A lot of people have used the extra time the pandemic has gifted them to find themselves, but I've known where I was for ages, so I got myself a cat and lost my mind a bit instead. The cat was a good idea, but if I'm honest I don't recommend misplacing your sanity. Sanity is useful for not losing hours staring at nothing and avoiding watching hours of Netflix and not really remembering what you just saw. Though that might say more about the quality of a streaming service that thinks that, because I've watched Breaking Bad, I might quite enjoy How I Met Your Mother. Fortunately, I'd seen a trailer and knew that I had little to no interest in how he met her. So instead of taking some time to find my Me, I spent a brief period attempting to cobble together some sort of mashed potato mountain from the slurry of my mind. I talked to a few people, did some brain homework, and walked the cat around on a leash for a couple of days, which - and I say this as someone with a newfound authority on the subject - doesn't make you fell any less mad.
I should probably make it clear that things are still a bit shaky, but everyone's wobbly at the moment, right? I mean, we're all increasingly uncomfortable in crowded spaces and by the constant, deafening, clattering conversations of everyone else, yeah? But the cat - oh, the cat. She either genuinely wants feeding, or sincerely wants to sleep. She will meow until you release her from the nature-less prison of the human home, or until you devote all of your being to her. Then she'll just fuck off. Then she'll return and listen to all of the weird things you think it's probably perfectly normal to discuss with a cat. Or if not listen, then at least be present. I would sit there, scrolling through whatever feed I was scrolling through, and she'd come up and headbutt the phone out of my hand, and I'd be all 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?! GOD! I'M BUSY' and she'd look at me all like 'You're disgusting, look at yourself. And then FEED ME you arsehole', and I'd be all 'Oh yeah sorry, what a pathetic creature I am for being so acutely aware what a destructive attention pimp Facebook is, while continuing to post what I thought of a film or a link to a preachy article about data harvesting. Here're some tiny protein and rice cubes, disguised as meat chunks, in jelly'.
So. Still a bit shaky. I'm starting to think that maybe the best I can aim for is learning how to coexist happily with my darkness, rather than switching on the light. And yes, I can see how you might think that, but no, I'm not just deleting my Facebook account because the cat told me to. Not just. However, I am deleting it. I've wasted so much time on it for a start, none of which has been productive, informative, or not fed to me by an algorithm designed to sell me products and services, based on information gleaned through the near constant tracking of my online habits. I've also done a lot of reading and watched a few documentaries - specifically this one and this one - that made me go 'yeah, time to get off this train'. They're definitely worth a watch. It's a combination of poorly spent time, damaged mental health, disgusting use of data, and the increasingly terrifying power they hold over our decision making, that has finally pushed me to leave. I'm not judging anyone who doesn't want to leave, and I won't be preaching to anyone that disagrees, but if you don't think Facebook are using their weight to crush the odd civil liberty, you're wrong.
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| Cats: More Myspace, or stalking and killing prey, than Facebook |
I'm also a bit tired of my own little echo chamber. Things are so polarised now that wandering even slightly from whatever party line your group is following can result in you being completely shut down. If what we want is people so entrenched in their ideology that debate and growth is impossible, well done, we're basically there. You're either all in or you can fuck off, you monster/liberal ponce. Delete as required. I might be overreacting, but I'm pretty sure I won't miss anything important by utilising an abundance of caution, to coin a current phrase. The concern, of course, is that in leaving I will be forgotten. Perhaps the most irritating thing lockdown has done, is to make it painfully clear that, while people confuse, irritate, frustrate and disgust me, I seem to need to talk to them and see them more often than I thought. So before I go I'll be bothering the people I actually like for alternative contact details. I won't be on WhatsApp though, because Facebook own that and there are the same data implications, and I'll be coming off Instagram as well soon, so it will have to be old fashioned phone calls, texts and Signal. Download Signal. Then delete WhatsApp.
How I met your Mother was incredibly popular, but I'm told she dies soon after he meets her anyway. It's as if they make this shit up as they go along. Like, they just want to keep you engaged long enough to sell you something. Facebook is incredibly popular but it's shaping how we think, act, interact, vote, self identify, gain self worth and spy on people. Is there a parallel or link between those two statements? No, but I mentioned the show at the top and calling back to it now gives the impression of some sort of metaphorical connection and deeper whole. I also mentioned my cat, so I'll finish with this: cats don't give a shit what anyone thinks or says, but they do like a bit of physical contact. They can use iPhones and laptop trackpads because their little toe beans allow them to, but they don't because they're cats and it's better to go outside and lie in the sun or tease a mouse. I'm going to tease more mice in the sun is, I think, what I'm saying. Because I'm tired of being offered those little reconstituted cubes and being told it's meat. Or something.
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