I don't believe that you should reject the internet or social media, but i do believe that you should figure out how to get what you want out of the web. Find the spaces you long for, that give you inspiration instead of fomo, that don't advertise to you.
*yeah, sure, you could literally destroy every place and person who knows the protocols that keep the internet running. yeah, sure, you could literally kill any person who has heard of or interalized a reality that includes a g-d or similar figure. yeah, sure, the internet probably wouldn't survive a nuclear winter like g-d would.
The case against authenticity
Refuse digital voyeurism, carve it out of you with grace and repulsion. Refuse digital exhibitionism on platforms that demand you be their product. Social media is a highlight reel, not reality. Highlights can look different depending on the person- maybe misery, if aesthetic or inspiring, is a highlight. Maybe only shopping ever is. Highlights and people-turned-brands who only ever show you want they want you to see; this is true of neocities, too, true of my own page and my own posts on any platform. We all only show you what we want you to see, and that is not "authenticity".
I won't ever argue that trying to create a personal archive online is bad- what am i doing right now?- but that intention must be challenged. Do you want to document yourself for yourself, or do you want other people to see that you have it [the life, the clothes, the trinkets, the items, the beauty, the prowess...]? Why is it not enough to let that happen in person or off major social media sites? Do you only expect to be engaged with, but never or rarely yourself initiate engaging? Do you lurk or participate? Do you want conversation or an audience?
How 2 disgrace social media
Figure out exactly what you want to share with the internet. Keep as many parts of your life possible personal (read personal as hidden from advertisers. Share as much as you can irl before or instead of on the leading social medias). Remove what you're tired of, block content you don't care for (you don't even need to hate it), never engage in bait. Do you only want a microblog, but no full entries? Do you never want to share your name, and/or make a new one entirely? What of nudity? You can make a weblog that's only full of shrines and has no about or blog page. You can post one photo at a time once every other week to instagram instead of posting a 7-20 image dump weekly (i'm working on that). If you want conversation, forums still exist. Hold out your open arms and let the web rush toward you.Use a journal/notepad/scrap paper to journal as you scroll. Take note of what means anything to you, what doesn't. If you have to scroll, make it intentional.
Alternatively, if you have to scroll, do it on a pdf or e-book. Not always is the content "addicting", but the action, the fidget.
Alternatively, if you want to scroll on images, scroll on only what you have already saved. Look back on your pinterest boards and add nothing to them. Look back on what you believed in a split moment would provide you inspiration, and test that theory.
Ultimately, though, try to dig for inspiration in physical materials. Flip through books you already own and read random paragraphs from each, find art books at the library or thrift stores or your bedroom, read other people's zines, find photo bins at thrift stores, etc. There's bigger things to do too, like visiting museums, but for now we're trying to maintain the ease of household goods.
Find music through websites like archive.org by exploring image folders of album covers or archived radio show recordings (album cover collections r by far the easier start)
Get out of ur language. pick up spanish or russian or whatever language the cool 2$ book from bizarre baazar is in. use this language to write or translate, as the intention in this suggestion is not to be perfectly articulate or fluent, but to expose u to a new creative medium. the rules of language are made by its users, always.
Read without expectation of showing u read the book. Watch films without expectation of proving you did in a witty review. Have it be your little secret, or have it be a secret kept only from social media & share it with who you can in-person.
Do everything, really, without the expectation of being seen. I promise you are alive even when there are no witnesses (maybe especially when). there is no main character, there is no audience. do not go to a coffee shop with a book and a charming button-down expecting someone to come save you or praise you for the effortless air of aesthetic mastery you possess. Cut this craving for voyeurs out of you like any other tumor.
Once u kno how to proceed in public without the expectation of being seen, notice the pleasure and details you have grown more keen to. become the person who engages with strangers. i like that book, i love your patches, are those handmade? engage, because as there is no audience we are all equal participants of a scene much larger than any modern individual. engage, because we're all begging somebody else to do so.
Embrace movements like the indie/slow/personal web movement; code simple html&css sites & maybe even toy w java. if u must have a presence online, it must be entirely yours. you have to be doing it all for yourself, not for the eyes of another. consider it then a different way of laying out a photo album.... or just buy a photo album from a thrift and let your archives be material, entirely intimate to your physical life.
Know entirely that your name is not a brand. your name is an a word used to identity the body and collection of youism that you are. do not ever allow so-called leaders to make you believe your name is a stable, presentable, explanable, definable self. this is something i need you to deeply reflect on. at first it is painfully obvious, especially if you read fagpoetry... but i tried to avoid what everybody seems to know. this is here for a reason.
Sources that help me in this exploration/process/so on
The Disappearance of Rituals, Byung-Chul Han
Innumerable slow web manifestos
Why I Fucking Hate Weblogs! by Donald Brook
you are becoming one with the machine, Hazel Thayer
Innumerable youtube videos of people migrating to analog
The chronically online will become a new underclass
You Should Check Out the Indie Web
A soft manifesto