Aug 25

Aug 25 Letters on Social Media #15

A young woman half sits/half lies on a sofa, smiling at her phone. An art effect has been used to affect the colours and blur the image.

I. Feel. Blissful.

Honestly, it took me ages to unfollow and unsubscribe from all the gurus I’ve signed up to over the years, but it was so worth it! I’m so impressionable when it comes to people preaching about mental health - I sign up to anything and follow everybody - but I’ve genuinely not felt this calm and at ease for at least five years. Highly recommend. And yes, I even deleted Adriene!

Love ya xxx

A young man looks at his tablet computer with a slightly troubled expression. An art effect has been used to affect the colours and chop up the image.

Mandy,

You’re the expert. Tell me what I’m doing wrong! When you said I need to rely on my own home-grown email list rather than the social media companies’ “real estate”, it made perfect sense. But I’ve been trying twice a day to get people to sign up to get my content directly in their inbox, and NOTHING. Thirty-one thousand followers. Thousands of likes on each post. FIFTY-SEVEN EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS. This is ridiculous. I’m not creating special content for 57 people. What kind of business strategy would that be? Can you take a look and fix it? I NEED THOSE CONVERSIONS.

Thx

Matty xxx

A young woman is fed up and looks at her (out of view) laptop, her head resting in her hand. An art effect has been used to affect the colours and blur the image.

Hi KC,

Said I’d explain, so this is what happened. That guy René friend requested me, and even though I got creepy vibes off him straight away, I felt like I couldn’t deny his request because I could see we had five mutual friends, and they’re the type of people who don’t just collect FB friends, so I thought he must be ok. But then he started replying to stuff on my timeline heaps, and I noticed that he was making friends with MY friends. Like, our mutual friends had grown to 11. And it was only after that that he started sliding into my DMs loads and proving to me that he actually is 100% a creep. So I stopped replying, and then he started sub-posting self-piteous statuses that were clearly about me having supposedly let him down, which were getting sympathy from MY FRIENDS. I decided to delete him. But now I can still see him posting on other friends’ statuses all the time and I feel like I can’t tell them he’s a creep because they think he’s funny and nice! No doubt he’s hoovering up loads of their friends too, because they also think he must be fine because he’s been “validated” by their trustworthy friends. Aargh. Social media grosses me out.

Bex

A middle-aged man in his kitchen looks at his laptop with a slightly perplexed expression. An art effect has been used to affect the colours and blur the image.

Hi Pip,

Saw your post just now. Wanted to message instead of replying there because I don’t want to be one of those “this never happened” people, but do you have any proof that this occurred?

Sam

A calico cat looks at the camera while it lies down on a wall. An art effect has been used to affect the colours and blur the image.

Hello all,

I’m not actually from your area, but I saw this cat hanging around a side road when I was passing through. Though he/she looks in very good condition, there’s no collar, and he/she was meowing quite a lot and wanting fuss, which I know is typical cat behaviour, but I just found it concerning. Does anyone know whose cat it is? Should I collect the cat and take it home or to a vet? I’ve seen a lot of these posts in this particular group and, as far as I’ve seen, the cat always does belong to someone and is never actually a stray, even when they look like they are (which this one doesn’t), but I just found it a worrying situation as I’m an animal lover, though I’ve never had cats myself.

Thanks,

Cynthia

Letters on Social Media is a humorous series of fictional letters that aims to explore some of the ways our fragile human minds are ill-equipped to cope with the world of digital communication.

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