Sorry if I repeat myself a bit, I mostly write stream of consciousness with little editing cuz that’s boring
DISCLAIMER: I am a professional in and of nothing, I just share my own dumb thoughts and opinions and any information is the best to my non-expert, non-professional knowledge. If anyone or anyone involved in any of the things I give praise to here turns out to be shitty or something, I probably don’t know. Assume I don’t end would rescind these endorsements if I did. Damn I hate talking like this, this shit sucks. Let’s get to the fun part.
I often have trouble and get defensive when people talk about how harmful and terrible social media and the internet are. Not that I want to invalidate anyone’s experiences or say that they are lying or anything like that, pretty much the opposite. Because I don’t want my experiences to be invalidated either, and the truth is, if it weren’t for the internet and social media, I wouldn’t be here. I guess I always felt confident online, and maybe even considered myself pretty ‘good at’ internet stuff — not that I didn’t make stupid choices, post stuff I shouldn’t, or get harassed and threatened and told to ‘unalive’ myself — because all of that and more, sure did happen. But overall, I would say a solid 65%+ of my time online has been positive and/or affected me positively, and at least from what I can glean from how people have talked about the internet, that’s not a common experience.
I always get a little shy trying to explain this to people face to face, because I feel like it comes off hella condescending, because the concepts are so simple and so obvious (see? that sounds so shitty). But then again, people don’t seem to be doing it that much, so like, obvious or not, maybe they need to hear it? Because, in the kindest and most respectful way possible, it is so incredibly easy to have mostly a good time online, and yall know that, and maybe even know how to fix your shit, but you don’t, and I hate seeing you so sad and angry all the time, so for you, person who needs to hear this, I will spell it out for you, just in case.
There is, for the most part, one rule. One simple thing that can make your online life (and by extension, your general life, with some exceptions) so much happier and less ‘toxic’: Follow stuff you like, and don’t follow stuff you don’t.
See? I told you it would sound condescending. But it’s real, and if you are a person who raves about how awful and toxic social media is (not an insult, just an observation), there’s a decent chance you aren’t taking this advice.
Follow things that make you happy. Force the algorithm gods to give you only positive posts. Websites and apps sole programming ‘mission’ is to make you stay on as long as possible, so, since you’re already gonna be scrolling for a couple hours, instead of looking at a bunch of news reports (we’ll get to that) about how terrible shit is, and stories about awful people doing awful things, and following celebrity drama, and aaaaaalllllllllllll of that bullshit, try animal videos. I’m serious though, a good third of my instagram feed is animals.
Go through your following list and start cutting the slack (ie, people you dont actually talk to and/or like, negative themed accounts — which, yes, include ‘cringe humor’ accounts, and so on). Once you’ve done that, search a bunch of general hashtags and find some good shit. Like some videos, follow some people, deep-dive into accounts. Niche hobbyists are my personal favorite. Artists, street performers, people with hyper specific interests, like making sculptures out of paper clips (not based on a real account, but wouldn’t be surprised if its out there somewhere, and I bet it’s awesome).
Exploring these hashtags, liking, following, just spending time on these accounts will MAKE your algorithm work towards these things. Inflammatory, upsetting stuff only thrives online because it’s what we give our attention to. I know you’ve heard it a million times, but it’s because it’s true.
Be wary of things that might feel like they make you happy, but actually don’t. I know that sounds like some weird brain-washy shit, but hear me out. I went through a phase in highschool of watching a lot of commentary channels. This seemed fun, I was enjoying the schadenfreude of watching bad people get dunked on for the bad shit they do, and oftentimes the commentators themselves were relatable to me in some way. People with issues that they would open up to the camera occasionally, to give their take on the drama or controversy a certain perspective, and that’s all fine and good, but that’s not all it was doing to my brain.
Watching youtube was my escape, my way to relax and unwind. But I was spending the time to relax and unwind, reminding myself of the terrible people and their terrible deeds — not to mention how personal these criticisms often got, which made it far too easy to compare individuals in my life to much worse people — or on the other side, dehumanizing these people into nothing — watching dozens of people retrace the acts and crimes of he who shall not be named g̶r̶e̶g̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶i̶o̶n̶ and many others like him for hours a day, during the time when I was trying to escape the shit of everything else was making me and keeping me a very angry and sad person.
On top of all that, there’s a trap you unknowingly set yourself up for if you watch too many of these channels. They all know each other, or at least know of each other. Many are friends and acquaintances, but also feel bound to ‘report’ on the drama and wrong-doings of people, especially other youtubers, and one day, one or more of them is bound to fuck up, or give a bad take and defend that take far too harshly, or something like that. And then you have to watch all your other favorites choose sides and take each other down, but outside of what is often a single incident or video, you still really like the creators on both ‘sides’ and wish everyone could just shut up. I watched it all too many times, and was angry and sad all of the time.
Obviously, I’m not saying toxic youtube culture caused my anxiety and depression, but I am saying that it certainly did not help, and even people not predisposed to those issues and disorders can still easily fall into the trap.
NOTE: Also, when I say ‘commentary channels’, I’m not talking about channels like Danny Gonzales, Drew Gooden, Kurtis Conner, Scott Cramer, etc. I know they technically are, but I am talking about more divisive and heavy commentators. Danny, Drew, Kurtis, Scott, and others, mostly talk about light things like tiktok communities, low budget movies, interesting niches online — all while making it very clear they don’t condemn these communities even if they are poking fun at them. I actually think those channels are a great way to redirect your algorithm in a more positive direction. I am talking about people who get in heavy detail on heavy topics that they might have zero business preaching about. Can you tell I’m trying so so hard not to name names? I do not need some random person who knows of a popular commentator to find this, send it their way, and have a 43 minute video on this piece lol.
I’ll go less in depth on this one, but watching AITA videos (‘Am I The Asshole?’) or reading those threads… maybe stop. I dunno, maybe your brain is different and the schadenfreude is enjoyable and inconsequential to you, but I had to stop. It’s the same idea of spending your precious ‘free/fun time’ putting yourself in a triggered or upset state and getting angry at people you don’t even know. Just, give it a try. Quit the AITA and see if your general mood changes. If it doesn’t, or hell, gets worse, than hey, maybe it was helping after all.
News is also not great. BEFORE YOU START — yes. It is bad to be uninformed. But you do not need to be informed of everything. You personally can’t fix everything, you probably can’t fix most things, and while knowing about things even if you can’t fix them is important, there’s not a whole lot of point if you let all the shitty shit on the news absorb you and you end up hating the world so much you don’t see it as worth saving anymore.
Pick a news show. One. Maybe 2, if you feel the need for multiple perspectives, and make them good ones. Same goes for commentary channels. I have one news show, and one commentary channel (again, outside of Danny/Drew/Kurtis/etc because I don’t know if I count them in that category exactly), and I picked the commentary channel who most often talked about light topics and has largely moved away from ‘youtube drama’.
And after all of this, obviously, no one is perfect. I often fall down news rabbit holes and find myself looking in toxic comment sections, and even, on my weaker days, replying and arguing with those comment sections. But I catch myself, and I stop. I remove myself from the situation or piece of media, and I move on, to something less irritating. If there’s drama or controversy regarding an account or channel I follow, I look into it for a little, and then I decide if I need to unfollow. Then, I make my choice, and move on. If they make a change, I could always come back / if more information comes out and turns out they are bad, I can always unfollow once I find out.
People seem to feel a lot of weight and pressure when it comes to who you follow, who you watch, etc, etc. But it’s just a button. Press it, refresh the page, and your feed just got a little bit better. It’s really not hard, and once it’s done, it requires nothing from you. The fact of the matter is, bad and depressing shit gets made because you watch it. You give them your attention and money and press. If you stop, it will de-centivize others from trying to do the same thing going forward, and if we all stop, they will die. I know it sounds a little cheesy, but we’ve seen proof over and over again, they are just really hard habits to break. Time and attention are money. Don’t give them any.
And all of this is not to say that seriousness isn’t important or good sometimes — like I said before with news channels: it is good to stay informed. It is good to have some media that covers important, not-fun but necessary topics of discussion. But too much of that just kills your soul, and sometimes you don’t notice until you’re way further in than you thought.
To make this change easier for y’all, and to spread the joys of some of the accounts and channels I enjoy, I will be posting a list of instagram accounts to give you a starting point (a lot of these people are also on tiktok if you prefer). Once it’s been posted it’ll also be linked within this article. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little rant, and I hope your enjoyment of the internet gets a little bit easier to achieve because of it :)
One last time, because I worry: None of this is meant to sound shitty or hurt anyone's feelings, and I know my way wont work for 100% of people. I just know that people were telling me similar stuff for a long time, and I wish I’d listened sooner, and I assume I’m probably not the only one procrastinating good advice. I hope it helped, if it didn’t, I hope something else does :)
