Why we disappeared from social media
Hi! Erin here with some thoughts about social media in 2020…
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I struggle with consistency. One of my more reliable traits is getting bored with whatever I'm currently working on and simply moving on to something new. This translates to lots of fun as a creative being, and lots of guilt and shame and difficulty as a self-employed adult who needs to make a living and also have clean clothes and dishes and things like that. So when Michael and I decided to make the move to full time music making, I knew I would have to push hard against my natural tendencies. I picked a few areas in which to commit to consistency, and for everything else I tried the technique of letting go. One of the chosen areas was social media. I pushed myself to post daily (to satisfy the all powerful algorithm), and with some fun brain trickery and lists and online tools I pretty much succeeded. I was proud of our online presence and even got a few compliments from fellow music professionals. It was satisfying to distill our lived experience into easily digestible moments for Facebook and Instagram.
And then 2020 happened. It became even more important to have an engaging online presence, because what other presence could we have?? But it was jarring to post selfies and livestream events when fear, stress, overwhelm, and uncertainty were the overriding emotions in our world. Posting on social media began to feel forced. To be honest, it started to feel uncomfortable in the fall of 2019, when we lost our dog and our tour van within weeks of each other. How do you share real, ongoing, complicated grief through a medium which prefers things a bit more positive and simplified?
2020 has been anything but social media friendly. We're grieving the loss of normalcy, safety, closeness to our community. Some of us are grieving the loss of jobs and income and stability. Some of us are grappling with depression and anxiety, newfound or compounded by this beast of a year. Like so many others, I lost a loved one to COVID this year. Like so many others, my head is filled with the knowledge of injustices that I don't know how to fix. None of this is something that can be easily packaged and shared on Facebook. And if I wasn't a musician in 2020, I could have just logged off all of these social platforms, deleted them from my phone and waved an enthusiastic middle finger at them as I left them in the dust.
But I am a musician in 2020, and we don't just make music anymore. We make *content*. We are a *brand*. We must play nice with the *algorithm* (post everyday, people prefer pictures, people prefer smiling human faces in those pictures, don't link out to other websites lest you dare to drive people away from the book of faces!!!!). The conflict between being a real human going through real, impossible, crushing days, and being a fun online presence bringing joy and distraction and good music to people on the internet started to wear me down. The dichotomy really got to me. (Y'all like that rhyme?? :D)
And so... I just stopped posting. Sometime in late summer/early fall. Sometime around the time that I broke my heel into a few different pieces and had to get surgery in the midst of a pandemic (but that’s a story for another day). Just decided, nah, I don't want to be fake on social media, but I also can't be real right now. I deleted apps. I talked to friends and family. I talked to my therapist. I talked to my life partner. I faced demons I didn't even know I had. It was freeing and good and necessary to retreat from being "known" online. It meant being known to my own self.
This may seem like a very dramatic way to announce, "Hey I left social media for a few months and now I'm back," but I'm hoping this might resonate with a few people. Specifically those who feel crushed by the necessity to present yourself online, for whatever reason. If you feel like you can't simultaneously be a full person and also fit yourself into something an online audience can "like", take a break. I promise it will be okay.
Anyway, I'm back online. I've got a few new rules for myself:
1) Don't play nice with the algorithm. Share what feels right, when it feels right. Don't take up space just to take up space (aka all those times when I was a kid when my mom asked "Are you talking because you have something to say or just to hear yourself talk?)
2) Don't try to please the widest possible audience. We are not a corporation that needs to sell to every living being on this planet. Be yourself, and you will find your people.
3) Take a step back whenever you need to.
All that to say- I am tentatively excited to be connected once again. See you around the internet.
