I am a tiny bit John Galt.
I passed through my Atlas Shrugged fascination not long after high school, the way that suburban boys do. The book came back to me this month, though, as I thought about the media diet I have thoughtlessly adopted, and considered ways to improve it.
I was an early Facebook user, and have been a more or less enthusiastic consumer and poster of content for many years. Lately, though, I have been increasingly bothered by the platform’s willingness to radicalize Americans in pursuit of advertising dollars:
Besides that, my Facebook feed has gotten steadily worse: more advertising, poorly targeted; posts I don’t care to see, and no posts from people I would care to see; anger and division from friends and acquaintances, sucking me into that useless vortex.
Honestly, Facebook was pissing me off.
I know that I could spend a bunch of time curating my friends list and follows, telling the algorithms even more about me. But that would be a lot of work. In the end, my presence on the platform would still fund the Shapiro/Bongino/Occupy Democrats lunacy. Show me ads, get paid. Show my posts to others alongside ads, get paid.
I’m choosing, with the turn of the year, to abandon the platform. It is a small vanity: I think I am a pretty good curator and creator of content. I choose not to donate those skills to Facebook. Like John Galt, I’ll take my productive capacity elsewhere.
I’ll miss having a simple place to share stuff. I hope to publish here more, but have to figure out a discipline for the quick-post links and thoughts that used to go there. I’ll lose the community and audience that I built over all those years, but maybe those will accrete here, over time. And, in any case, I think I crave the outlet more than the audience.
Anyway: The thumbs-down graphic that opens this post nearly captures my feelings. Would be more accurate with a different digit extended.
Rhymes with Zuck.
