niche internet nanocelebrityism
Aug. 14th, 2022 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
letterstonowhereHaving a public internet presence is addicting. When you hear me say this you might be thinking about those huge instagram influencers who are paid to make their lives look perfect through hundreds of posts and stories and reels and ad deals and tiktoks in a lifestyle where they can't do anything except think about their next post, but I'm talking about anyone and everyone, and more specifically looking at this with a focus on Twitter. Now, I have less than 500 followers on my stan twitter account. (I have less than 50 on my tumblr account, which I've used for seven years) I just make tweets and retweet things about the fandoms i'm in, and along the way have made some friends. And yet when that first sentence I just wrote popped into my brain, I realized how much I believe this is true, despite being nowhere close to internet famous, or even internet well-known. I clearly cannot speak on the "big account" (ie usually people with a number of followers with the K tacked on at the end) experience, so I'm going to talk about my own.
I know I'm addicted to the endless loop of scrolling one social media app, seeing all the new posts, and switching to the next app. Repeat and repeat until it's time for bed. Because of this, I've tried numerous times to take a full social media cleanse, taking all my apps and putting them in a folder not visible on my main home screen and turning off notifications. I do have one success story with this: I one day got so exhausted from the nonsense my tiktok algorithm was feeding me that I just deleted the app, and despite tiktok previously being my most addictive app, I have had no urge to redownload it since. However, leaving twitter is a different story for me. No matter what i do, i find it impossible to just stop going on there. Most of the time my time spent on twitter is useless, just refreshing my timeline over and over until new posts pop up for me to scroll through. I've even tried creating an RSS feed where it just pulls tweets from specific accounts (musician update accounts in my case) so I have no way to get stuck scrolling through the timeline endlessly, but even that didn't last long. I always say that i have trouble leaving because it's the one app where i actually interact with people and message internet friends. But now, i'm thinking that's not the real reason. I don't actually DM friends or reply to tweets as often as i claim. I think it's the thrill of having a public internet presence. Despite not having thousands of followers, people see every post i make. And even when it's just a small number, the likes and retweets give me a sense of belonging, of success. And we all know how strong FOMO is. I find it so difficult to use twitter less because on there, I have a community that I'm personally a part of. And that's amazing, in a sense! None of my friends "in real life" listen to the same musicians I do, so twitter gives me a space to actually talk about them with people who actually feel the exact same way. But it also means that I constantly feel like if I don't contribute to this community, then I'm not even a part of it anymore. So I retweet posts of BTS' instagram updates to show that I'm still keeping up with them, even though there's no real need to because I already liked the post on instagram itself. I make a stupid nonsensical tweet about the latest fandom discourse, just for the sake of publicly announcing what side i'm on so that people know I'm here. It's like i have the constant need to feel this sense of belonging, even though i'm sure no one actually scrolls through my specific profile every day to check if i'm still a "true" fan.
Pre-covid, I was a self proclaimed fandom lurker. I didn't make my own instagram account until freshman year, and even then it's still just a private personal account for the eyes of school people, not fandom. I used twitter through the browser without an account to get updates on bands and stalk their fandoms. Basically, I was part of fandoms, but not in the sense that I think I subconsciously define "part of" today. I didn't have my own twitter account, so I didn't make posts, post my fanart, or talk to other fans. This goes entirely against that whole last paragraph. Essentially, no one except myself knew i was in these fandoms because I had no online fandom presence. And I think at that time, I wasn't as addicted to social media. It was kind of a pain in the ass to be a part of fandom in this way, I'll admit. My favorite band would livestream concerts on instagram back when they still played tiny venues, and I didn't have an account so I couldn't watch. In order to check twitter, I couldn't just open up my timeline and see what I missed, or even check my notifications. I had to go into safari, google the account I wanted to see, and then search from there and hope that the annoying "join twitter today" popup wouldn't kick me out. So when I got the guts to make my own public twitter account in 2020, i was relieved. No more would I be lurking with no one to talk to! Now, i would get instantaneous notifications whenever my bands posted! I was in group chats with people who actually registered my fandom presence as existing and Real!
So it's very ironic that now, I wish I could go back to the internet lurking that I spent so many years doing. Not to sound like a fucking boomer, but twitter does rot your brain. And I want to get out, but it's so goddamn difficult! Now that i've had a taste of what fandom is like when you've got followers and friends who see everything you post, I don't know how to quit, despite how much annoying discourse I see every day. I think this is a breakthrough in the way I used to think about social media, and maybe now knowing this, I'll figure out how to finally use it less. Hopefully.
I know I'm addicted to the endless loop of scrolling one social media app, seeing all the new posts, and switching to the next app. Repeat and repeat until it's time for bed. Because of this, I've tried numerous times to take a full social media cleanse, taking all my apps and putting them in a folder not visible on my main home screen and turning off notifications. I do have one success story with this: I one day got so exhausted from the nonsense my tiktok algorithm was feeding me that I just deleted the app, and despite tiktok previously being my most addictive app, I have had no urge to redownload it since. However, leaving twitter is a different story for me. No matter what i do, i find it impossible to just stop going on there. Most of the time my time spent on twitter is useless, just refreshing my timeline over and over until new posts pop up for me to scroll through. I've even tried creating an RSS feed where it just pulls tweets from specific accounts (musician update accounts in my case) so I have no way to get stuck scrolling through the timeline endlessly, but even that didn't last long. I always say that i have trouble leaving because it's the one app where i actually interact with people and message internet friends. But now, i'm thinking that's not the real reason. I don't actually DM friends or reply to tweets as often as i claim. I think it's the thrill of having a public internet presence. Despite not having thousands of followers, people see every post i make. And even when it's just a small number, the likes and retweets give me a sense of belonging, of success. And we all know how strong FOMO is. I find it so difficult to use twitter less because on there, I have a community that I'm personally a part of. And that's amazing, in a sense! None of my friends "in real life" listen to the same musicians I do, so twitter gives me a space to actually talk about them with people who actually feel the exact same way. But it also means that I constantly feel like if I don't contribute to this community, then I'm not even a part of it anymore. So I retweet posts of BTS' instagram updates to show that I'm still keeping up with them, even though there's no real need to because I already liked the post on instagram itself. I make a stupid nonsensical tweet about the latest fandom discourse, just for the sake of publicly announcing what side i'm on so that people know I'm here. It's like i have the constant need to feel this sense of belonging, even though i'm sure no one actually scrolls through my specific profile every day to check if i'm still a "true" fan.
Pre-covid, I was a self proclaimed fandom lurker. I didn't make my own instagram account until freshman year, and even then it's still just a private personal account for the eyes of school people, not fandom. I used twitter through the browser without an account to get updates on bands and stalk their fandoms. Basically, I was part of fandoms, but not in the sense that I think I subconsciously define "part of" today. I didn't have my own twitter account, so I didn't make posts, post my fanart, or talk to other fans. This goes entirely against that whole last paragraph. Essentially, no one except myself knew i was in these fandoms because I had no online fandom presence. And I think at that time, I wasn't as addicted to social media. It was kind of a pain in the ass to be a part of fandom in this way, I'll admit. My favorite band would livestream concerts on instagram back when they still played tiny venues, and I didn't have an account so I couldn't watch. In order to check twitter, I couldn't just open up my timeline and see what I missed, or even check my notifications. I had to go into safari, google the account I wanted to see, and then search from there and hope that the annoying "join twitter today" popup wouldn't kick me out. So when I got the guts to make my own public twitter account in 2020, i was relieved. No more would I be lurking with no one to talk to! Now, i would get instantaneous notifications whenever my bands posted! I was in group chats with people who actually registered my fandom presence as existing and Real!
So it's very ironic that now, I wish I could go back to the internet lurking that I spent so many years doing. Not to sound like a fucking boomer, but twitter does rot your brain. And I want to get out, but it's so goddamn difficult! Now that i've had a taste of what fandom is like when you've got followers and friends who see everything you post, I don't know how to quit, despite how much annoying discourse I see every day. I think this is a breakthrough in the way I used to think about social media, and maybe now knowing this, I'll figure out how to finally use it less. Hopefully.