Social Media Has Jumped the Shark
I’ve officially aged out of Instagram.
For a while now I’ve been complaining about it - I mean, there’s a lot to hate in the Meta-run iteration of everyone’s favorite app. And don’t even get me started on Facebook - how is it that a platform that caters to the old is so complicated?
I’ve never really gotten Twitter. Obviously Snapchat was never for me. And TikTok, while entertaining, is read-only as far as I’m concerned.
But it’s not just that I’ve come to hate the frenetic everything-to-everyone madness that is social media. There’s that curmudgeonly tone to my complaining that tells me it’s an age thing.
For a long time, Instagram was my kind of app. Cool pictures with short pithy captions? Yes, yes, yes. I loved that the picture had to be square, and that there was a specific setting on my phone for that.
While my kids were going nuts with Snapchat filters I was taking one beautifully composed picture on my daily walk and happily posting it. Where strangers from distant lands would like it, attracted by rudimentary hashtags like #morningwalk.
I’m generally okay with aging out of things. Dating apps, knowing who’s who in music, wearing the right kind of jeans. Getting to be done with things I no longer like and feeling no compunction to replace them is an incredible relief.
But social media is a little different. It’s just so BIG. I mean, getting an actual app off the ground isn’t something you can do in an afternoon on your MacBook Air. It’s a corporate activity; there’s not really a home-grown option.
Honestly I’m pretty sick of being part of the global economy, but I still want access to a global community. What to do? Maybe newsletters are the answer. Or maybe I’ll have to continue to suck it up and enter the world of Meta every so often.
I’m not such a geezer that I want to go back to meeting my neighbors at the general store. But there’s got to be a better way to stay in touch, stay on top of what’s new, and find new connections than wading through our current options.
I’m an optimist, so I’m waiting for the next thing. The thing that will be really cool until Elon or Zuck or some other billionaire bro buys it up and wrecks it.
So maybe that’s the magic of aging. It’s getting to a point where you don’t have to mourn the thing that’s gone because you know there’s a new thing on the horizon. Which will stay cool and fun until it gets popular, at which time it will become unbearable.
So I guess that answers the question. Everything IS terrible, mainly because I’m old.