by Don Hall

It turns out that social media, the existence of constant information, disinformation, misinformation, random entertainment, clips of the opinions of millions, flooding into a pocket-sized computer and easily accessible by anyone in possession of these computers has a few negative side effects. Who woulda thunk it?

Someone once warned to beware the free lunch because there’s always a catch and the world populated with companies like Google, Meta, X, and TikTok all operate from that specific catch: they’re free to use so they can sell your attention and time to the highest bidder. But the relentless advertising and in-app purchase options are little more than annoying. Social media is a hellscape because of the people who use it.

Like smoking or doing meth or rampant condomless sex leaving your male appendage in dire threat of rotting off, most people engaging on the regular with countless, faceless TikTok or IG ‘friends’ know this behavior is poisonous. They understand that it has almost single-handedly caused a mental health crisis among the Gen Z crowd and yet they persist. An actual friend of mine cannot let FB, IG, LinkedIn, or X go because of FOMO. Fear of Missing Out.

We are social animals and the pull to be a part of things going on is practically irresistible. The difficulty presented by the online cohort is that so few are actually acquaintances let alone friends. Imagine having a real world group comprised of ten people—ten actual friends. Trying to keep up with their dogs, their kids, their vacations, their tragedies, their get togethers in a week is overwhelming. The effort to combat FOMO eclipses time to reflect, work out, work a job, sleep. Ten people. Now multiply that by 100 and toss them all into a bucket of a few friends and a host of folks you think are cool and would like to know. Again multiply that by another 100. In the pursuit of keeping up with everyone the thousand yard stare into the tiny computer becomes all-encompassing.

Then there are those who practice LMO—Leave Me Out. That crowd rolls their eyes at every X feud, each new TikTok trend, and understand that in an era of influencers, personal branding, and the melee to sell all comers anything from bottles of anti-dandruff shampoo to Ozempic the only way to win is to not play. It’s an embrace of being left out of a system that devalues anything but algorithmic marketing and a society of angry, attention starved, retarded whores desperate to prank senior citizens and scream at teachers in order to infect the most of the mindcult like a virus.

As I tend to say, I got rid of almost all of my social media presence when I realized it was causing me to despise people I’d never meet and shun those I knew but who couldn’t help but unleash their id on the facetious avatars of humanity. Far from FOMO, I’m all LMO and happier for it.