Social media is the devil in disguise

 Hello Blogger, I am back! It has been way too long since I have written anything. Over three years ago was my last post. I have not gone back and read it, and I may delete it. Who knows, who cares? I am now blogging for peace of mind. 

What brought me back to blogging? Good Question. 

When I left blogging, my life had gotten crazy. We were in the middle of the Covid-19 stuff, and lockdowns and mask mandates were all the rage. I wish I had kept blogging during this time, but I didn't have it in me.  

Like so many people, I turned to social media to keep up with what was happening around me and to voice my concerns about where things were headed. Often to significant opposition from people I thought were friends. 

Several friendships crashed and burned on the alter of COVID and election issues in the next few years. I always hate to lose a friend, but looking back now, I am grateful that I could see who was a true friend and who was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Most but not all, my friends now are closer to me than ever. I came to appreciate each of them, and new friendships have been forged through the mess that made up the first third of the 2020s. 

So why am I back to blogging again, and will this be a more passionate pursuit? 

Let me answer the second question first. I sincerely hope this will be a more passionate pursuit in the future. It may be my only outlet to voice my views and to relate to my readers who I am and what I do. 

To attempt to answer the first question, I have lost my enthusiasm for social media. There are lots of reasons for that. Stuff I will explore more in future posts. What tipped the scales for me is I had been working hard at building a social media presence. Not just to let my friends and family stay up to date with what I am doing but also to build out several other things that interest me. Things like walking with God, flying kites, riding motorcycles, and building a business. Mostly, my success is moderate to low.

On Tiktok, in particular, I had several accounts. One for everything I was interested in. Most of those accounts had very few followers and very little interaction. I worked for over two years to build up my business account and never got more than 550 followers. My personal account did a little better, with about 660 followers. But an influencer, I was not. 

I decided to try an experiment. This was days after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023. I took my personal account and changed it over to a news-style account. I started posting news stories to highlight the war effort and things that supported my worldview of Israel being the victim and that we all needed to support them. 

To my amazement, this account took off.  In a very short time, maybe two weeks, the number of followers ballooned to over 3,400. I had several videos with over one hundred thousand views. One of them had almost three hundred thousand views. I would wake up each morning with over one hundred new followers, tons of comments, and likes. 

To many, this would be thrilling. I have to admit it sucked me in for a while. I felt like a rock star. It was very affirming while it lasted. But in reality, it sent me down an entirely different path. One where I would realize that the reason my other accounts got so little engagement is that no one cares about the quality of the information you put out. They only want someone to feed their egos and stoke the fire.

In the light of that realization, I feel entirely out of love with social media. I had no interest in serving the world a fat helping of sensational content. I really and truly wanted to make a difference with the content I had been working on for so long. That is when I decided it was all for nothing. I knew right then who I wanted to be and how I wanted to engage with people. That way had nothing to do with social media at all. 

I thought about it for a day or so, and then, when I was sure this was the route I wanted to go, I started deleting all of my social media accounts. At this time, I am down to one, and that one will be gone soon. 

Why even have a blog? Well, honestly, I find writing therapeutic for me. I need to have an outlet other than just journaling, which I haven't ever done consistently. I hope that blogging will help me maintain a sense of belonging. It will help me sort out the complexities of this life. Maybe one or two people will find this helpful and, if not beneficial, perhaps entertaining. 

Along with blogging, my way of interacting with people will focus on developing authentic, meaningful relationships outside the web. Face-to-face interactions will become my go-to move. Here is to hoping I post again soon. I enjoyed writing this post, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. 

To infinity and beyond!

I am glad you got to see me,

Eddie Sprouse