SubStack, Social Media Has No Idea What To Do With People Like Me.
If you're allergic to the daily social media madness, or don't identify with either major US political party, or are not religious... it's comically tough out here.
I just blocked and deleted my very good friend and sublime essayist Father Joshua Whitfield from my SubStack feed, and I never wanted to do that. I don’t want to do that. But, with SubStack, I had to. I couldn’t get out of the rabbit hole this follow kept sending me down.
It’s this crazy social media thing that pushes us to binary choices and one of two camps. What about goofballs like me? Huh? I’m not interested in this world of getting us mad at things every day.
Oh - yeah - it’s like this - every day we get these clarion calls from these respective camps. It goes like this:
“If you’re one of us - this week we need you to be outraged about Trump’s comment about inviting the women’s hockey team to the White House… you can’t be one of us if you’re not outraged by this…”
or…
“If you’re one of us - you better yell at the top of your lungs that Bad Bunny is un-American, and you better be watching Kid Rock…”
There’s no difference between the camps. It’s why I’m not in either camp.
So - I had to unfollow my friend. He’s the best follow I have on SubStack, and I can’t follow him anymore.
He knew it was coming. Father Josh did. I texted him early last week about it. Then he called me on my birthday. I told him what was happening. We laughed about it. I told him I had tried for weeks, weeks and months really, to manage a feed that was littered - LITTERED with catholic, christian, and other domestic religious contributors. Most - well - yeah. Oh - how did we get here - and how am I in the middle of whatever the hell this is?
Because I followed and subscribed to one catholic priest, SubStack believes I’m religious. I was raised catholic, went to 12 years of catholic school, but I’m agnostic, and one of my great friends is a married roman catholic priest. SubStack is horribly confused.
I’ve blocked no fewer than 500 religious essayists in the last few weeks, priests, authors, and a high number of nutjobs, and, the way things are these days, religious folk not acting very religious you ask me. This has been a daily thing. I can’t get out of the loop.
Now - I’m not stupid - like - I don’t want the supreme creator of the universe pissed at me because I’m blocking accounts on a social media platform on a tiny dot in a grand landscape of planets and stars -
And then I realize how ridiculous that sounds.
But - since the Father Josh block - it’s way better here for me. But - here they come again.
Now, they’re trying me on for size again.
Well let’s see if he’s pro Israel. Well let’s see if he’s pro Iran. Let’s try the MAGA stuff again. Well if that’s not him then he’s gotta want Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsome posts. Wait - he lives in California and isn’t a Gavin Newsome guy? WTF?
SubStack, this platform is all I got now - but I’m considering making more changes in what I read or like for fear of being bombarded again with all kinds of posts and stuff I could give a shit about.
How does anyone escape this shit without going completely dark with it? Turning it all off. Because I’ve shut most of it down, and still, still, they’re after me…
GOD HELP ME!!!
wait….
