🏃🏽‍♀️ Why I Left the Social Media Streets

I deleted my personal & creative Instagram accounts in December 2023, leading to a limited social media presence in 2024. Leaving social media has been a journey of realization for me. It also presents challenges as a creative because I have to be more intentional about sharing my creations with the world. In this episode, I share my evolution through social media platforms and some of the revelations I've experienced six months post-social.

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Transcript

Raya: 0:15

Well, hello, beautiful people. How y'all doing? Welcome back to the Sheer Creativity Podcast. And I know, I know, please hold your tomatoes. Don't throw them at me yet. I know I've been absent for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, but it definitely wasn't an intentional hiatus. And I wrote a little bit about why I was away in my newsletter. I've recently renamed it in the time I was away. It's now called Of Wisdom and Wander. You guys like that title? I really like that. I think I kind of ate with that. My newsletter is where I send out my personal writing as well as updates for the podcast. So if you like to read essays about life events, creativity, or black womanhood, I'm your girl. Regarding my newsletter, I do have some paid posts now. And that's mainly because it's a little bit of a tangent, but as a writer, I think there's often this tension that exists where I'm trying to figure out how much of my personal life I'm going to share on the internet, especially. So I've been kind of grappling with that lately and I feel like my hiatus, the reason for that was a little bit more on the personal side. So I wanted to keep that for a community of care and also not for everybody's consumption. Now if you want to subscribe, it's only 5 a month. And a lot of those proceeds go to this podcast and making sure I can get my creative projects out there. So thank you to those who are considering becoming paid subscribers. But yeah, I told y'all that I was going to talk to you about my experience on social media, and then I dipped, but I'm back now and I want to have that conversation. And I think I would like to preface this social media conversation, first and foremost with this episode does not exist to push you toward having social media or not having social media. I'm only sharing y'all my stance, what I've been through. Um, but the main takeaway that I would like to share through this episode is that if you don't want to be on social media as a creative or as an individual, You are under no obligation to be present in that space. And people aren't saying that enough.

3:03

One thing I'm really grateful for, I had Amelia Hruby on the podcast earlier this year, and she talked a lot about leaving social media and how we believe that it's something that we can't do, or we're afraid of doing. So if you're in any way disillusioned, if you're distracted by it, if you're unhappy with the way that social media has affected your life, you can leave, and you can still be a successful creative. One thing that me and Amelia talked about is that they have been having successful businesses. Society has thrived for years without it. So why do we think that we have to stay there and we can't thrive? You know, we can't have successful practices or businesses or creativity when this social media is still a very new phenomenon, like you can still be successful is what I'm saying. That's it. So if you hear this paper rifling in the background, that's me looking through my notes. And I want to take you guys back to 2011, maybe 2012. At this point, Laraya, little Laraya is 11 or 12 and around that time. I got my very first Facebook. It did not last long. Let me just tell you. Honestly, I'll just go ahead and tell y'all. I used to delete and restart stuff like crazy. I will delete an account like crazy. Now I'm not going back, but in my past I used to. So when I started off on Facebook, it actually wasn't me that deleted it. It was my mother. She was not happy with me when she found out I had it. And she made me delete that promptly. you know, I didn't understand at the time what she was trying to communicate with that. But I was in the seventh grade and maybe my mom felt like I was too immature at the time to be on a social media platform. And she wasn't on it either. I think this was. Maybe right after Facebook had become accessible to everybody and not just college students with the edu address. So after that, I was off social media for a little bit and I don't really remember much about that experience. I just remember it was all very new. But after that, then Instagram became pretty popular and I got an account on there. And also a Snapchat to conversate with my cousins back and forth. So the early days in my social media journey, I remember feeling very enthralled with this idea of creating my own persona. I felt like I had this opportunity for people to see me in this brand new light. And I think that began a process of seeking validation on these apps. Because I felt like, ooh, I can post all these photos, I can look like this, I can do this, and make myself seem more interesting? Maybe? I don't know. I would stress about likes and comments though, like crazy.. I've always had a very complicated relationship with social media, which is why I deleted and re downloaded so many times. But I didn't know it at the time. It felt like everyone kind of had some, some FOMO or some type of stress about sharing photos or videos or statuses online. And maybe that's why we had so many filters and things of that nature. I always had these underlying feelings of, if this doesn't get likes, it must mean there's something wrong with me. Or, when I would see people at some event, I'd be like, uh, so why wasn't I invited? or if I posted something and my friends didn't like or comment, I'd be like, so are we fighting? Like, um, why, why didn't you comment on this? Why didn't you engage with this? It felt like as much as I wanted to be seen, and that's really it, I wanted to be seen. I realized just how exposing it was to be seen. It felt like exposure. It really did. Like I was giving people a license to put me under a microscope, to zoom in into my insecurities. It was really weird. I deleted Instagram twice since I first joined, maybe around 2013 2014. but I always went back and I followed the same people. I don't know if they were sick of me. They probably were. And so I, I stayed on it for some time. Then I ended up going to college and I think at that time, Snapchat was really popping for me. Like. I was posting my little statuses, not statuses. Like, I don't know, stories. That's what, see, I haven't been on the app in quite some time. I deleted Snapchat around, uh, I want to say late 2020. Yeah. I used to post on stories and have snap streaks and things of that nature. but I got on Twitter in 2017, which was my freshman year of college. That did not last long for you, girl. Now, one thing I will say, it was a very funny space. I think around that time, black Twitter was Going crazy on Kanye saying slavery was a choice and that was quite a time to be on the app. Um, I was definitely bombarded with meme after meme after meme and it felt like this this real cynical sarcastic space and I'm funny. I'm a funny girl. So I Feel like I can laugh with the best of them But I struggled to join it rather than just be a spectator and teehee and ha ha at other people's stuff. Like, I felt this pressure for everything I posted to be funny, there goes that insecurity again. I felt anxious over if it wasn't funny or insightful or if it would fall flat. Most people decide to just be spectators now on social media because there is so much content to consume. I think at that time I wanted to be in on the action and it was just hard for me. The, the consistent disagreements, all the, all the arguments, the backbiting, all of that caused me to leave that platform maybe like a year or two in. Around the same time that I started to be a Twitter girlie, I started posting poems on Instagram on a separate page. this era of time was probably the most fun I've had on a platform. Because I was doing something I really loved and I was finally showing that off to the world. Before that, if somebody read my poetry or even if they so much as looked over my shoulder while I was writing. Oh, I would have, we would have a fight. I would be in a tizzy. Of course I'm comfortable in that space now, but. At the time, I was very comfortable in that creative space and making that content, and it was gaining traction. I think one of the reasons why I felt so good about it was because the feedback was generally positive. Like, I didn't really receive any negative feedback. Nobody was in my DMs saying, Girl, you're horrible. So I, I felt really good. I was following other poets and commenting on their work and they're commenting on mine saying they're liking it. It was a great time for once. I wasn't scared to post anything and it didn't feel like I was constantly grabbing at attention or validation. It was just me expressing myself in a very authentic way. So time wise we're around 20, 20, 20, 21. And my audience started to slow down a little bit. It started to dwindle. And my usual like count started to change to a smaller amount, even though my follower count stayed the same. And I realized that Instagram reels were getting more traction at the time, and it was still pretty new. I tried my hand at making some, and I remember the first one had over a hundred likes. And I felt pretty good about that, but I really didn't want to make them. Like, I, I really, really don't. I don't like it. It just wasn't my primary ideal way of self expression. Like, before, I would take my tripod outside and I would just take photos in nature, and that felt really authentic to myself. But making videos, it just, it wasn't really me, but it's like, people say you gotta play the game. So, if I'm going to go out, get those followers, get people to look at me and see the content, and continue to receive those likes and comments that I used to love so much. I gotta force myself to participate because that's what social media cajoles you to do. I made a few more videos, but those didn't get the same amount of engagement as the first one because they want you to stay in the apps and keep, keep going, keep going, keep going, you know, making that content and seeking this high level of virality. And what I've learned is one of two things will happen. Number one, you never go viral and you just continue seeking that high. Or number two, you do make it, you do have a video that reaches hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million views. But then it becomes difficult to maintain. And so now you're at this crossroads of I'm never going viral, but I'm keeping the content going in the hopes that I will someday reach this level of virality. Or you're on the other side of the spectrum and you've had it before and now you're itching to do it again. And so either way, you become addicted to this idea of virality and people looking at me and validation and approval. It has a dangerous place to be in my opinion. It's a dangerous place to be. I've touched a little bit on the addiction side of it, but I want to talk about how my mental health was being affected on social media because that's a really big part of it. I write about this a lot in my newsletter. But I feel like social media has always kind of played on this idea of unworthiness And social media really exacerbates that feeling times 10. It has been kind of this breeding ground for my self esteem issues because I've been on it since I was 12. And when I think about it, 12 is such an impressionable age where you really do want people to like you. You want people to approve of the things that you do. And that's when I really started to compare myself, like I'm comparing my follower counts to friends or people I admire, and I look at my own and I'm like, what, what's wrong with me? Why y'all don't like me? You know what I'm saying? I remember seeing someone in my life hit an astronomical amount of views on a reel. And I'm wondering, well, why don't mine hit the same amount of engagement? Because I'm working just as hard. You know, I'm trying. And as a creative, it's like I'm playing the game, this isn't my primary way of expressing myself, but I'm playing the game because I want people to see what I'm doing. And this feeling is compounded upon because all these social media apps have the same goal. The main objective is to make you addicted so that you'll spend more time in the app. That's how they make their money. If you spend more time in the app, that means you're seeing more ads. And that's how they make their money. And it's a cycle. Because now I'm addicted. And my mental health is worsening. But it's a cycle that is difficult to break. And I'm promoting my art. I'm promoting this work that I'm proud of. And Social media can steal that spark if your mental health is being affected if you're comparing your creativity to someone else and feeling like you're not being seen. Because that's the thing that we all talk about with the algorithm. We're not being seen, even if our people follow us, they're not seeing us. And that can be really discouraging and disheartening. I felt like I had to be present on these apps. For one, because this is the way I showcase my work, who will see me if I'm not here? If I'm not present on this social platform, who is going to know that I'm there? And also, I think the second part of it is my friends are on here. Like if I leave, they gon still be on here. And we're sharing funny videos like as much as we talk about social media being a toxic space. And I say it all the time. Some of it be funny. Like some of it is fun. It is not all toxic. It's also how I find out about events, like different poetry events that I want to go to, this is how I find out what's coming up with other people are doing, you know what I'm saying? So how can I deal with that FOMO? And I want to speak to those fears by referencing the episode that I did with Amelia Hruby. I've talked about her a lot on this episode because of the episode that we had together. We talked about her leaving social media and creating a six figure business afterwards and Amelia spoke about a grieving process to leaving social media. And I feel like over the past few months I have grieved. Part of that grieving process in accepting that I am leaving those spaces for good. I've had to change the way that I receive information and the way that I value and seek connection. Now it's very important to me that I depend on my physical in person relationships for validation or, affirmation in what it is I'm doing both creatively and just personally. In my personal life, the people who truly matter to me, the people who truly matter to me have my phone number. And I think Tom Holland said this on somebody's podcast. He said, if you have a problem with me, you can call me. If you don't have my phone number, you don't know me well enough to have a problem with me. And I'd like to just expound on that a little bit more to say, if you don't have my phone number, then your opinion of my life isn't something that I have to give weight to. It's not. And that really frees me from seeking affirmation on the internet. And it narrows down the opinions that I listen to on a regular basis. I know with my newsletter, it's on Substack, and if you don't know what Substack is, it is this platform for writers and authors and so many different types of people to write newsletters and things of that nature. But it's also added a new social media component that's like Twitter in a way. But I said that to say that when people don't comment on my newsletter posts or people don't like them. I can get a little discouraged, but what matters to me is when people that have relationships with me on a day to day basis, text me and say, wow, I read What you wrote. It's amazing. Um, and that let me know that number one, just because people don't like or comment, something doesn't mean that they're just casting you aside or like they don't care. Sometimes they, they're reading, they really do like what you're doing. But number two, these are the people who know and love you. And these are the people who will root for you in everything creative that you do. And that, that's the opinion that you should be seeking out. I also think on the professional side, I rely on relationships I have for future opportunities, which is the very essence of networking. And I'll say this, and maybe you guys will agree. Maybe you don't, it's okay. Um, but I we think that networking now is sending a DM, and sure, but I feel like it's more personable, more meaningful. If I go to an event, I shake some hands, I give out some business cards, I ask you what you're doing creatively, you ask me what I'm doing creatively, we exchange numbers maybe, email addresses maybe, and we collab together. I feel like you would know so much more about me, and I would know so much more about you if we did that other than me sliding in your DMs. Like it's, I, I think that social media has made us a little bit lazy in that area and unable to communicate in that area. Now I talk to some people that I've had on the podcast to see who they'd recommend interviewing. And I gotten involved with organizations in person that I love and people who amaze me through their creativity. So if anything, leaving social media has made me more connected to others and to myself. And let me tell you why I feel so connected to myself, my mental health has improved significantly since leaving Instagram in December, which is six months ago, almost six months ago, and I still hold on to my Facebook just for work purposes. I'm barely on there though, but I feel like my mind is clearer, which also makes me feel like social media has prevented me from assessing why I believe what I believe. And why I think the way that I do, um, because think about it, when you're are bombarded by so many messages, so much content all the time, just scrolling through content, through ideas, through other people's thoughts, basically, you could be ending up believing something about a person or a viewpoint or an idea that once you disconnect, you're like, why did I think that? When's the last time you assessed why you think the way you think? Like, you know how, I don't want to sound ageist in this, but you know how when people who are older are talking about things and you realize that they're just reciting what they've heard on the internet and they don't really know what it, what they're saying, what that means. That's what we do all the time. And maybe it's just me, maybe it's just me turning 25 in two months and my frontal lobe is developed. But I feel like I've regained my ability of critical thinking. And this will be a little bit of a shorter episode because I'm starting to wrap up all the things that I've said. But I want to end by saying, if you're scared to leave social media, You're not alone. Um, even though I'm six months from when I had social media, there's still some things that feel a little bit murky. Still some things that feel a little bit scary. There's a freedom, but there's also like an anxiousness there. Because now I will say you have to put your creativity to work in order to find other ways of connection that kind of goes against the grain of what is normal to you, meaning I could have just put a post up, but now I have to network, but now I have to find other ways of connecting people to what I'm doing. I understand that can be, that can be a little bit taxing. I understand. And that's a boat that I'm in right now. Maybe you have to redefine the way that you see success. I think we're all fighting for this millions of followers, millions of dollars idea of success. But what if success is actually you feeling whole? What if success is actually you creating what's important to you? And I promise you, I truly believe when you are creating what's important to you, what you're called to create, you're never invisible. You're never invisible. You may have to switch up your processes to adjust and maybe some projects Don't work the same off social media platforms. That happens. I won't lie to you. Social media marketing is not the only method of marketing and it's through true connections that you can really grow as a creative creativity needs community. And I don't want you to keep seeking an artificial version of that on social media, if that's not what you want. If you want something that feels more meaningful, if you want something that feels more in your lane, in the way that you express yourself, you can leave. You can. That's all I got for you guys today. I am coming back next week, not next week, I'm coming back week after next, and we'll have Jakia Fuller at the podcast and we'll be talking about sustainability, and she's just a multidisciplinary creative. She's amazing. So you guys tune in for that. Sign up for the newsletter in the show notes of Wisdom and Wander. Can't tell you guys to follow me on social media, but you can follow the podcast so you know when new episodes are here, you can also rate the podcast. Let us know what you think, not me saying us like it ain't just me, but let me know what you think. And I hope you guys have an amazing week.