Social Fucking Media

 So I thought why not, I’m a millennial let’s talk about it. There is a Netflix documentary about social media and how it affects people, how it tracks who you are as a person. Facebook especially, who would’ve known Facebook could have an affect on your mental. At least I didn’t realize it could, not until now. Part 1 is going to be before I actually watch the fucking documentary because I want my opinion on “social media”. Social media is a way for people to either act different or maybe truly be themselves. Who fucking knows right? I mean I remember getting Myspace, wow fucking Myspace. How I created a world online for myself, posting photos, posts and really anything to grab attention. Granted I think I knew this wasn’t the way, but when you go to school with people that don’t accept you and come home to people that only half accept you. Online was a way to feel like you can accept yourself. The harsh reality is that people can be mean and brutal. I mean I don’t know how I didn’t kill myself in highschool, as harsh of a reality as that would’ve been its true. I was tortured at school when I came home, I’d lock myself in my room and surf the internet. I wanted to find ways to be accepted. I feel like my fight for acceptance came with the people that didn’t accept me. You know friend requests, friendships, even boys I had crushes on. Those were a dime a dozen back then, but guys wouldn’t really like me until I was older anyway. I was always bigger, since I was in fifth grade and as much as I hate to admit it. Being a big girl and a mixed big girl at that, it was hard. Now it’s acceptable to be a bigger girl, I mean fuck girls on TikTok are wearing like nothing and getting millions of followers for it. If I did that shit in Myspace days, I’d be tormented at school until I really did kill myself. That’s how highschool was for me, torment and degradation. My skin color was one thing and then the weight was the other. I mean it was hard for me being around 85% white people and the rest other ethnicities. So I wasn’t being accepted by the white majority and my black half wasn’t really being accepted by black people either. I actually had a girl send me a message on Myspace asking me why I wasn’t black enough. Well black Karen, when you spend your whole life in a rich town with white people and your poor. I mean I’m sorry I had such a broad selection of vocabulary and you couldn’t handle it. I remember the top eight, picking eight people who were your favorite. That couldn’t have been healthy for anyone. I mean what if you were on no one's top eight? How would you cope with that? I know I was on one person’s top eight until junior year, when I met the most amazing girl. To this day I wish were still best friends, Sammy was one cool chick. I looked up to her for being so smart, kind and courageous. Moving to a different school from California must’ve been hard and I knew her background story, having famous relatives can never be easy. Especially when they are younger and always in the spotlight, but back to top eight. Who’s fucking idea was this? I mean you’re singling out people. They were making people feel left out, abandoned from your friends who you thought were your friends. But I guess that goes to show how social media affects your mental health and I for one am with it, without having seen that documentary yet. I remember my sophomore year when people were starting to switch to Facebook. It wasn’t a difficult transition for the ‘popular’ people, but for folks who only had a group of friends, it may have been disheartening. I hadn’t had many friends, if I did have friends they were fake ones. I mean maybe besides the girl I’d known since second grade and Sammy, but even uh for privacy reasons, lets call her Elle. Elle at least contributed to my happiness and my youth adventures, we did use each other for that. No one likes to feel completely lonely, I don’t care who you are. You always have to have someone to confide in and I always confided in her. But I don’t think she ever really knew how hard it was for me, with everything. Her family always looked down on me, because my mother was a single parent and we weren’t exactly wealthy either. I’ve sidetracked, let me get back to the point, that’s a story for another time. The transition to Facebook was hard for me, because I didn’t have many friends. So I put it off until Junior year, but I still used Myspace. I’ll never forget, it was the winter dance where the girls asked the guys. We called it ‘Turnabout’ but we all knew it was a fucking Sadie Hawkins Dance. I had the biggest crush on a tall punk guy in my freshman Spanish class. So I grew the courage to ask him and he was really sweet about it, to my face. A person can only take so much and just the preview for this documentary. I know it’s already going to be true, social media affected us millennials the most. It taught us to be cruel behind a fucking computer screen. To make some feel like shit about themselves. Now the new generations, fuck they don’t care, no fucking filters and beyond cruel, they are like sharks waiting for their next prey. Like it’s any of your business why Susan use to be a fucking man. Who cares? Not me and neither should you, all they want is acceptance and I’ll accept it. Because that’s the person I became and the person I want my kids to grow up to be. I will never make someone feel less than they should feel, not intentionally. So back to the dance story, he of course would never be seen in public with me. I mean I don’t know why I really even asked. So, he told me he’d let me know his decision, he wanted to “think” about it. Of course, I went home and instantly posted something indirect about it. Hoping he would say yes. Then as I am looking on his page, I noticed one of the “Popular” girls posted about his “date offer” and he actually laughed and made fun of me. Indirectly of course, but I knew it was about me. And that was the first day, I ever knew what depression was. A year later I started cutting myself. I know that’s hard to hear, but I can only imagine what these kids now are doing. Probably worse and it worries me, because I have younger cousins. I would never want them to feel the way I did and I hope they’d talk to someone, but who am I to give advice? I didn’t talk to anyone for years. It wasn’t until  Junior year I got help, but it was because a kid teased me about wearing a hoodie in the middle of march. I had to cover up the scars somehow. I mean my own mother didn’t notice and that isn’t on her parenting, because she took the computer out of my room. She took it away from me, she wanted to be able to monitor my computer time. But it wasn’t long until I conned her into letting me have my own computer, that I started to do those terrible things to myself. I could never blame my mother for what the internet did to my mental health, I can only blame myself. For letting people affect how I felt about MYSELF. This was a hard post for me to write, I mean I’m telling stories I haven’t even thought about in fifteen years. I mean granted, I turned into a bully myself by the end of my junior year. I was tired of getting bullied by the same girls, so I lashed out but not behind a computer screen. I’d say the shit to your face and not give a fuck and that’s when I was accepted by black people at my school. How fucking sad is that? Seriously, like why? I shake my head at it now, my mother always told me that it would get better when I was older. I’m older and it just got better four years ago. Society changed and now I find myself on social media more and more. TikTok, WhatsApp, Tinder, Bumble, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. What the fuck. What in the actually fuck happened to wanting to call someone and hangout, or talking to someone on the phone for hours instead of sending one or two emojis. I for one have to use social media more, because it’s the only way I can get my writing out, but I wish it was different. It’s hard when you’re not popular and I was never that. Never wanted to be, never wanted to be skinny either. No one should be judged for how they look or who they are. PERIOD. So, I hope the millennials who are having kids realize how dangerous, more dangerous social media is going to be. Teach their kids other things and limit their time with it. I think social media would’ve been better if you had to be a certain age to use certain platforms. The hate comments I see on TikTok alone, it scares me for the newer generations. I hope if anyone is feeling down or low they’d know they could reach out to me, a friend, a family member or even the Sucide Hotline:800-273-8255. Don’t ever let someone make you not want to live, life is full of ups and downs. You just have to be lucky enough to find yourself and people who make it worth living. 

Always. &. Forever. 

Kristy