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Sounds weird, but I actually like to eat kale as a yummy snack... But that's not the topic I want to mention; I want to talk about people who know how spinach and kale work.
Think about how people talk about those two in specific, elders will tell you "oh, it's really good for your health!", adults will talk about it ONLY if they're on a diet, and minors?! Call them a swear, and they'll be less offended than being served a bowl filled with kale and no dressing (not even lemons, NO dressing)... Alright, I'm stereotyping humans. What I'm trying to say is: people mostly like healthy stuff because it tastes healthier, not good.
On the other hand... COKE! Yeeyyyyy, give us the sugary drink!
Come on, don't say you've never seen a person who "is off sodas" or stuff like that, you already know why people quit coke, because its too good (at least the one that's not made out of corn syrup), not only Coca Cola, the big fat fucking pig, but everything, Sunny D, Arizona, Monster Energy. As someone may know, it's hard to avoid the temptation to avoid every one of them... we get... hooked, addicted, you may say.
Haha! I LIED, I WASN'T GOING TO TALK ABOUT FOOD (though I do love kale for its taste lol) I'm talking about SOCIAL MEDIA... using food as an allegory of sorts. If you go to a restaurant (the play store or the web as a whole), and you see the whole menu, there's spinach and kale salad (in this allegory the salad is a social media like spacehey)... yummy —I'm talking as someone who's not me, I wouldn't order it because I'm cheap af and wouldn't step into a restaurant at all—, and then you see "YUMMY YUMMY PIZZA FLAVORED ICECREAM FRIED WITH GENETICALLY MODIFIED BANANAS THAT TASTE LIKE... idk... whatever you kids like that is unhealthy" (Tiktok, for example). What would you order? These are the only options lol, don't come at me with a normal thing, we have... the healthy order, that would make you look good, and the yummy yummy order that WILL get you hooked on the sugar intake fyi.
The other example... Coke and water! You like water? Well, too damn bad, because there's Coke, which tastes extremely good, but... yeah, it makes water taste bad in comparison, that's why people drink only flavored water, mineral water, those powder pouches that have no calories... the "Water of the day" thing... You're not enjoying the simple things, like water, water its really good by itself, I swear, but you have to "cleanse" your palate. Would you take the simple option of "H2O flavored water" or would you take the sugary option that tastes good... and you guessed it, WILL get you hooked on the sugar intake.
Believe it or not, you've all (including me) have taken the sugary option... since the pandemic, if not before. And not only that, most of us are hooked on it, and it's hard to get off it. Not only that, switching to spinach and kale salad feels pretentious and hard to do, since you get the "oh, they must be on a diet" stare when they catch you with it.
Stopping a bit with the food thing —I've only eaten apples and unsalted popcorn all day, I forgot to eat dinner again, and I'm this close to considering mint gum a good alternative to it, I'm hungry af— what I'm trying to say is... we can't turn against the "normal stuff" after we got hooked on it for so long, this group, I love the idea, but it comes off as idealistic once you don't provide the support people need if you want them to not go back to the burnout social media like tiktok.
Of course, the algorithms, gen AI things, and toxicity are stuff everyone here (I guess) wants to avoid. But switching 180 won't help you "detox", going back to the old "good stuff" like kale once you're fucked on yummy ice cream won't be a one-day decision, it's suffering the now boredom of not having the stimulus of social media. AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO FEEL THAT WAY. Constantly updated social media, like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and even TUMBLR for MonEsVol's sake, is made to enhance engagement, and by association, addiction. You can't simply go away. They made it harder, 30-day confirmation waiting, the scrolling system made for us to doomscroll, switching to SpaceHey in just one day won't make you magically a human being with an attention span of more than 4 seconds.
That's the reason why this kind of stuff "doesn't work", people have already commented "where's everyone" or "haha those losers tried to bring back 2016 and failed miserably" because people just think of the aesthetic behind the older times. Remember, pals, the 2000s weren't only "cool tech stuff", the Y2K pals had:
- No Spotify
- Early YouTube, and by that I mean badly edited videos, no budget, and annoying people whom I love
- Only the rich kids got the cool touch phones (ha, these days rich kids avoid phones)
- Forums EVERYWHERE
- Written blogs instead of pictures (Instagram, lol)
- Fewer people on the internet
- Slower news (I swear to MonEsVol, we NEEDED the faster communication methods)
- Boredom
And is the last one the part people forget the most? People before us were BORED, and that's good; people need to be bored. Social media these days feels like a time skip where you doomscroll for one hour MINIMUM. Are you bored? Just scroll in tiktok for a while, and you'll forget about it. Don't feel like TikTok? Go to Instagram, or Twitter, literally everywhere is made to doomscroll, to skip time and avoid boredom. I ain't saying before they hadn't stuff to procrastinate or "doomcroll", they had comics, chats, and calls with other HUMANS (Yeah, I'm still pissed about LLMs and genAI). But there was a tiny bity difference. They had to "work" more to get their time skip. Reading comics still needs a bit of attention. Tell me, I love comics and visual novels. The dopamine hit wasn't immediate or constant; you had to put effort into getting a dosage, therefore, you didn't get hooked on it as quickly as you do with TikTok and others.
When a human being these days tries to go back to the boredom... they can't stand it, and ultimately go back to the good ol' doomscrolling since it's the normalcy for them. You've done it, I've done it, a lot of unused accounts on spacehey do it, because they can't stand how "boring" this social media is in comparison. Pals, this forum, this place is a good idea! Humans need to learn how to execute it correctly if their goal is not to end up like some stuck-ups.
The thesis? Shit, I was supposed to place it at the beginning instead of yapping about my weird tastes. Ummm... pals, avoiding social media from time to time is good, sort of, but moderation is the mother of everything good. Remember that social media has its perks, got it? But it's preferable to enjoy it in small dosages, order your YUMMY YUMMY PIZZA FLAVORED ICE CREAM to go, and enjoy it slowly... Eat kale too, but not only because it's healthy, try to enjoy its flavor, or try stuff like dressing, were trying to enjoy healthy stuff, not force it onto us.
Being literal, enjoy both TikTok, SpaceHey, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, AO3, everything, but please think before you scroll, the dopamine isn't worth it if it then makes you numb to enjoying stuff like SpaceHey or reading an actual book —oh yeah, forgot to mention, did you know the reason kids almost don't read is because they don't learn how to? Or they get bored with the long attention span it requires to understand what's going on, which you could enjoy if you just took your time with it. TikTok is indeed made for you to get hooked, but you can avoid it as much as you can, or get people to help you avoid it, or avoid it as a whole; every option is good if it fits you the best :).
If you've finished this... congratulations, you already showed that you have a longer attention span than most TikTok users under the age of 15! I can't give you a physical medal... but trust me, you deserve one. Thanks for reading this, and I hope it helps humans understand why it is so hard to leave social media for good.
Y'know what? In the literal sense, don't eat kale, pals, that way I get more for myself lol
-"An alien to the situation."
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