Are You On Fringe Social Media?

back to fridays

Like rec hoops, I’m stayin weekly. So, I dug this out of the garage and gave it a new coat of paint. Think of it like the .5 of a Jackass movie. Only way more dong.

What’s your relationship status with the damn socials? Is TikTok both your melatonin and alarm clock? If the world sets on fire or Elordi puts that shit on, do you turn to Twitter? DO YOU HOP ON THREADS???

I, myself am not a TikTok-fiend, X-head, or Threads thottie, but I do have a dramatic will they/won’t they love affair with Instagram. I’ll go months with it deactivated. Then, a few more as a browser-god exclusively. Finally, for largely professional intentions, such as promoting this newsletter, my Academy Award ineligible short Will Makes Rice, or my Webby eligible podcast Elevator Pitch, I find myself back on the app store, holding a boom box above my head. You’d never believe it, but Instagram always takes me back. It’s not long before I’m twelve reels deep into Cillian Murphy press junkets.

Recently, I’ve returned to browser-god status. A conscious uncoupling with the app became necessary after a few too many hours with Cillian. But luckily, every time I delete the Instagram, I miss it a little less. It might be due to the app’s weakening hold on those around me. I believe, with absolutely no statistical proof to lean on, that there is a growing age disparity between it’s highly addicted users. Its perceived necessity in the structures of high school and college still exists for those younger. And many of our parents, who 10 years ago were figuring out their phones’ flashlights, are now being manipulated by the very apps they once lectured us on. But between these two demographics are us 22-35 year olds. We remember dial-up internet but also held an iPhone in 2007 and knew exactly how to use it. Having been alive but young during a time of such emerging technology has possibly resulted in a certain level of awareness. While still manipulated and addicted, many of us are far more conscious of the damaging effects. The social smokers of the internet. This awareness is starting to show itself as I now know many other browser-gods and even a few Christopher McCandless-type motherfuckers who’ve dipped off the digital map altogether. Far fewer of us tweet or snap as Twitter is purely for information gathering and Snapchat is simply a digital yearbook. On Instagram, stories and posts are increasingly less concerned with the current moment and instead far more concerned with the curation of images over an extended period of time - many of which are taken without specific intention or context. I’d say this is generally a good sign. The less we use these apps for serious communication and look where I am posting, the less we feel the need to check up on them. This is not to say the we are all on our way to a harmonious age of digital sobriety. After all, most of our feeds aren’t populated by friends but instead everything ever to exist. And some of that shit is pretty funny. Probably funnier than any “From the guys who brought you” comedies of the last fifteen years. So many of us, in this pseudo-generation I’ve just made up, find ourselves deleting and then once again retreating - wanting to lead 7 billion into an era of enlightenment only to trip up on a hungover Sunday morning and spend 3 hours watching recipes for roasted Brussels sprouts.

Will this perpetual cycle end? No idea. But I generally try to stay away from buying into extremes. I don’t think we’ll ever revert to using our phones again as simply a phone, calculator, and flashlight. I also don’t believe we’re all destined to become the humans on the Buy-N-Large ship in Wall-E (shoutout to a friend and reader who once confided to me that he’s got a thing for Eve). Instead, there might just be a compromise. One that is slightly dark yet oddly hopeful. A compromise for the many of us who feel the incessant need for connection while also constantly finding this connection veering towards addiction.

Fringe social media.

I’m not referring to subreddits for that slept-on J.J. Abrams show, Fringe. Instead, fringe social media refers to any platform that is built around the very framework of social media without containing the algorithms engineered to suck you in and harvest your deepest and darkest interests (Cillian Murphy press junkets). Fringe social media is not vast but instead quite concentrated. These platforms are hyper-focused on one specific interest and in turn, can build communities that do not argue but instead encourage. Why?

Because it’s 11 of your friends IRL. As McConaughey puts it…a place where you can localize and customize.

For example, some of you might be on Strava - an app for running, biking, or pretending to do either. With a few photos, a map, and a brief description (possibly of your audiobook on said run) you can share the shvitz with your following. I have a whopping 4 followers on Strava and unsurprisingly, I know each and every one of them personally. At a bar one Saturday night, I ran into 25% of my Strava audience. We hadn’t seen each other in months but he immediately shouted over the noisy crowd, “Great run today brother”. I then asked about his. Two pedestrian-level friends, connected through a shared hobby, and able to bond through the power of technology. Fringe social media at its finest.

You already know where I’m goin’ next. Fuggin Letterboxd.

For anyone who’s either trapped under a rock or simply not a member of the coastal elite, this is the movie review app. Every day, I check in to see what films my vast and all-encompassing army of 18 followers has logged and reviewed. Sometimes, later that day, I see a follower in person and ask what prompted their watch of Liar Liar last night. They in turn ask me why the hell I rewatched Burnt for the fifth time this year. I have no answers of course. But we end up talking Cooper Scooper for a good 20 which really makes my day.

What about Pinterest? That surely qualifies as FRINGE. Similarly to Strava, my circle is small. That’s for the best. My interests are quite narrow and I’m very selective on my pinboards. “Olympiad of Fit” is for menswear, “Ur Pad is Dope” is for home design, “Olympiad of Wrist” is for well…PATEKS, and my newest board, “I Now Pronounce You Fitted” takes a spin on Olympiad of Fit to instead focus on celeb couple fits such as this OG Bacon/Sedgwick look.

My Pinterest use might sound all about ME but don’t worry, I’m an engaged follower as well. For example, a friend of mine has a board similarly titled “Fit Olympics”. It’s safe to say we both cross streams and duel swords on occasion.

If none of this fringe sounds at all intriguing, I encourage you to seek further and dig deeper. Are you drinking an Ithaca-based IPA on your way to Dead and Company? You might need to tap into Untappd. Wanna tweet but feel romantic? Get back on Tumblr’s linear timeline. Are you a terrible neighbor and interested in arguing with other terrible neighbors about noise at 9 PM, carjackings four blocks away, and Ron DeSantis? If so, please get on Nextdoor and promptly delete my number.

Oh and Substack doesn’t count. This is algo hunting country…

So next time you’re bored and pick up that piece of metal glued to glass - consider spending a little more time self-archiving instead of self-promoting. Consider withholding from Zuck and Wardo’s Kirkland Window algorithm of tailored suggestions and scroll through another feed so directly personalized - no equation could’ve possibly created it. This is where the good stuff lies. Where you’ll find an honest reflection of those you choose to surround yourself with. Where you’ll find information you can more profoundly engage with. Where you may just find a friend’s personal best in the 5k or their three and half star review of Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar. This, my dear friends, is fringe social media.

Keanu and Sophia in ’91. I’m out.