Double Digital-Detox Report

On my first Social Media detox, I learned I don't really need to thoroughly "keep up to date" with the timeline daily. The lesson was on FOMO. And how DoomScrolling low-context 300-character posts isn't a thorough or effective way to keep up with anything.

Then, I still hit rock bottom, lost my grip, and ended up doing another detox. This time, I learned I don't need to do or be anything, online. Or live up to any idea of what/who I should be, or what/who other people think I am—especially with the flattened ways Social Media reflects people's identities and lives. What I really need to do to chase human actualization and fulfillment is, "cook" and create for an audience of one (me), at least for a while. I can't create while actively thinking about an audience. Especially a Social Web one. It just poisons the process for me.

Documenting and "sharing" the process on Social Media has just been an additional performance that has only slowed me down. Both in the labor of it, and in my sensitivity to response/reaction. Especially when posting makes me feel like I gotta do better and be better to… get support for projects in the meantime of those projects. Weird chicken-egg stuff.

Scrolling (large, multi-user feeds) stinks. Posting (quickly and frequently for "consistency" and instant validation) stinks. Content Creator-hood stinks.

Going forward, I'm prolly gonna visit personal sites more, and use my FollowDex to directly visit the profiles of SocialWeb-ers who have no interest in making personal sites. The RTs of those SocialWeb-ers will be what introduces me to new non-website-having SocialWeb-ers. It's just how I'd like to experience netizens' media from now on. No more low-context snippets of people, art, and topics in shuffle/trend/time order. I catch up with one person at a time. With a fuller picture of who they are and what they'd like to say, on their profile.

The one feed I can see myself using sometimes is Latest from Follows, which simply shows THE one latest post from each person you follow: so that I can remember profiles I'd like to check out thoroughly, not context-spliced and shuffled onto the timeline. Trying to get a full experience from someone, on the timeline, instead of on their profile, or better yet, their personal website… is just… bunk, honestly. Why do we bother… It's inefficient.

When it's an either-or choice, I want to die having made comics, at least for myself—not just having been a weird, quasi-content-creator or nano-celebrity social media influencer. This refocusing of priorities makes me feel more comfortable abandoning the greater timeline if and whenever my art process or survival in capitalism calls for me to do so.

I used to think the Official Required Procedure™ was like, "become deserving and recognized enough to garner the support to make comics, by sharing your efforts and existence on Social Media, first". Now I think, like, "bro, if I disappeared for months or even years and came back with comics and zines, would that be sick or what?" 🤘⚡ Sicker than DoomScrolling and "Dance-Monkey-Dance"-ing for a platform that's getting paid by venture capital investors just fine, with or without me.

There's not much to gain in managing/maintaining my presence on the timeline, right now. In community, sure. Which is why my instant messaging DMs and email address exist, and I'll still be visiting profiles to engage with others in-between seasons of more deeply focused creative work, going forward. I just no longer really subscribe to the idea of "Post (immediately), or It Didn't Happen", or the need to stay relevant or remembered by others. I'd rather be forgotten, making real output in solitude/silence than creating like, side-quest art to stay relevant and remembered. Or, making/posting only project art out of context and getting bummed out when that lack of context makes my art difficult for people to connect to or engage with.

I seek greater distancing between periods of the creation and distribution of my art. Luckily, I'm an OC guy, so I don't really lose much by posting when I want, unlike fan artists who have to strategically time posts around the releases and hype around pop culture IPs. I like the idea of just going off and making a lot of stuff, looking at the pile of it, plucking stuff out from the pile, and scheduling them onto Social Media both to not overwhelm Normal-Posters, and to fake the appearance and rhythm of a Normal, Plugged-In™ Poster. I imagine myself gathering stuff to schedule to Social Media monthly.

I think when my financial troubles started, and my living situation first became insecure, I imagined myself doing 3-or-4 shop windows a year, in 2026 & after I got better employment. Now I see myself only doing that once or twice a year. For a similar reason to posting: I'd like to amass products before even worrying about selling them rather than going 24/7-365 with creation and selling. Also… while I genuinely love designing and making things, seeing them in friends' homes, and getting a little financial help from doing so… I kinda hate being a salesman…? So I'm like, why would I wanna enter salesman mode 3-4 times a year?? 1-2 sounds good. Lastly, I hate a sustained and perpetual feeling of failure. Moving to a windowed shop system and having even fewer annual windows than I thought of having last time, will reduce the number of weeks I have to… feel like I'm failing, in that venture. Anyways.

This is how I feel for now, but I expect things to change again in the distant future. I've never been the same person twice, after all. I'm always changing. The "past" Hika that truly loved Social Media and Bluesky and Feeds and scrolling everything and staying up to date, and hyping everyone up, is still a real version of me. Just, also, an iteration of myself that has since changed due to more recent (negative) experiences and emotions that I've been through.

I guess this is my SmallWeb-Focused + Timeline/Feed/ScrollRot Avoidant + Creatively Locked In + DayJob Maxxing Era™. I'm praying it'll be more fruitful. Thank you for listening.

Visit websites. Learn how to subscribe to RSS feeds. Don't wait for Zuck, Jack, Elon, Mosseri, Eugen, or even Jay to deliver your friends to you on a silver, low-context, high-addiction platter. Paint the full-bodied picture of yourself you'd like friends and visitors to see.

For my mid-detox thoughts on why Social Media's UX dissolves social interactions and creative efforts, see: An Online Creative's Social Web Dethroning.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/k5v9czb-8EY?rel=0

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cPYz1a4T5bk?rel=0

For my mid-detox thoughts on why the Personal Website experience on catching up with people is a better parallel to its real-world equivalent, see HK★TMK: A Homepage is a Home.

And yep, that's the mirror.

Check out my website! It's wickedddd what're you waiting forrrr

HK★TMK | Home