Does anyone actually want to be on social media anymore, or has it just captured us in the way a black hole captures and crushes matter? Doesn’t it feel—often—rather than being life-affirming, that instead it is sucking the life out of us until we collapse into smaller and smaller versions of ourselves? Until we disappear into some pixelated cosmos, lost among the desperately indistinguishable?
These questions, of course, are rhetorical. We all know the answer. Social media is soul-sucking, no matter what form it takes. It is toxic or it is on its way to toxicity because that is its essence. The more time you spend on it, the smaller you get.
Within the last few weeks there has been some optimism in the suddenly-burgeoning Bluesky (probably encouraged by an optimistic algorithm), which bills itself as “social media as it should be … have some fun again.” It’s decentralized, they say. Even operated by a “public-benefit corporation.” Rejoice.
Since the election, Bluesky has gathered millions of new users, many of them the latest evacuees from X (is this where I say “formerly Twitter”?). But I suspect we are only turning to the new thing, the next thing, the soon-to-be same as the old thing.
I left Twitter (of which Bluesky itself looks shockingly plagiarized) years ago, before Musk bought it and made it even worse—but it was already a wasteland of vitriol and hatred, of drive-by trolling and petty arguments repeating themselves ad infinitum with little productive to show for it. Facebook is much the same, but that’s where we keep our photos. And then there’s TikTok, and Snap, and Instagram, and many more, each with its own niche, each niche its own circle of hell.
I believe that Bluesky is doomed to become as much of a wasteland as any social network—despite its current clear-eyed optimism and best intentions. It is, as they say, only a matter of time. Because if you play near the black hole, the black hole always gets you.
I think the fundamental problem might be that social media welcomes the whole of humanity to its digital playground, but much of humanity, unfortunately, is not human, as we’ve seen over and over again.
Besides the vitriol, social media has at least theoretical value as a form of expression, but rarely do I see it used authentically for that purpose. For most of us, it is a land where we desperately seek adoration, attention, even the ultimate allure of income, to become the coveted influencer—those who carefully edit out the parts of their lives that make them human.
Most of these desires are rooted in human needs, and there’s nothing wrong with having them. But the ways we go about attempting to find that satisfaction through social media often simply feels, well… gross. And don’t we feel just a little disgusted with ourselves after spending time there?
This is of course a larger problem with the Internet itself, particularly amplified by the sheer self-centeredness of social media. People respond to mild-mannered opinions with comments akin to drive-by shootings, a faceless victim we treat in ways we’d never dare do in person—lobbing insults and denigration that must only come from a deep well of self-loathing. At one time or another most of us have turned, if only briefly, into unrecognizable monsters.
Worse than all that—maybe even worse than those who’ve been given a platform to celebrate hate, racism, misogyny, and bigotry—is to think of the people behind it who have been enriched. All the tech bros, these prophets, purveyors of the “Technology Will Save Us” doctrine, if only we welcome into our hearts this new, next Thing, a gift offered freely and without anything expected in return. Just follow us. Follow us. Follow us to the IPO. Follow us, these self-appointed saviors, who speak of their platforms and often themselves as the benign knighted, wanting only for us what surely we could hitherto only dream for ourselves.
It feels to me like King Midas is here by another name now. King Musk. King Zuck. King Dorsey. Social media is King Shit.
But unlike King Midas, King Shit has not yet learned his lesson. The touching continues. And yet we linger.
To me it feels like an addiction, and like any other addiction we make excuses for it, even as we recognize our own dishonesty in its defense.
So what are the potential fixes? Ban all advertising? Ban all bots? Ban all government agents and disinformation campaigns? Ban all politics? Ban all religion? Ban all influencers? Ban all humans?
Those of us who have been alive long enough can ask ourselves honestly, what would happen if it all were gone tomorrow? Having been alive in the before times, I can say, with all honesty, please, please be gone. Let me make connections like I used to: awkwardly, palms sweating, and with trepidation.
I don’t know what inspired Bluesky’s name, but I like to think it was Jeff Lynne’s deliriously good vibes song “Mr. Blue Sky,” a jubilant celebration of light after a prolonged darkness. And right now the Bluesky platform is in that moment early in the song where “the sun is shinin’ in the sky … there ain’t a cloud in sight.” But there’s a little line tucked in later that feels more like our destination: Mr. Blue, you did it right … But soon comes Mr. Night creepin’ over, now his hand is on your shoulder. Never mind. I’ll remember you this way.”
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