Curated. Chaotic. Comforting.
š The scene: If social media apps were places, would you be shopping, dancing or oversharing in a support circle? An unofficial Gen-Xers survival guide to the social media in 2025.
š© Instagram is a Mall (for those of you who remember what that is)
Polished. Suspiciously perfect.
You walk in with a goal – one store, maybe two. one item. okay, maybe two. Two hours later, multiple bags in hand, are you satiated or just left wanting more? The all-too-familiar feeling. You hit that little Insta icon and tell yourself “just 5 minutes.” Yeah, good luck with that.
You’re hoping your #FYP pulls up that hot guy (or girl, or both) that you love to ‘watch’ do whatever it is they are doing that day. Jumping rope (have you seen that guy?!) Working out. Telling Dad jokes. Attempting the latest dance craze. BOOM – POP- POW – 30 or 40 minutes later, you are left unsatisfied, possibly unworthy (are your eyebrows up-to-snuff?) and wanting more, just like when you walked out of the mall (or had that horrible date.)
š„ TikTok is a Rave.
No rules. No time to process. One second you are watching a cat chase a laser light, the next a group of kids using slime to explain quantum physics. It’s chaotic, while euphoric. You want out but NEED to stay in, “just one more minute.” You become ten feet tall and bulletproof thinking “I can do that” with each 15 or 30 sec dance or workout bit you watch. It’s now 3:00 am and you have aged a decade while making a mental note of 10 new beauty products, shapewear and red light therapy contraptions that you MUST have.
š« And finally, Reddit is Group Therapy that can also be an Orgy
No music. No filters. You and a roomful of strangers trauma-dumping and making appliance recommendations with alarming sincerity. And if you want intimacy (of all sorts), you can drill into subreddits. It is never-ending maze of random commentary, open space bitching and then some actually decent content – exactly like therapy!
āļø How do I choose?
Depending on your mood o’ the moment –
Instagram: Be pretty, be polished, be pretend.
TikTok: Be loud. Be real. Laugh-out-loud and get outta there in 5 seconds (so many jokes, so little time).
Reddit: Be anonymous. Be weird. be naughty. Be ready for nuance (and most likely a heated debate about air fryers)
Consider the irony – socials are supposed to bring us together and connect us. While it has, it’s merely the new definition of connection. You can curate a whole new life, you can easily escape your existing one or you can simply be reminded that you are not the only one to Google “How to apologize to my goldfish.”
Happy scrolling, just don’t forget to logoff… eventually. š“
š„ O Rating: 3.5 O’s Docked points for reminding me how f*cking addicting this shit is.
š Vibe O’ the Day: Confessing my addiction to blue lights and media outlets.
š§ Confused by the Oās? Check out the full O Rating Scale ā
