Okay, so I’m kinda only writing this right now so I have one first entry on my blog. So… I thought I’d explain for a second why I even have this page now.
The main social media platform that I have been using the past years has been Instagram. Now, in the past year or so, I have been posting less and less, and I haven’t been logging into my main IG page as much anymore either. One reason for this is that it stresses me out. There are some mean people out there. Rude and ignorant comments are everywhere. I’ve been feeling like I couldn’t look at anyone’s postings anymore without it upsetting me. And as a chronically ill, multiply marginalised person, I just don’t have the energy for this. So, I’ve been engaging much less, and have kind of become too anxious to post things.
Another reason for me using Instagram less (as most other social media platforms) is that, well, other people seem to be engaging with my postings less, too. Now, that sounds a bit ironic since I just said I’ve been doing the same thing. But it seems the algorithm has a bit to do with this as well. And I don’t know how to explain it without getting very personal again, but when I post something which is important to me, and nobody seems to react to it, that’s quite triggering for me. I don’t need to be the centre of attention, but I would like my existence to be acknowledged. I would like my art to be seen. I would like the personal, creative things I put out into the world to be noticed. In fact, that’s kind of a basic humxn need, on an emotional level – to be noticed. A need, which in my life, has rarely ever been met. And lately, it has been so depressing to even post anything because there is just no engagement whatsoever on my postings, and it is very well possible that Instagram doesn’t even show people anything I share.
This came to a peak a couple of days ago, when I posted about my new book, “INK LAKE”, the first of a fantasy-fiction-series, and got the impression that there was almost nobody who cared at all.
Now, this book I wrote… It’s, like everything I do, pretty personal. I get worried some people might find it annoying that I put so many intimate things out there, but the thing is that I have been very isolated for, well, my whole life, actually. So social media is sometimes the only connection I feel I have to the world. And when I share things there, then often because I literally have no other place to put it. I’ve been alone pretty much all my life, but never really by choice. I need humxn contact as much as most of us do. But the way Instagram and these other platforms are working, they’re just not working for me, right now. It might change in the future, I don’t know. But for now, I thought I’d just create my own little space on the web to put my stuff. And if anyone happens to stumble across it, it’s there. But first and foremost, it is there for me.
I can do whatever I want here, I can write, I can post visual art, videos, whatever comes out of my brain, without the pressures of likes and comments and other kinds of reactions. This is my space, and it’s where all of these things will be stored for now. I’ll see how I’ll feel with it.
My main Instagram page is currently deactivated (not deleted), and I might reactivate it at some point and announce that my stuff will be shared here from now on. I don’t know yet. I’ll decide along the way. Right now, I’m just tired.