Insights

The Internet is broken. Social Media is Haux.

Is it about the audience or is it about the artist?

Why do we create what we create?

The world is shouting Me Mine I. And nobody is listening to the screams as everybody is busy screaming.

Every social media we use is no longer a place to connect with others.

They have become weapons to divide the society.

It is disheartening to see what happened to Twitter.

It became X. A battleground to impose Elon Musk’s views on the world.

The party he supports, the ideology he follows, and his work.

It no longer feels like we are seen on social media. All we see is some kind of agenda.

An agenda that has brainwashed some of the bright minds ( as we call them).

Influencers who swim in the safe waters and stay in the good books.

Everyone is praising these megalomaniacs as saviours of free speech and democracy.

Things are not different with other social media platforms.

They are thriving on the bad actors who are polarising society in the name of Caste, Race, Class and Creed.

But can we blame the so-called leaders for the failing state of the internet?

Your voice is the backbone of the internet and it is broken.

The leaders are a representation of you and what we voted for collectively, there is something wrong with us.

What?

Political debates at the dinner table have turned into battles.

Social media is no longer polarising society but our families and loved ones too.

I don’t want to participate in this madness.

It is utterly useless, unproductive and lacks empathy.

Merely making a statement that could slightly hint that you don’t like the rightist or leftist would trigger something in friends and family and eat up hours of your time.

People vomit the indigested information they are fed by the people who want to stay in power by disempowering the people.

They want a culture that is incapable of asking valid questions.

As your calibre to question is a threat to the power.

This is no longer about one country, this has spread deep into all the countries.

Unity in diversity was the soft power of India, now diversity has become the medium to launch the weapon of hate.

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Where do I play a role in this individually?

The rise of social media has played a vital role in elevating the expectations of the creator.

It paints a dreamy picture that the users have power and there is a possibility of changing someone’s life for the better overnight.

If you can dance like a monkey and display the intelligence of a stone, yes you have a better chance.

But if you question or inspire questions you will be buried under the heap of shallow content.

Your content will never see the light of the day.

It is depressing.

For people who genuinely have something unique to offer. Which is not “Do 10 things like a monkey to become a chimp”

I am done with it. I no longer feel like logging on to social media.

Any of it.

It is a waste of time, energy and power we hold in ourselves.

I tried not for the love of doing it, but in the hope that someday I would be found by like-minded people.

But my calls never breached the walls of the algorithm

The only videos that garnered millions of views on Reddit and Instagram were videos about cats and dogs.

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Social media was supposed to be an enabling factor for humanity.

To connect beyond the boundaries of city, state and countries.

To amplify the voices that were not heard in their own community.

If you are still living in the notion that it gives your voice a medium to percolate ideas into creative society, you are naive.

All you will get out of it is agitation.

Anger of not reaching the audience you deserve and disappointment of the false hope.

Personal connections hooked people to social media at its inception. It was good to be connected with friends on Facebook once.

Now it is capitalising on our dreams and aspirations. It knows everything about you.

More than what you are comfortable sharing with your own parents.

This information is used against you.

To pursue you to act not in your own interest, but in the interest of the political parties and billionaires.

You have become a victim of your own psychological patterns.

Endlessly scrolling through the data that is fed into your mind, so much so that it has started shaping your worldview.

I have disconnected from it. In a way, this post is to formalise it.

I write, every day.

Even if no one reads it. But I hope that people will read it. Every artist does hope for an audience.

But when they are compelled to discard the art and exercise activism, it is a sign of failing society.

I don’t want to participate in activism. I don’t want to change anything.

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To change something you have to participate in the act.

And the participation fuels the growth of this madness.

I am better off on my balcony sipping a cup of chai and looking at the bird.

Let these people propagate what they want, I choose to be untouched.

I am watchful.

I also want these platforms to become more and more powerful.

Not because I like them, but because this is the only way they will reach at there pick and start to devour on their own flesh.

Making them powerless is a long shot.

But we can let them become more powerful. So powerful that they are unable to handle their own power.

Any Political party that becomes seemingly undefeated, starts to dissipate itself from the inside.

The leader becomes his own enemy.

With no enemy left to fight with, he fights with himself and defeats himself.

The time has come when all the “powerful” leaders of the world are taking every step towards their own downfall.

I will be caving, until all this madness is over.

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I am happy that I get to write and express myself through my drawing and art.

I will stop using social media today.

Anyway, sharing on social media brings me 2-3 views here and there.

I would rather go on the streets and meet people in person to spread the word about my work.

It would be a great reminder that humans are not found in zoos and only on the mobile screen.

I write mostly on my own site and share it on Medium. I am happy.

It saves space in my mind.

For things, I instil more value into.

A rose has blossomed in my garden.

It is more significant than a politicised squirrel I never knew about until Elon made her famous for Trump.

If it is not helpful for me or you, why put your labour into it?

I wish the best of luck for whom it is working out.

But I am done with the ballet of algorithms, and putting faith in something that can change without notice.

Why put hours a day and years of work into building a castle in the sky?

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There is a huge amount of potential at stack in retreating from social media.

But that is a potential, nothing substantial.

These giants have created an image that you can’t succeed without being on social media.

But that is not a fact. There are multi-billion dollar advertising companies that have a few thousand followers on social media.

Business is not about how many followers you have. It is about what you have that can be offered to the world.

To be on social media is to take sides. Either left or right.

It is participation in the polarisation of the masses.

Have a very strong opinion about something. Violent.

It’s ugly and I can’t watch it anymore.

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Life will go on.

Social media is not the pedestal of personal and social life.

Success in life is not attributed to the number of followers either.

If my work is to shine, it will shine anyway.

There are instincts to share what I have written or created with the world.

And those urges will find new streams to flow in.

I am saving myself from the online frauds of “by my webinar” and “now buy more upsells”

No more swimming in the murky waters of social media, where the voice is lost in the noise.

No more listening to the screams of the vice.

I am done with all of it. And it feels great.

There is no glory in going viral. And all the money I have spent on ads is waste too.

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I want to get physical.

In many senses, LOL.

I am working on a book, which will be physical.

I am going to scratch this ich of meeting people in person to tell them about this blog rather than window communicating via Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp.

No sharing online, whatsoever. Accept for writing and drawings in this blog.

That too because sending letters is not a sustainable endeavour.

Or maybe I will try that too, if the pocket allows it.

Physical newsletters have way more impact than email newsletters.

Maybe it is time to try that.

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