Blocking myself from social media indefinitely!๏ปฟ
Blocking myself from social media indefinitely!
I was going to return to social media by now but I enjoy keeping away from social media. I enjoy it too much.
And I still need to sort out personal stuff, my creative rut, my mental health, physical health and work.
I need a longer break.
One without a deadline.
I don’t want to pretend I’m ready to use social media and put myself out there again when I’m feeling pretty mixed and still coming from a place of lack and insecurity with my own personal situation.
As much as I deeply appreciate the lovely, heart warming support and connecting with people, using social media again at this point will just suck me back into a time-sink of distractions, anxiety, noise, dread, loneliness, self doubt, comparisons, sadness, rejection, disappointment, isolation, negativity, disconnect, mostly shallow/passive interactions and the same negative social feedback/mindset loop.
It’s exhausting and detrimental for me right now.
When I’m away, I don’t feel obligated to check and respond to things. I don’t feel like I’m blatantly performing the best version of myself for people.
I need to put my foot down by extending this break.
And take care of my mental well-being.
Retreating and sorting myself out first.
I got a lot of things to figure out and perhaps I’ll share them along the way as I learn, live and accept them.
For now, I’m super happy just using social media from a distance, supporting people in my own way and posting work out there through Buffer. Sure, during these breaks I miss out on social things. Perhaps people are unfollowing me or are miffed that I’m not responding to them. Maybe people are kindly sharing my work, sticking by and are wonderfully understanding [thank you so much if you are! <3 ] There’s probably a majority who don’t even know I’m away in the first place.
I don’t know how people are responding to my work and I don’t get any of that indifference or positive or negative validation from my social media echo chamber. No notifications to worry about.
But that’s great! I don’t want to care too much about all that.
I’m doing all this to learn, express myself and connect with others on my own terms instead. (:
Catch up with people 1 to 1 in person, through blog comments or email.
I feel lucky and privileged that I don’t have to depend on social media to earn a living at the moment. I used to when I started trying to freelance and getting my work out there since I’m exhausted and terrible at pushing myself when attempting to in person. It was tough and honestly it’s been hit or miss as I’m never sure what I’m doing works. It was me going against my natural grain by reaching out and interacting with others when I’m naturally more reserved and quiet. I’m not even confident in getting myself out there nowadays since I don’t have any “klout” on the internet or in real life. ;P
Usually it’s a struggle between pandering to the needs of the market and doing what I enjoy. I have plateaued with my art and following in the past 2-3 years. Figured I need to simplify my life and focus on my health and art right now.
Perhaps I can build my audience from this blog and through other ways instead. Haha I’m probably too naive to say that – blogs are not a huge thing anymore ;P
And who knows when I’ll have to return to the freelance world in the distant future? Consequently go back to social media again out of necessity? The entertainment industry is unstable and always evolving after all. I’ll worry and tackle that when I need to.
Hopefully not any time soon [touch wood].
So it’s super cool and humbling when people do find their way to this blog through facebook, twitter, mailing list, instagram, linkedin and other avenues! <3
Welcome and thanks for coming by!
Let’s talk over here instead ๐
This year I want to focus, simplify and cut out things that’s not helping me at the moment. Go back to basics rather than spreading myself too thin.
I’ll just interact through this blog and maybe do a YouTube video again. We’ll see!
Keep on trying things and learning in art and life.
I’ll return to social media when I’m ready later this year?
Or probably next year.
Or when I need to go into business/marketing/hustling mode one day. However short/long it takes.
Come back in cycles, catch up a bit and then flee again? Just fade from social media a lot and not feed into that social validation addiction and system anymore.
Or avoid and quit it altogether.
Whenever this is, I hope to return when I’m in a healthier mindset.
When I can see social media as a positive place for me. If that ever happens. I got some personal things to overcome.
Or when I need to be more business/marketing focused.
A lot of possibilities.
Hey, who knows what the future will bring?
I just don’t know for certain when I’m ready.
I don’t want to pressure nor rush myself either.
Many thanks for understanding and for your kind patience <3
Apologies for missing out on your social media responses – I’m genuinely blocked and keeping away. Let me know how you are faring so far in 2019 by commenting below!
Because I stress that blog comments and email always welcome ;D
I’ll tend to those instead! I’m planning to keep interactions to my blog post comments from now on.
I’m still here at this blog! Just people are too lazy to come here because there’s no social media validation for them over here at this island haha
…yeah I’m not expecting any/much comments. It’s too much effort. ;P
Good to take breaks and not set deadlines. ๐ Take care of yourself matey
Thanks Mel!! Yeah it was stressing me out knowing that the break “should” end.
But I don’t want the break to end at all. I don’t want to check social media anytime soon.
You take care of yourself too!! ^o^
looks around for a like button
But seriously, if you can get off social media it’s probably a positive thing. I deleted my Facebook account a while back and almost managed to get off Twitter but I wasn’t able to fully extricate myself from that one. But it’s at a manageable level now at least.
I think you’ll probably like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAo2nmVlfOA
Haha I made sure to remove the like button on blog posts! Thanks for coming over to comment too! ^o^
I might have to update my bio on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to reflect this decision in the coming week, avoid checking notifications [so I don’t get sucked back in] and then block myself for a long time. Unfortunately I can’t completely delete everything because it’s too scary to go that far :0
Indeed it’s super hard to cut it all off – at least it’s just one platform for you!
Ooh thanks, I’ll look into that video later! ๐
It was definitely a scary thing to delete my facebook account entirely. And it was your boss, via twitter, who talked me into doing it (I won’t name names but let’s just say his name rhymes with Batt Ball ;).
I’m 100% happy I did though.
Although not long after closing FB and trying to wind back on twitter use I joined the Charlie Red and Game Developers Of Australia chat groups (chat channels on Slack and Discord). One step forward, two steps back.
CR is pretty quiet, actually, but GDAU is a busy place. But with some muting I’m able to just sort of let the rest go about its own thing, only glancing at it from time to time when I’m ready to interact. I guess I found a way to make it work for me, and I think if a few more people that I like to follow on twitter were to start using CR/GDAU regularly then I would find it pretty easy to drop twitter entirely. (though I really do like seeing all the art and gamedev on twitter)
But I seem to have found a combination that I’m happy with. Just enough interaction to feel like I’m in touch with the local scene, but not so much that it takes over from what I want to be doing. It was tough to find that balance and could be tough to keep it.
As far as becoming “addicted” to the almighty social media “likes” goes, yeah I know what you mean there though I find them really useful to get an idea of how other people see things. I sometimes make things that are just for me, tell jokes that I know only I will really get, but as someone who also wants to make a living from this stuff I find it’s useful to know what other people understand and value. The reactions to what I post really helps me dial that in.
This turned out a longer post then I meant. If this had been on twitter it at least would have made me more economic with my characters. :}
Haha I see! I don’t think he deleted his when I last saw end of last year. I don’t know now. So you took it boldly further ๐
I can’t bring myself to delete facebook but I’ll do second best: disappear instead!
Ah good you got a good combination. I just don’t mind not being in touch with the local scene/community myself these days.
Social media likes are definitely useful to see what people engage with. I guess it’s gotten predictable and not useful for me now – more reason for me to change things up.
Now I’m good with looking at blog stats from a distance. :’)
I still think you would have made a long thread of tweets anyway haha
Heh, no I would have just clicked ‘like’. ๐