these f *cKers think we’re stupid

Why I Refer to the Metaverse in a Derogatory Way

A rant written by a raging Gen Z who's sick of all the rigamarole.

News articles should be a cultural staple. What happened to the paper boy? News ,social media , and short form content should not mix. People play their videos on high volume and create noise pollution. Videos are often loud, crude, and vulgar with brief reprieves of a cute animal videos. The negative mental health impacts lead to addictive behavior. There is too much information for a mind to process let alone comprehend the reality of what is being posted. The sheer speed and brevity of the content is lending to the current illiteracy crisis we are seeing in Gen Alpha. They cannot read because the American education system failed them during the pandemic and short form content replaced classrooms and scrambled their vulnerable developing minds. Bring back content you have to sit down and read for longer than five minutes. Bring back thoughtful conversation that does not spur from a minute clip of someone who’s just word vomiting . I want people to talk about topics that they thoroughly comprehend instead of the skimmed spark notes version. I crave depth and insightful feedback. I am sick of getting tiny snippets of stories that are totally disconnected and disjointed from it’s origins. Exclusively receiving highlight reels of peoples lives that are unchronological, irrelevant, and always so over the top. It is disorienting because your literally removing reality in exchange for fantasy. Authenticity is something people try to manufacture. Everything feels backwards and terrible. The quality in modern movie making has devolved to a AI puppet show with the characters narrating the story they are apart of and what was once an immersive escape feels like an insult to my intelligence. Even Reality TV has become so unconvincing and its very clear that everyone has been casted to play a role in a very scripted drama. They are telling the audience there intentions before the story even has the chance to evolve. Everything feels so backwards. The news feels performative rather than informative and Art feels informative rather than performative.

The Humanities have been hijacked by big tech. i blame Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bozo every single one of these tech CEOS that profit from our brain’s ability to pay attention. YouTube and Instagram are being sued under a class action lawsuit for it detrimental effects on youth mental health. For knowingly creating an addictive platform that has the ability to enact psychological harm on unsuspecting users. Its incredibly evil behavior.

Its even worse with AI. Not only are the environmental effects absolutely abysmal.With a large number of data centers being cancelled due to local communities pushing back against the initiative knowing the amount of harm the existing data centers have done to the communities the inhabit. Now, we are receiving WWIII updates from world leaders via Lego AI music videos. Yes, Iran is covering all bases from writing the American people an open letter to slowly dropping a series of AI videos that explain there actions during wartime but, its Lego Style. Why is the world so unserious? I hate the current state of affairs. Sending peace and liberation to Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan, and the like from western colonial powers.

I am tired of saying Meta and friends are a double edge sword. Yes, there are benefits to social media but the benefits are as fleeting as the information we swipe away on our screens. Its not lasting and no where near substantial enough for the people to rely on this heavily on a means of connection and communication. Ultimately using these platforms is only playing into their hand, via providing your data, which includes your your feed, your posts, your likes, your swipe rate, the links you click and don’t click, your appearance, your location, and any other information you willingly give them including access to your photos. I wish more people saw it for the truest invasion of privacy that it is. Im past the point of thinking i can safely interact with these apps without some sort of repercussion.

Whether it be the mental toll , the threat of censorship, or the recent threat to weed out people who oppose the current administration or are anti-zionist. Things are getting real and social media is not a safe, sweet escape. Having my own domain website was my next best alternative to social media posting. Mind you, I am still hooked on social media. I love Youtube, and i had to ween myself off using Instagram on my phone to only using it at my laptop and i still relapse and download the app on my phone. I write this post from a place of desperately trying to detach myself. Its challenging because i became attached to social media at such a young age (11/12 years old). I truly am addicted to these platforms and it was created to be that way. It was made to tap into the human need of connection and if you stop using the site, you feel robbed of that connection. Its a feeling of FOMO x 10 like i wont know anything about the world if i don’t engage. If i don’t see a post about it on social media, it didn’t happen or i wont know whats happening. Social media hi-jacks my need for control. Scrolling through the world’s daily events satiaties that need in the worst way and they designed it to be this way. I know i am not alone in facing social media addiction and they know too. So many of theses CEO’s refuse to get high on there own supply meaning they know that their product is harmful and would not even dream of using their own platform for personal use.This is why I am starting a blog and trying different online creative outlets to not only detach but to replace and soothe my need for control in a more productive way.

Despite all my rage, I am just a rat in a cage being experimented on by big tech. That’s the thing i hate the most about of all of this is that knowing better does not always equal to doing better. The mind often moves faster than the hand.The awareness i have of the current state of things makes me want to be the outlier that the experimenters did not account for. I want to try something different with this tool. Refusing the endless thought loops and echo chambers laden with war propaganda being machine gunned at us is no easy feat. However, finding ways to resist that feels satisfying and will always benefit you more than the tech bro ceos. Even if one of them is benefiting from me having this website, the sheer (albeit temporary) ownership of my own domain has been extremely gratifying and i highly recommend it to those thinking about it.Boycotting malicious business is one of the greatest forms of passive resistance. We vote with our dollars and spending the least amount of money or time with these companies is a solid action plan to making them irrelevant. I believe internet sovereignty will be the new wave when the tech bros fall into obsolescence.

Some people think we’ll go back to using DVD's andVCR’s like in the early 2000’s but i just don’t see the world abandoning the internet without the power grid turning off for the rest of time. Our relationship to the internet will and has evolved quite rapidly and how people interact with it is up to them. My issue is not with the internet as whole. My issue is with social media and the toxic cesspool it is, My hope is that one day people will open up more to the idea of a less centralized version of social media. One that doesn’t rely on going to an app to interact with your online friends yet, maintains strong bonds that we, the people, fortify through supporting each others personal websites/ online creations rather than relying on algorithms to connect us to each other.

However, for now and until this day arrives, i use instagram and pinterest to promote and share my website. it’s not nor ever will be perfect but, taking action towards your ideal future is the best that can be done in this present moment. With your support i can make this future more real.

If you made it to the end of this article, THANK YOU!!! Please check out my “Blinkies Project” Blog Post to see my action plan toward a sovereign social media,