Get off social media. Yes, you. Yes, now. (Monthly update #8)
Plus: Tomb Raider
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“[Name redacted]—he was your college roommate, right?”
“What? No. Just some guy I knew a little bit in high school. I don’t think I’ve interacted with him since then.”
“Oh. But he went to U of Nebraska with us, right?”
“I…have no idea. He might have been there. I really haven’t given the guy a thought since—y’know—high school.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, he thinks you’re an idiot.”
“Haha. Good for him.”
My wife was trying to tell me about the colossal shitshow unfolding on my Facebook wall (thanks to my most recent essay)—which I’m happy to say I remain blissfully unaware of.
“Do these people know that you never look at your Facebook comments?” she asked. “If they want a response, why aren’t they commenting on your blog?”
“I dunno,” I shrugged. “It’s sorta nice when the trash takes itself out.”
That’s probably a little harsh, but it’s where I’ve landed these days. As of this month, it’s been two years since my impromptu retirement from social media (see below), and the most shocking thing is how easy it’s been. While I haven’t been quite able to give up the reach of posting my work to Facebook, X, and Insta, I’ve found I have no desire at all anymore to scroll my feeds or check my notifications. Yes, social media connects you to a lot of people, but unfortunately it mostly just connects you to the sort of people who spend a lot of time on social media: people who would rather scroll endlessly than read books, who get their information from memes, who think shouting the latest slogan is a profound moral act. The article in question was one I’d spent the better part of a decade reading, thinking, writing, and rewriting about; why the hell would I want to hear from the Twitterbrained mob on it?
Something that’s been living rent-free in my head for the last few years is a tweet (yes, I’m aware of the irony!) posted by author Jason Pargin (John Dies at the End, et. al.)—I can’t find it at the moment, but it went something like, “The modern world makes a lot more sense if you keep in mind that (1) almost everything people do in their spare time is an attempt to reduce their anxiety, and (2) none of these things are any good at reducing anxiety in the long term.” It’s a thought that applies to everything designed to be addictive, from drinking to gambling to junk food to internet porn to cable news, but I don’t doubt that Pargin mainly had social media in mind when he wrote it.
I know this because—and I’ve talked about this a little bit before, but—Pargin himself has become increasingly sucked into social media’s vortex over the years. While I used to look forward to all of his podcast appearances (he always brought an off-kilter rationalism to things), he’s been sounding increasingly Stockholm-syndrome’d of late, unfailingly returning to the refrain of “I know social media is the worst, but I have to be there to sell my books!” His books, meanwhile, have suffered accordingly: While early Pargin novels always made me think deeply (in between the fart jokes and gore, natch), his last few have clung to trite, shallow themes dictated by whatever the Twitter-orthodoxy-of-the-moment was: “It’s okay to talk about depression!” “Sex work is real work!” And it’s not even that I necessarily disagree with those themes—just that they’re all so, so boring.
This is the Information Age, or at least so they tell me: We’re all standing in an endless digital library with thousands of years of human wisdom at our fingertips. For some reason, though, a lot of you have chosen to lock yourselves in the closet where all the morons go to scream at each other twenty-four-seven—in hopes, if you’re an author, of selling books to people who don’t actually read books.1
Maybe it’s time to come out and explore? 🕹🌙🧸
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Poll of the moment
Two years ago: I took a break from social media, and it turns out I don’t want to go back
Speaking of which…
This was the essay that put this blog on the map, which surprised me, since it didn’t start out as…anything at all. One day, I just found myself looking at a ravaged bird’s nest on my front door, thinking about the book I’d been reading (The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel—it’s great, pick it up if you haven’t), and realizing I was probably never going to scroll my social media feeds again. So I wrote a weirdo stream-of-consciousness piece about it, and that piece somehow became my Substack’s first (ironically?) viral hit:
A week ago, I woke up with the realization that I had no desire to check social media.
It was a weird feeling to have. I’ve had a presence on Facebook since 2006, when my then-fiancée pressured me to create an account so she could link to me as her “relationship status.” Since then, Facebook and (eventually) Twitter have only sunk their claws ever-deeper into me, as I began to rely on them to keep in touch with my college friends; as they became my hub for online interaction after the death of my blog; as I began to carry them everywhere with me after the debut of the iPhone; as they became my only connection to other adults during my years as a stay-at-home parent. For years, the instinct has been automatic—I’d wake up, grab my phone, and poke the Facebook icon—but this morning, I stopped my thumb halfway there.
I was actively fighting against my own muscle memory… (Read more here!) 🕹🌙🧸
⬅️ In case you missed it: I was a girly boy. I’m relieved to see the tide finally turning on youth gender medicine
Stuff I’ve been enjoying lately
The original Tomb Raider came out when I was just eleven years old and exclusively gamed on Super Nintendo, so I never got a chance to try it—but man, the existence of this game bugged me.
By 1996, when it launched, we were well into the era of game companies exclusively targeting teenage boys, and so much of that targeting just felt so lazy: “What do teen boys like? They like GIGANTIC BOOBS!” I was still young enough to be scared and confused by sex (unlike now—I have sex all the time, I definitely know a lot about sex, please don’t ask any follow-up questions)—but beyond that, it just felt insulting, and it no doubt gave plenty of ammo to the rightwing politicians looking to lay a censorious hand on the gaming industry.
Man, remember back when it was the right trying to censor games?
In an era when Sony is being called Nazis for [checks notes] making the lead character of their new game attractive, because [checks notes again] attractive game characters make women commit suicide (?),2 it’s almost refreshing to return to the era when video games and impossible beauty standards just sort of went hand-in-hand. Which, by the way…it turns out the original Tomb Raider was actually really good?
Game maker Aspyr just dropped an HD remake of the original Tomb Raider trilogy from those halcyon days of the PlayStation 1, and I’ve been having real trouble putting my Nintendo Switch down ever since. I’m only about halfway through the first game, but I can see why this series is such a big deal (so to speak): The atmosphere is pitch-perfectly spooky, the environments are smartly designed, the puzzles are a blast to solve, and the game consistently rewards you for leaving no stone unturned in its “lost world” environments. It also gives you an excuse to shoot a lot of angry gorillas in the face, in case you’ve ever wanted to do that.
I could take or leave the dumpster fire of gaming culture (then as now), but I’m glad this slice of the past has been preserved (and updated) so perfectly. 🕹🌙🧸
Reminder: By popular demand, I’ve debuted a new monthly feature, Ask a church receptionist, where I (a real, honest-to-God church receptionist who literally wrote the book on the Bible) answer all the questions you were afraid to ask about the Bible, Christianity, and everything else. Send any and all questions to luke.t.harrington@gmail.com, or just click the button below:
Favorite comment of the month
This is a fiery enough topic (and for good reason: so much potentially at stake on both sides, and the research so contentious) that I’ll continue to maintain my cowardly position sitting on the fence for the time being, but I REALLY appreciate this perspective. I, too, had no truck with “guyishness” as a kid (and was in ballet to boot). This marries the personal and the epic (the horrible history of science — holy crap, is that book title taken yet?!). If anyone knows of something so well written on the other side, please point us toward it! —Brandon Hendrickson 🕹🌙🧸
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This, by the way, is why so many of us have gravitated to Substack: it’s a place for people who actually like to read and think deeply. Except, now it’s trying to become TikTok, I guess. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
This is pretty niche, and I’m not proud at all of enjoying it, but one of my biggest guilty pleasures of late has been watching the formerly mostly-apolitical gaming YouTuber Lady Decade have an absolute meltdown over the Stellar Blade controversy. I don’t feel like I have a dog in this fight, and yes, I get it, so much of this stuff is just online content creators chasing each other’s tails to farm Content™️, but this drama is far more entertaining than it has any right to be.
Blah. I need to go take a shower and read a book.