I’m too uncool for social media

Why I’m not on social media and why I’m probably never going to be on it. 

I say I dislike social media. Only after spending a ridiculous amount of my sleeping and waking hours glaring at the never ending profiles. 

I remember I started my online presence way before most of my other classmates were on it. My then best friend told me Instagram was the “coolest thing ever” So I obliged and the same day made my profile. I remember the countless awkward usernames I changed in the span of a month. Because I couldn’t decide which one was “the coolest”. Only a handful of girls were on it, and it made me feel elite. I remember posting about 6-7 pictures on the same day because I didn’t know the unsaid Instagram protocol. To not spam the feed of your followers with overly- filtered- half faced- amateur selfies. 

Over the next two-and-a-half years, I tried all that social media offered. Instagram, Snapchat, Google Plus, Facebook, VSCO, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, Periscope, and I have lost count. 

And then I got bored. Just like with most things. Anupama gets bored, it’s a given. 

But it wasn’t the only reason I quit social media. 

I’m a private person. I don’t enjoy screaming out to the world that I make lasagna once a month, or that I’m such a sucker for sunsets, or I love my friends so much and call them bitches for fun. 

I’m not into keeping up with people just because I knew them from grade two. Where our only conversations are wishing each other happy birthday because a mutual friend posted for them. And feel obligated to text a customary happy-birthday-you-didn’t-die-in-the-past-year congratulatory message. 

It felt such a waste of time. Not that I use all of my seconds in the most productive way, but Instagram would definitely be on the lower part of the list. Time flies when you are having fun and when you are scrolling on social media. And no, those two things aren’t related. They are anything but related. I felt like crap afterwards and I didn’t have any fun. Not only with regards to the time invested but also how curious I was to know about somebody’s life who didn’t know I existed. Social media is like a children’s storybook with lots of colourful pictures and less text, but without the moral lesson at the end. You could read someone’s life on their social media profiles. 

I felt I had no control over what I wanted to see I definitely didn’t enjoy the process yet I was relentlessly doing it. 

I knew that if I was on social media and with easy access at my fingertips, I would be consumed by it wholly. So before I was devoured by my screen and ground like minced beef. Thanks to Mark and Evan. I made a not so glamorous exit from my potential social life. 

It’s been a few years, and I have gone back for a sneak peek because I was too afraid of missing out on the “fun”. The fun that’s always a lingering illusion that you later understand is nothing but a lie. 

I like to have people that will remember me spontaneously and not because they see my post on Christmas and wish me and ask me a few questions just to keep in touch. 

I like me better without social media. I don’t have to force myself to keep up and take pictures every two weeks just to be relevant or have a said number of followers to make me feel relevant.