III. Grad School & the Breaking Point

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr, Tinder (2010–2018)

“Keeping up with the Kardashians”? More like “keeping up with my social media applications”.

Facebook & Twitter in one hand, I began to discover and juggle other social networks. While YouTube was nothing new (I watched it even in middle school), it became an app which I used to kill time. Waiting on the train? Might as well destroy my family’s data plan & watch the top 5 greatest trick plays in college football history. But YouTube, for all of its bells & whistles, never really became a ‘thing’ for me. Sure, I had a YouTube profile and had a list of 80 videos on my “Favorites”, but I didn’t start vlogging, nor did I watch vlogs. I just didn’t find them appealing.

My sin was Instagram. Holy hell, my sin was Instagram. I was one of its first users when the app came out (I should put that on my CV or something), and I immediately fell in love. I always had an interest in photography, and as smartphone cameras were getting better, I was capturing some pretty sick shots with my iPhone. I travel quite a bit, and so I end up taking a lot of photos wherever I go. Eventually, I began realizing which photos to share & which to keep private. That picture of a majestic purple and pink sunset? Share that ‘ish. That selfie of me with a double-chin? Cute… but probably not going to rack in the “likes”. I learned the art of hashtagging, and I quickly made a name for myself as one of the most popular Catholics on Instagram. I was getting messages from people all over the world, everyone complimenting me on my photography & curation. Instagram also let me peer into the lives of others. Whereas Facebook was a conglomeration of status updates, videos, memes, pokes, and more, Instagram was all about one thing — pretty pictures. Suddenly, every place I went, I ended up capturing. Every church I visited, before I even knelt down to pray, I snapped a dozen photos, trying to capture that “perfect” shot for my 17-thousand followers.

I was never really a Vine guy, but I had one. My first time drinking at college was actually captured on Vine, as I “slapped the bag” and, when I was finished, yelled “WOOOOOOO!!!” Vine was the place where I could pretend I was funny for like, 6 seconds. Some people became celebrities off of Vine; I was simply the one watching their creative videos, wondering how I could go viral, too. Speaking about going viral, I created a Tumblr account, hoping to get some of my blog pieces out into the Internet frontier. Unfortunately, my blogging career never left the launching pad. Instead, I saw that the way to success is by posting “sex gifs”, sad poems, witty, hypothetical text exchanges, and fashion photography. Given that none of the aforementioned things are within my talent range, I quickly bowed out, but kept the account anyhow. Vine and Tumblr were two social media networks which I used every now and then, but not to the extent that I used Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

I suppose I should mention Snapchat and Tinder, now. Yes, I had a Snapchat. No, I didn’t really like it. While some of my friends truly went crazy over filters which made them look like dogs, I used Snapchat mostly to send my friends stupid pictures, like me wearing sandals without socks in 30-degree weather. My interest in Snapchat waned as the company began relying on TMZ, celebrity gossip, & click-baity news titles (I Opened My Toilet and You WON’T BELIEVE What I Saw!”). Still, I checked it often, if for any reason but to watch my friends’ stories. I saw how my friend Josh had a rough day at work. I watched my friend Sonya complain about the weather. I saw Emily at an EDM concert, although I couldn’t really make much out from the screams & bass. But I’m sure it was fun. I watched these stories as I walked to & from class, but never during class — I never knew if and when my friends would go from posting a picture to a video, and I couldn’t risk my phone blaring the video of my friend lip-syncing to “Despacito”.

Don’t dog-filter & drive, folks. (Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash)

I have written about Tinder before. There is not much else to say, other than the fact that it is entirely possible to ‘match’ with someone while you are sitting on the toilet. For thousands of years, our ancestors established moral codes for choosing a spouse. Hell, even animals have elaborate mating codes. Meanwhile, in 2018, we swipe left & right while sitting on the train, possibly sitting next to someone you just swiped left on. But enough on that; time for my last social media platform. When I signed up for a LinkedIn profile, I pretty much knew I hit adulthood. Whereas 15-year-old me was using HTML to make my Myspace look “cool”, my 25-year-old self is wondering if such coding experience counts as a “professional skill”. The cool thing about LinkedIn is that it is the social media platform I used the least. The bad thing is that I found out how many people I know sell “It Works!” products.

Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Snapchat. YouTube. LinkedIn. Tumblr. Tinder. Throughout the past 8 years, I have used these apps, sometimes purposefully, sometimes unintentionally. But I used them. And even worse is the fact that they used me. For years, I have tried to balance the usage of these apps with my studies, my gifts, my faith, my friends, my family, and myself. And guess who won? The apps. I attempted to fill every silent space with the noise of these apps. The morning walk to class? Time to scroll on Facebook. Waiting in line at Starbucks? Time to check my Twitter DMs. Waiting to be seen by the doctor? Time to post that picture of last night’s sunset on Instagram. Admittedly, my mother is no longer baffled by this. She knows that, for the past decade, I have had various social media platforms, and spend a gross amount of time on it. Her concerned has shifted; as an educator, she sees how many fights in school have been the extension of fights which began on social media. Just last week, she saw two girls get suspended for fighting over a guy, the boyfriend of one who was caught by the other. The cheated girlfriend posted something about “home-wrecking hoes”; the other girl saw it, and confronted her in the hallway, leading to hair-pulling, shouting, and school suspension. “I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!” my mom tells me on the phone. “I hate Facebook,” she says. As she says this, I am watching CNN’s coverage of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress over the latest data breach scandal. “Me too, Mom,” I respond. “Me too.”