all together. I deleted almost everything on my page and basically hit the reset button. However, it was too late. She determined I was a terrible friend by “copying” some of her stuff, which for the record she and thousands of others I followed DID inspire my layout style before my reset change, but posting when I felt good about myself and what I was doing was regular, regardless of what friend posted on what days, and not a PEEP from my other friends on social media, not even a sound from them other than LOVE. They rocked on and I rocked on and we cheered each other on every-single-time we posted. I loved seeing my long distant buddies everyday, but someone I called a best friend used “the energy is different,” excuse. Sadly, I never said a peep when I noticed her photos going from cute and quirky to sexy like mine. Her own posts started to change and in all honesty, I thought I was inspiring her in a way to tap into her Divine Sexuality, which is what I was posting. I rooted for her, as every friend should…

However, that was enough for me and I hit ANOTHER reset button on IG and started from scratch. I spent a whole day coming up with a new theme, and how I was going to post and in what order I would post. I rewrote my bio and essentially gave my page a new face-lift. I was happy with my page, again. It wasn’t long until I just had enough. I met an incredible new woman that became my soul sister and her loving light awoke me from a social slumber I was already drowning in and I left IG, just-like-that. This time, I didn’t leave my page up like I had in the past when I left for a break, I took the whole thing down. It felt INCREDIBLE to have been released from the dogma of the social pyramid.

Interestingly enough guess what? Not a single peep from any of my family or distant friends after leaving social media. It was like they didn’t care at all that I wasn’t around or noticed with all the distractions. I went from being popular and a hot commodity on social media, to out of sight out of mind. Truth is, we THINK we are connected on social media, but we’re not really connected at all. We only stay connected through social media, but once it’s turned off, who reaches out to check on you to ask for photos of your family or your adventures? or ask how you’ve been doing? Mostly no one. And if the few that have your number actually reach out to see what’s going on with you, they’ll check in too far in-between. Why? Because they are distracted by everyone else that’s connected through social media. You’re more an outcast now, and who wants that?

Social media isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. How many of you all have kids that spend everyday on their devices and games? Those are hours they can’t get back in life. Those are hours of watching videos and posting things that no one truly cares about. You’ll get likes, sure, but you can’t get your time back. Have you seen the movie “In Time,” with Justin Timberlake? I imagine my time actually being a currency in life. If you could see how much time you had in life, would you spend it more wisely? Social media is created to be addictive. The platform is used for various things that keep us busy and distracted. Not to mention our inability to see just how addictive it is when we continuously justify why we like it or are on it.

Social Media is the doorway to keeping a society under stress and pressure. We are always wondering if we are doing enough when we see what other people are doing. We wonder and worry about our business sales when marketing on these platforms. We are fed drama, trauma, fake news, fake photos and living in a society that we allow and learn to live with. We are constantly being subjected to things we can’t even control with our addiction to it when continuously exposing ourselves to this community. To add, just how damaging social media is to our societies mental and emotional health. Many people around the world rely on social platforms and many others are addicted to it, but both continue to use it, because they are unable to peel themselves away.

With all that is shared on social media, it’s another new media outlet and therefore like Alan Watts says in his lecture back in the 1960’s, which has turned into a great quote, “Because all the real masters of literature,  especially novelists and storytellers, are great masters of nonsense.” You can write any story and if received by a great storyteller, will turn into another great story, so on and so forth. There’s so much misguided information to purposefully create drama, trauma, stress, pain and suffering, that eventually we become desensitized to it all and consider this behavior normal. There’s simply no reaction from society. It’s this constant charge that keeps you wanting more, whether good or bad. Like a neglected child starving for attention, there’s this neglected behavior in social media where people are constantly trying to get attention, whether for themselves or their business, but either way they are performing like circus monkeys. More follows, more likes, more attention and more money!

I have talked to people and friends about my decision to leave social media and some have asked why I would leave and others were like “GOOD FOR YOU!” After leaving social media I felt normal again, honestly. I even took a break from the entertainment industry and have been enjoying working on things in my life that I no longer want to share with the world, and now I have time to focus on much more important things in my life, like being present, working on myself, achieving goals and enjoying real family time without the Judgement of the world or without cameras recording my every move. 

Speaking of judgment, the amount of peer pressure to live an extravagant life and manipulate our looks to get acceptance or fit in, is in constant motion. Statics from various sources say that depression, suicidal thoughts and suicide has significantly increased. Cyberbullying is on the rise and claiming the emotional and mental health of innocent minds. The sad part? Those who are the perpetrators have absolutely no remorse for their actions, nor are they really even held accountable. Why? Because there are so many cyberbullies, that they just can’t be traced or tracked enough. Young kids are often too young to be held accountable in the first place. There’s no community service for these folks to enroll in to learn about being kind to humanity. If anything, bullies come from various backgrounds and home life that very well could be the reason as to why they act as they do to others. Kids or adults, the only difference is that adults are supposed to know better and play the role model and inspiration role.

Listen, the social-feedia platform is just feeding you breadcrumbs while you’re starving to death. Anything to suck your time and life dry like a vampire lurking on every app and device. There’s no remorse or buybacks. You don’t get to hit the reset button or start over, that time you spent on these devices, platforms and apps are gone for good.

Beware what you dare follow and watch these days, everyone hones acting skills that deserve an academy award. They are great masters of nonsense. It only exists if we FEED into it and pay attention to it.

When you’ve decided to walk away from it all one day, you’ll realize that there was an imaginary weight that had been holding you down little by little this whole time, and it’ll be lifted. It’s a freedom you can’t fathom. It’s the feeling of being trapped in the Matrix and finally breaking free. Social-Feedia no longer dictates my time nor my life, and you won’t know it’s destroying yours until you’ve awakened from the social slumber. 

There’s nothing like peace in places that it only exists outside the metaverse. There’s nothing like the human experience on Earth, but not just any experience, the kind of experience that allows you to endure the natural order of your senses. And who knows, maybe if people focused on real life experiences, they could actually see what we ignored and neglected in the world while we were neck deep in the metaverse. Social-Feedia is merely distracting you from situations we have been sweeping under the rug, hoping it’ll figure itself out while we are drunk at a bar in the Matrix. Truth is, this environment has become so incredibly toxic, that it’s become contagious. Humans have shown little resilience to the outside world and change, they would rather feed their addictions than to face the problems they’ve essentially contributed to. The internet has become a place of illusions, but it’s been damaging to the emotional and mental health of those who are always keeping a watchful eye.

As a former actress of 20 years, I can assure you that even though I was originally a part of this illusion, that the metaverse is in fact an illusion made to be addictive for our self gratification. It’s a place of harm. Maybe not to all, but even if that’s not the message we are sending, those who are watching may be directly affected, and there’s nothing they can do, because addiction is called an addiction for a reason, and businesses thrive on those addictive vampires looking for more.

I’m here to tell you to eliminate your ego and free yourself from this facade you think exists in the social-feedia metaverse. It’s not real life, it’s like a massive Sims video game and we are all the main characters to our own story. Put your devices away and step outside. Converse with someone. Share your experiences and ask for others experiences in life. Take on adventurous expeditions. Your time is your currency and if you don’t see that the social-feedia metaverse is controlling your desires to follow the sheep and keep you asleep, you’ll ultimately kill your time and find that one day when you look up into the mirror, you’ll ask what you’ve done with your short life and where the time has gone.

It’s never too late to leave, you just have to want it bad enough. Don’t make Social-Feedia a lifestyle or you may find that your time currency has left you bankrupt. Don’t let the media consume your life and allow this negative mirage fool you into the idea that this is the “new norm” and what you’re seeing is the truth. While we are always evolving, it doesn’t mean putting our spiritual awareness in the depths of the shadows, so that we can live out this societal scheme of consumerism. 

We are better than this metaverse we are getting sucked into. Like the black hole, once you’re headed into it, the further you go the harder it gets to get out, until eventually there’s no returning. The vortex will inevitably pull you in and lure you in with shiny things and sell you on just how fabulous these shiny things are, without you even realizing how your eyes are fixated in a trance as the aw of how beautiful this shiny thing is and how bad you want it, pulls you in slowly. Then it happens, just as you seem to be awakening from this false reality, the black hole shows you another shiny thing that catches your attention once again, and so the cycle repeats itself. Unknowingly, this process sucks your energy dry from the very organic matter you’ve molded all your life to be strong and independent.

To add to that, the amount of nonsense that children and even adults believe in what they see and hear in the Matrix- is unreal. My kids alone have ran up to me (before I cut their exposure to this alter-reality) telling me, “mom, mom! There was a guy who jumped off a bridge and turned into a bird and flew away!” This is just one example of the many hundreds of things I’ve had to explain that aren’t real. Some of these ideas were even self-harming ideas. These kids have innocent minds and they are being exposed to garbage information and creations for likes and follows. People will put out any content these days that are truly questionable and are mostly kids being subjected to this elaborate life and story telling. Now I have to reel in the anchor on storytelling, because they have been exposed to this kind of behavior on these social platforms and actually seen it normal, because well, everyone they see is acting this way and they aren’t being held accountable! 

I for one didn’t see the harm at first, when things were fresh. It was simple and straightforward. Now, it’s so full of rubbish, I literally feel like I’m visiting a landfill when I enter the virtual world of social media. I personally can’t even relate to those who are tired into their social apps. I don’t even like to hear about anything people come across when they find something they want to share. I don’t want to be associated with social media at all. I even prefer friends that don’t have it either. That decision alone has been incredibly fruit-bearing and the few friends I’ve made that don’t have any, it’s been a real wholesome experience. I feel like I have a real relationship, instead of talking about what everyone is doing on social media or what’s going on everywhere else, we actually converse from personal views, not from a tainted perspective brought to you by social media. Again, my personal bird’s eye view now that I’ve walked away.

So…

At what amount are you willing to lose until you reach the top of your conquest? Are you spending your time on the very nature of your being? Are you in touch with who you are and the evolution of your growth? Is your growth fruit-bearing to all the young seeds that await for your water? What kind of impact do you have on those around you? Are you serving others or are you setting up the scene for them to serve you? What’s your purpose? Do you have one? If social media were to crash and burn tomorrow, would you feel relieved and go live your life, or would you feel stressed and depressed without it?

Sometimes we don’t realize our addictive behaviors, because they are normalized by other people with the same addictive behaviors. Everyone who is addicted to something will continuously justify their said behavior, which then passes the idea that what you’re doing is acceptable or normal behavior. I know this, because I was literally this person and now I have come to meet other people who were the same way and now feel a different way after cutting ties with the social outlets. 

Believe me, I convinced myself I was happy and justified why I needed my social accounts, but once I dropped it, I realized how foolish and asleep I really was. Social media makes you “feel” special, but to the cosmos you’re just a cell, and even sadder is that when we die no one will remember us after 50 years. Why? Because there are so many new things emerging throughout our evolution, that it’ll be harder to remember what you were even about, unless someone comes across your work one day and shares it, but then goes dormant again or forever. So, “use your time wisely” is the most honest phrase I’ve ever heard in my life. The elderly truly know what that means and they weren’t under the influence of as many distractions as there are today in the world.

Lastly, being a social media influencer has also created an entirely new additional educational request. You can get a degree in doing exactly what every single one of these influencers do everyday for a living. They essentially created these platforms and now jobs that require social media knowledge need a degree, interesting right? Jobs requiring a bachelor’s to do what we all know how to do with our eyes closed, is laughable. I was social media before it became popular, now businesses want degrees in social media. The world must stop taking the livelihood of simple living and turning everything into a needed degree. When my kid had a Tik-Tok, he could navigate that site better than myself. He knew all about its algorithms, analytics, popular hashtags, what times to share, what was popular and trending, the whole shebang. Now, jobs require at the minimum a bachelor’s to do what my kids could do.

Another reason why it’s an alter-reality I choose to no longer participate in. My kids no longer participate in it as well. I hope that one day you wake up and realize when you generally ask where your time has gone, you answer yourself honestly. I hope you find a way to live this incredibly beautiful life on this earth and with all these creatures and natural happenings, that you awaken from your slumber before it is too late and realize that there’s truly nothing like a natural experience on this earth. Maybe one day you’ll grow out of the consumerism on all electronic devices and consume your natural habitats before you leave this earth.

Not all of technology is bad when used in moderation or with need, my argument is solely for social-feedia and the ongoing pile of rubbish that’s deemed acceptable amongst an absorbing population. And I do note that there are important people and organizations that are out there trying to make the world a better place and inspire people to be better and do better, but we know it comes at a great cost.

It’s OK to be social without the media. I hope that one day you’ll realize that there are greater things in life, before it’s tainted and destroyed by an inner spider web that keeps you trapped, because like the most horrific addictive drug known to man, social media has become the exception to justifying why we NEED social media. It causes large spouts of dopamine to the brain, which keeps the consumer wanting more. This is the same way addicts react to drugs. In short, we bypass this as an addiction and deem it normal, because in reality everyone is doing it, so it’s highly acceptable. This is, of course, no different than gaming.

Our brain power under addiction is almost nonexistent. Humans can’t just quit when they want to. It’s a hard goal to accomplish, because there’s more of a reward by constant dopamine stimulation, than to face a less exciting or fulfilling life. I for one, am not keen on addiction. I come from a long line of family addiction and it’s been my life goal to not associate with ANYTHING that can cause me to become addicted to it. I want full control of my life and I get to choose what type of people I want to share my life with as well. I find it harder to find compatibility with people who have social media and other addictions, as this lifestyle is not for me and I don’t want any negative influences interfering with my “sober” lifestyle.

To end this, I just hope I’ve given you another perspective on how social media works and its addictive traits. Perhaps you can honestly analyze your addictions and behaviors associated with social media and or even gaming. It may very well be causing you more harm than good. Just ask yourself this, all the videos you’ve learned DIY projects from, are you actually putting them to use? Are you putting anything you’ve learned to use at all? Or have you wasted hundreds of hours of videos that you haven’t done anything with? Do you even remember what you saw, heard or learned? Is this all bad? No. Is this all good? No.

Personally, I’ve learned a lot, but I don’t remember anything. 

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©️ 2022 Riva Gijanto. All Rights Reserved. This is my hard work. Please do not steal, copy, recreate, manipulate or use its authenticity in any way.

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