How to Enjoy Social Media and Stay Sane
1) Engage Organically, Express Yourself, and Be Nice!
There are three legitimate reasons to be on social media:
Promoting your project or business
Sharing observations and life events with friends and family1
Connecting with specific or niche interest groups
Social media is great for these purposes, and so long as we play well with others, we can have a (mostly) lovely experience. We can gain traction and support for our projects and businesses, make new friends, and collaborate with others who have similar interests.
Unfortunately, a lot of people think social media is a place for giving and receiving advice, or arguing politics. It is not. Why?
On the former, most people aren’t qualified to give advice, because they don’t:
A) have the experience and expertise to give such advice, and/or
B) live their advice, and/or
C) are crazy
Most of the advice on social media isn’t worth taking, because it’s coming from unqualified people riffing on anecdotal experiences that bear little or no resemblance to the normal range of human experiences. It’s also obvious that most of what you’ll see on Reddit or TikTok comes from people who live their entire life on the internet and have no real world experience. As stated before, if you’re getting and following life advice from TikTok and Reddit, you are fucked. So, like, don’t do that.2
As for politics, you’re not going to convince anyone of anything, so it’s utterly pointless. Which brings me to rule #2…
2) Don’t Argue or Engage with the Crazy People
We’ve all seen that meme of the guy who won’t go to bed because someone said something stupid in reply to one of his posts. Alas, I used to be that guy.
But not anymore! When someone shows themselves to be wildly divorced from reality, do not engage. Abort! You’re not going to convince them of jack shit. One of my best decisions ever was telling a guy who wanted to argue vaccine science (he was a skeptic) a few years back: “look bro, is there anything I can say that will change your mind? Because if not, let’s just watch football.” It’s OK to just disagree.
Because people rarely change their minds in person—even with people they love and trust—and they do so even less frequently on social media. Basically never. Because on social media, the exchange is a performance, not a rational, thoughtful examination of the facts or a true pursuit of crafting the best policy to solve our problems. It’s about winning or losing, not compromise, and most people (especially overly online people) would rather win—even if that win is pointless—than admit they’re wrong.
So if someone says something stupid about a post you make on social media, don’t argue, just…
3) Ignore, then Mute or Block
Ignore the comment, then mute or block that person. I mute if they seem like a pest; I block if I don’t want them to see my content anymore.
To be clear: this isn’t for a normal person who is showing themselves to be reasonable and has an honest disagreement. Disagreement is normal and engaging with someone who disagrees respectfully is good! But when a person says something crazy, is demonstrably wrong, or makes a personal attack, it’s a good sign they’re an overly online person who’s lost their way.3 And nothing you say is going to bring them back. Indeed, the best thing for this person is to be shunned by normal people.
Seriously, we can all make our society better by ignoring and muting/blocking people who are negative, anti-social, and/or unreasonable. The best thing you can do is stop consuming the content of the chick on TikTok who claims all men are narcissists and has a million item list of red flags to look out for, ignore and block the redpill bro on X who’s endlessly going on about how modern women are ruining society, and mute the goons on Notes or Reddit who pop up to offer bad advice or try to twist something into a political argument.
The most popular note I’ve posted on Substack (only 22 likes, but I’m new so give me some time to cook!) is about how Democrats need a positive agenda if they want to win.
This is true for society at large. We have to marginalize people who want to drag us into the misery of identity politics on the Left, and those who want to abandon the rule of law and indulge Trump’s obvious corruption on the Right. The same is true when it comes to social mores and behavior, and relationships: the people who are being destructive to social cohesion and harmony need to go. Anti-social behavior should be shamed, not tolerated.
Luckily, all we have to do is stop paying attention to them, and like monsters under a child’s bed, they will disappear.
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One rule I have on this is that unless I’m a fan (like the reason I follow George Kittle), I’m not following someone unless they follow me. This strikes me as especially important for young men, who may be tempted to follow a bunch of hot chicks who will never know nor care they exist. Like, if the person isn’t famous, and yet wouldn’t reply to your DM, why are you following them? A: you should not be. Your followed and followers should most be people you know from real life. Just my two cents though.
A good rule is this: if you do something—like for example, keep a list of “icks” you have about men you’ve dating—and someone who learns should say, “WTF are you doing with your life?” It’s a good sign you shouldn’t do that.
For example: “Hey Kevin, how many times a day are you smoking pot?”
“Four or five, not sure.”
“Kevin, WTF are you doing with your life?”
Like on my recent post about how I was leaving Portland, one could argue that I’m wrong about the prevalence of homelessness, or that despite the problem, Portland is still a wonderful place to live. But saying I’m a bad person doesn’t prove I’m wrong. Remember, not liking something doesn’t make it untrue, and if one’s reaction to hearing something they don’t like is to get mad at the messenger, it’s a good sign they’re not an intelligent person.