T E X T
I Used to Fear Being a Nobody. Then I Left
Social Media.
By Bianca Brooks
“What’s happening?”
I stare blankly at the little box as I try to
think of something clever for my first tweet. I settle
on what’s at the top of my mind: “My only #fear is
being a nobody.” How could I know this exchange
would begin a dialogue that would continue nearly
every day for the next nine years of my life?
I began using Twitter in 2010 as a newly
minted high school freshman. Though it began as a
hub for my quirky adolescent thoughts, over the
years it became an archive of my emotional and
intellectual voice — a kind of virtual display for the
evolution of my politics and artistic identity. But after nine years, it was time to close the archive.
My wanting to share my every waking thought
became eclipsed by a desire for an increasingly rare
commodity — a private life.
Though I thought disappearing from social
media would be as simple as logging off, my refusal
to post anything caused a bit of a stir among my
small but loyal following. I began to receive emails
from strangers asking me where I had gone and
when I would return. One message read: “Not to be
over familiar, but you have to come back
eventually. You’re a writer after all. How will we
read your writing?” Another follower inquired,
“Where will you go?”
The truth is I have not gone anywhere. I
am, in fact, more present than ever
Over time, I have begun to sense these
messages reveal more than a lack of respect for
privacy. I realize that to many millennials, a life
without a social media presence is not simply a
private life; it is no life at all: We possess a
widespread, genuine fear of obscurity.
When I consider the near-decade I have
spent on social media, this worry makes sense. As
with many in my generation, Twitter was my entry
into conversations happening on a global scale;
long before my byline graced any publication,
tweeting was how I felt a part of the world. Twitter
functions much like an echo chamber dependent on
likes and retweets, and gaining notoriety is as easy
as finding someone to agree with you. For years I
poured my opinions, musings and outrage onto my
timeline, believing I held an indispensable place in
a vital sociopolitical experiment.
But these passionate, public observations
were born of more than just a desire to speak my
mind — I was measuring my individual worth in
constant visibility. Implicit in my follower’s question
“Where will you go?” is the resounding question
“How will we know where you’ve gone?” Privacy is
considered a small exchange for the security of
being well known and well liked.
After all, a private life boasts no location
markers or story updates. The idea that the
happenings of our lives would be constrained to our
immediate families, friends and real-life
communities is akin to social death in a world
measured by followers, views, likes and shares.
I grow weary when I think of this as the
new normal for what is considered to be a fruitful
personal life. Social media is no longer a mere
public extension of our private socialization; it has
become a replacement for it. What happens to our
humanity when we relegate our real lives to props
for the performance of our virtual ones?
For one, a predominantly online existence
can lull us into a dubious sense of having enacted
concrete change, simply because of a tweet or
Instagram post. As “hashtag activism” has
obscured longstanding traditions of assembly and
protest, there’s concern that a failure to transition
from the keyboard to in-person organization will
effectively stall or kill the momentum of political
movements. (See: Occupy Wall Street.)
The sanctity of our most intimate
experiences is also diminished. My grandfather
Charles Shaw — a notable musician whose wisdoms
and jazz scene tales I often shared on Twitter —
passed away last year. Rather than take adequate
time to privately mourn the loss of his giant
influence in my life alongside those who loved him
most, I quickly posted a lengthy tribute to him to
my followers. At the time I thought, “How will they
remember him if I don’t acknowledge his passing?”
Perhaps at the root of this anxiety over
being forgotten is an urgent question of how one
ought to form a legacy; with the rise of automation,
a widening wealth gap and an unstable political
climate, it is easy to feel unimportant. It is almost
as if the world is too big and we are much too small
to excel in it in any meaningful way. We feel we
need as many people as possible to witness our
lives, so as not to be left out of a story that is being
written too fast by people much more significant
than ourselves.
“The secret of a full life is to live and
relate to others as if they might not be there
tomorrow, as if you might not be there
tomorrow,” the writer Anais Nin said. “This
feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day
now that we have reached a hastier and more
superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are
in touch with a greater amount of people. This is
the illusion which might cheat us of being in
touch deeply with the one breathing next to us.”
I think of those words and at once any
fear of obscurity is eclipsed by much deeper ones
— the fear of forgoing the sacred moments of life,
of never learning to be completely alone, of not
bearing witness to the incredible lives of those who
surround me.
I observe the world around me. It is big
and moving fast. “What’s happening?” I think to
myself.
I’m just beginning to find out.
From:www.nytimes.com/Oct. 1, 2019
For the author herself, Twitter was the platform
for important things in her life, including the
