Opting out

I used to like the idea of an online profile. Not one that people knew about in the modern sense, but a different one per forum, or, later, a different one per platform. 

On skateboarding forums I'd pick whatever avatar represented my tastes at that time and write my replies in the same considered style. This sounds idiotic, but it's true. And then I'd move into music forums and do the same. Maybe I'd be lower case posts, maybe proper grammar and spelling. It was fun to present a style to other users. 

And then it moved into social media. A chosen Facebook photo that's both casual (because whoever cares too much is weird) but considered, and only posts that are the same. An Instagram feed of nice photos, nothing too wordy, nothing too emotional, presenting a digital life that looks fun. 

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not talking about presenting a "false" life, or only sharing the good things in life in order to inspire jealously in others. It's different, but hard to explain. You want people to look at your profile and think "cool". They'll look at the avatar or profile pic (at one point it was pretty sharp if you had a photo of a photo, like a passport pic, as your profile), and think this a nicely curated selection of stuff. 

And over time that curation gets more and more selective, in a Spinal Tap kind of way, and soon you're not posting at all. It's like millenials and ring tones. We turned them off. I didn't realise this was a thing until I read it -- we all, as a generation, have our phones on silent. Not even vibrate. And so too, our social media presence is mostly on mute, as we simply opt out of whatever is going on. I just don't care anymore. Like this blog. I realised I like writing but I don't want comments, or even views. If you read it, great, I don't want to know about it. Go away. Comments are turned off. Forever. 

This is not the same as a digital-detox, or grounding, or some other way of replacing what having a Facebook profile once gave you. It has no replacement -- it just disappears. There's no joining clubs (IRL), learning a new skill (and then writing articles about it), or pouring yourself into some other social media platform. There is simply no longer any desire to reach into the world and see what resonates, whatsoever. The thing about the internet is that you can find your tribe -- we found them -- and then we lost interest.

There is only the further and furthering pruning of an online life until the online-you doesn't exist at all.