So... here we are once more. I've decided to give social media a shot again or at least give myself the option to be more active there while avoiding the desire to repeatedly stab myself in the eyeballs with a pencil. I'll get to why I've decided to do so and how I plan to do Instagram (and fuck me, probably TikTok if I can stomach it) according to my own rules in a second. First, though, some venting.

Social media just really sucks...

Decorum would dictate that I create an easily digestible list of why I fucking despise social media with a greater passion than I do homoeopaths or space travelling billionaire cocks. This would allow it to be easily shared on said social media or Buzzfeed or whatever the fuck the internet decides is an appropriate platform for this useless mind vomit. Decorum, however, does not apply to this blog post, as you may have noticed from the excessive fucking swearing. Instead, here's an unconvincing attempt at a series of paragraphs, each desperately trying to contain strands of the spaghetti thought that I came up with on the fly within their designated boundaries. I have a thesis which I'm desperately avoiding writing, hence the lack of curation.

First of all, social media is consumed predominantly on mobile phones (an aside: you can only ever consume social media like a ravenous racoon, you can never enjoy, appreciate or attend to it). These attention-hungry micro-chopping-board wannabes remind me of all the horrific non-choices Western society has made in which the ability to stay in touch with relatives we so desperately fled from took priority over basic human decency. I'm not bothered to elaborate on this; just look up Foxcon and Congolese mines.

Secondly, social media make us regular humans bloody depressed. I will not back this up with references because I can't imagine how you can honestly contest this unless you're one of the spineless lizards whose supply of protein shakes depends on your maintaining these platforms. I also previously wrote at length about how they make me depressed, and I don't want to spend more time researching the maliciously complex ways they achieve this effect on me.

Thirdly, social media usage primarily funds the kind of people that I would argue are the only ethically justified victims of forced sterilisation programs, namely Silicon Valley geeks and advertisers. I sometimes wonder if these people think "social" is synonymous with hating yourself and envying others because that's what these platforms excel at. Seriously, 15th-century hermits could design more social spaces on the internet, and I would more willingly give them my money (at least they're already dead).

I will stop now before I insult more people. This is also a good point to assure you that I believe all human beings are worthy of love and respect, even if they unconsciously build worlds that make that exponentially more difficult. Except for Mark Zuckerberg. He can eat shit and die.

... but I plan to start using it more

Nonetheless, I plan to start using Instagram more often in the future, essentially for the same reason that I started using it in the first place: to get people to listen to my music so that I can get the occasional gig because gigs are fun. I find this quite selfish, probably because it is no dream of mine to "make it" as a music artist, so I'm just taking up precious screentime for the poor sods who are.

I also enjoy being silly on the internet (and in real life, for that matter), so there's that as well.

My terms and conditions

Still, if I do this, I will do it on my own terms. Here they are:

1. No scrolling, liking or commenting. Fuck. That. Shit. Part of me feels it is unfair to post and not interact with other people since they end up suffering while I don't. However, other people's masochistic tendencies are not my problem, and I'm not sacrificing my well-being because of some misplaced sense of guilt.
2. No posts of me enjoying myself other than at gigs. Seriously, fuck you and your holiday snaps. At least in the 70s people had the common decency of inviting you to their home and feeding you before subjecting you to their holiday slideshow; now you just stuff it in my face without asking me for consent, you prick. Lack of consent is another issue I have with social media, but I've digressed enough already.
3. The occasional activist or political post. I realise this is hypocritical, given my previous comment about consent (are you following me for breakbeat bangers or for my stupid opinions?). However, my excuse is that you should know what you're getting yourself into. I also made a song about mining operations in the DRC, so this isn't exactly a change of character.
4. I won't shy away from letting people know I feel shit. I don't want people's sympathy, I simply think it's healthy to remind people that sometimes (often?) life, she shitty, and that's fine. If I post something along these lines, I'll explicitly state that I'm not looking for support.
5. Regular stories or posts reminding people to get the fuck off their phones. My current idea is that this would be a roughly 5-second clip featuring the line "Get off your phone, stop keying that QWERTY" from Unglued's "Deep, Dark and Dirty", preferably with a shot of me getting punched off a chair in front of my laptop because yes, sometimes violence is funny (actually I don't think I would call that violence).

That's it. Gobs out.