Oct 25 | 140 Characters for Salvation (Letters from the Coast)

I refused, refused, refused for so long.

What’s the point? I wondered. I still have email. I still have a phone. I don’t know if I have the energy to learn how to navigate this weird new universe.

But eventually, I bit the bullet.

I signed up for Facebook.

 

I can remember those earlier days when everything would just come tumbling out. Your thoughts, your fears, your private musings, a thousand photographs which you wouldn’t want an employer to see but that was okay, because back then it wasn’t as common to search for someone’s profile if you were an employer – and most of us were stuck in dead-end jobs anyway so who cared what you did with your weekends? This was 2007 and Facebook was a paradise for the young and the loud.

It didn’t take long before I started using it to share the Gospel, although a lot of people might not have seen it that way. I wasn’t so much into sharing Bible quotes or passive-aggressive “Click this if you love Jesus” memes. Mostly, I shared articles. Articles about God, Jesus, Scripture, and eventually different social issues. A lot of them I got from a Facebook group called “Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented.” I figured it would be a whiny defensive liberal haven, where the primary argument was “I’m not mean and nasty like those evangelicals!” But it wasn’t. It was surprisingly measured and educated. It was thoughtful and reverent. I liked what they had to say.

Over time, I had more folks reaching out to tell me they liked what I shared, and they liked my commentary on it. It felt strange to get these messages, especially because many of them came from folks I didn’t really connect with, people I had friended after meeting once or twice to be polite. This contributed to a sense of odd pride. I was part of a new breed: the Millennial social-media Christian, the one who used all the tools at their disposal to share God.

Elders in the church found me fascinating.

But soon, I ran into difficulty. I started my discernment process to become a priest and a few of my older friends, who had begun to come onto Facebook, called me crude and coarse. They said I shared too much, and needed to build what they called “gravitas.”

They couldn’t really explain to me what they meant by that, at least not in a way that I remember absorbing fully.

I bristled at the time, felt like most young people who are certain they are being told “You would be so great if you weren’t so…young.” Nowadays, however, I can see what they meant. There are things I shared publicly that back then I thought I would be happy to share with the world, but now make me cringe.

This, plus an awareness that the platform was becoming addictive to me, made me take a step back. I still posted frequently, but tried to limit the amount of time I would sit back hitting refresh over and over. I tried to curate myself more. It felt terribly awkward at first, like being the parent of a toddler trying to substitute for dirty words. What was actually okay to share? Was it really that bad that I swore a lot? This article is about sexuality – is that okay to share? What about this one about consent? What about this one about the pink tax on menstrual products?

Most of this really had to do with growing up, and since my twenties I’ve become at least slightly more self-contained.

Not everyone needs to know everything. And I didn’t need to know everything about everyone else.

 

Once again, I held out for as long as possible, and then finally gave in.

My first tweet was in November of 2012.

It was “Twitter is still stupid.”

I did it for a seminary project with a friend. During Lent of 2013 we did an art installation and preaching series in my field education parish, where we would sit at the back and tweet quotes and reflections from the sermon. It really boiled my blood back then – I had been vehemently anti-phone during worship before. But it was kind of fun, inviting an invisible hoarde into our service to hear the words we were hearing.

Like with Facebook, I soon began to enjoy it, and eventually I began to like Twitter even more than Facebook. I enjoyed the challenge of keeping one’s thoughts succinct. I liked that news stories would break there first. I started to officiate Compline and then Morning Prayer on the platform, with friends following along.

I could share short pieces, and eventually threads.

 

Everything changed with the 2016 election.

 

Suddenly, engagement felt imperative. I lived in a bubble, but my meatspace bubble was just as constrictive as my online one, maybe even more.

I got into arguments on Facebook, but they were mostly silly, fragile people taking issue with the most benign pronouncements and suggestions.

I began to switch to Twitter. It was so easy to find activists there, so easy to find voices unlike my own. They all had an opinion and I gobbled them up. Then I spat out my own.

I was given a few tools at seminary for expanding my politics. Twitter exploded my head open. So many new terms, so many new concepts. It was all fascinating, and eventually, exhausting.

Everything was an opportunity for anger and disillusionment. That rush of self-righteous rage, which started out being rather healthy for a person who rarely allowed themselves to experience anger at all, again became addictive. I felt constantly on edge, constantly searching for someone to criticize either aloud or in my head.

One day, I decided, I had had enough.

I had already realized that I was not to allow myself to go on Twitter after about 9pm, or I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. Facebook was likewise becoming a haven for older folks and other people who were carefully curating their lives online in a way that constantly made me feel like a schlub even as I obviously did it myself.

I was done.

I posted a farewell to social media, which can also be viewed on this blog.

I didn’t deactivate either Facebook or Twitter. Facebook was needed for work, and Twitter shared my blog posts. I reasoned that my followers, who had become a source of support and dialogue since I finally opened up my profile, might want to hear from me, although I didn’t make assumptions.

But like so long ago I received several messages, some from friends and some from relative strangers, expressing sorrow that I was leaving, because of how much they enjoyed my posts and the shared articles.

I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.

Social media always felt a little like yelling into a void, even when I felt at my most connected.

But it isn’t.

It isn’t.

 

I’ll still be here, on the periphery.

I can only imagine how our world will continue to evolve.