Social Media, Activism, and the Trump Regime
I’ve been meaning to start a blog for some time. I’ve always been the type of person who aimed to make my voice heard: through art, music, theater, writing, etc. I think that’s part of what made leaving social media so hard all these years. If you’re like me, you’ve probably grown up with it. I got my Facebook and Instagram accounts on my 13th birthday. I’ve been reminiscing on my past 12 years, growing up with these apps that became so integral to my life and watching their quiet demise as the days of “poking” and ootd’s fade away to make room for AI generated slop and clothing hauls.
I don’t have an overly sentimental view of social media in the 2010’s. I remember Instagram acutely instilling feminine beauty standards and insecurity into my hungry, malleable child-brain. I remember starting a small business at a young age, using social media to beg my friends and family on Facebook to buy commissions from me, an era that made me feel more like a Pampered Chef peddler than the woke street artists I modeled my work after. I remember trying to get TikTok famous, spending hours making 30 second videos to market my nude figure drawings to family members. Thanks, grandma! I remember spending my earliest adult years on dating apps, desperate for human connection, eagerly scrolling to find my dream man - a bisexual drag queen with a beard. (Not a ton of those floating around Mt. Pleasant, MI.)
Though not all good and not all bad, my time on the Internet has effectively raised me into an adult, and I’ve grown up with a generation much like me: chronically online and yet completely unsatisfied and isolated.
It was around this time last year that I tried to get serious about leaving social media. I tried setting timers on the apps… deleting them altogether and using my browser instead… transitioning to new hobbies like knitting and reading… but no matter what I did, I could not shake the habit. This year I decided I’d fully let go, and started putting my phone in drawers and leaving it at home to shake the habit. And I had plenty of reasons to give it up. Meta announced last year(?) that they were using our content to train AI. Elon Musk took over Twitter and essentially took a giant shit on it (he’s the richest man to ever live.) Tumblr has been effectively banning trans users for “sexual activity”?????? Instagram became a shopping app. TikTok became a shopping app (and literally got shut down and reinstated today… both thanks to Donald Trump………???) And Facebook… girl, I don’t know what’s going on there. Ask chat GPT, cuz I reckon’ there’s more bots than humans posting on there these days. Though, serendipitously, the final straw for me, the icing on the cake, the literally only thing that could actually get me to effectively delete all my social media was…
Donald Trump.
Now stay with me here. What I am ultimately saying is: due to, you guessed it - corporate greed, late-stage capitalism, and an impending oligarchy, I, Rissa Groves, hereby renounce my addiction to social media that I have struggled with for half my life - thanks to the unhonorable grand führer himself. I suppose I have a few million Americans to thank as well. I wish it’d happened on more amicable terms, but I’m desperate at this point so I’ll take it. Yes, alleged adult man Elon Musk has been cozying up to the Annoying Orange as his taxation “policies” and political rhetoric have always favored the self-proclaimed geniuses and money-gobbling sycophants among us. And as Elon, king of Earth, pokes his stimulant-coated fingertips (I Googled his eating habits by the way…) in more and more global democracies, he’s effectively shown America’s ultra-wealthy that the key to maintaining your wealth is by suckling the left nut of Hitler Jr. himself. (As long as we have the Freedom of Speech, which the far-right so lovingly tout, I’m going to utilize it.) Well, Mark Zuckerberg seems to have noticed the left nut’s accounted for, and has pivoted far right to get in his share of the billionaire pants dance.
So anyways… Our favorite robot-with-human-skin Zucky has cozied up to “Mr. President” (I still can’t get used to that… it’s been 8 years.) He even posted on Facebook the great new changes their making, failing to mention how they rolled back Pride Messenger color schemes and are throwing out moderation (basically incentivizing hate speech, much like Musk on “X”). In the name of free speech, you’re now encouraged to cyberbully trans people on Instagram! Yippee! In actuality, this seems like a desperate attempt for a willowy glass-eyed man to prop up his failing social site Weekend at Bernie’s style and pose for advertisers. Without active users, why waste your money running ads on Facebook? Oh - bots are posting and people are fighting in the comments sections? That means more time on the app, more views, more clicks, more $$$$$$$$$ for advertisers. Though advertisers started pulling from Twitter, I’ve been surprised it’s still afloat. I suppose being run by the richest daddy’s boy on the planet helps. But you can see, still, the benefit of the big four, here. Hell - I forgot about Truth Social! Good god, we’ve got a full house, actually, of alt-right social media.
I don’t even want to mention the TikTok debacle, though luckily I cut myself off short-form content early. I haven’t used the app since 2021. But still, the shock waves this ban has sent through the 100 million users in the USA is unsurprising. I don’t like social media, but I don’t think the government has a right to ban it. And let’s be frank, here. Chinese spies? Give me a break. The ban was a threat from Trump that worked. Now he has the TikTok CEO in his back pocket as well. Donating to his inauguration, thanking him to every single waking user on the platform? How stupid do they think we are? Though… I suppose most everyone will carry on… business as usual. Well not me, comrade.
You can understand my weariness, now, toward social media, today. What am I missing out on, really? At-home arthritis cures from alt-right chiropractors? Girls from high school popping out their 3rd, 4th, and 5th child? My own endless droning about my reach being limited because I referred to myself as a fag? I have so many other ways to get my voice into the world. I’m a cutthroat artist on the bleeding edge! This is truly my time to shine! No, really. I’m not being sarcastic this time. I really feel like this is an opportunity for me to start fresh.
I’ve got the goods. I’m multidisciplinary. I can make prints, zines, comics, poetry… I have so many skills. Communication is so important to me! And I’m beginning to see my role in the revolution taking form. I’ve never been any good at physical protest. I’m physically frail, pale, and faint. I do no good for myself or others on concrete in 90 degree weather, marching toward the police station. No, my role is not in marching and I’m coming to terms with that. Though, there’s much Internet activists will vilify you for, do not listen when they tell you there’s one right way to fight for a cause. There’s not.
The cause is in your home, in your relationships, in your job. Hell, in the grocery store. We are not all capable of everything. But we can make change in our communities, circles, and friends. People I know can’t afford to buy food locally, but I can, so I will. And I’ll cook for them and share a seat at my table. People in my community don’t have time to read after work, but I do, so I’ll share my favorite articles and books with them. My friends don’t have partners they can rely on, but I do - we’re here to support them when there’s no one left to turn to. And the most important thing to me, my home, is my favorite act of resistance. Most all of our decor is thrifted, antique, or second-hand. It pays to share similar taste with your partner - we’ve curated a glorious selection of oddities and physical art and media over the last 5 years.
Every aspect of my life is revolutionary. My existence is revolutionary. My identity, relationship, beliefs, interests, art, home, clothing, hair, hobbies!!!! My love. My pain. My life. The world wants queer people to shrink and wither. I am growing and blossoming. I am investing in myself. I am shining. I am glowing. I am setting down my phone and picking up knitting needles. I am reaching out to my grandparents. I am teaching myself how to cook. I am learning Chinese. I am reading comic books. And somehow, in all of these things, I am living a more radical life than ever. I thought I needed social media to be informed and be a good person. But the truth is, there are no good people. Or bad people. That’s just what the grifters of the world want you to think. Our power is loving, sharing, and maintaining faith that humans can be better. That we can all be better.
So let me tie this long winded rant together and say this: in the wake of tomorrow’s events, we’re still alive. Those of us who continue to live must continue to pursue the happiness we were promised. To love freely and without fear. To take care of each other. To empower one another. To start a fucking blog!!
When you die, your money won’t miss you, but your friends will. That’s something Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump will never be able to understand.
So take solace in the fact that you’ll always have one thing they’ve been searching for their entire lives: joy.
And most of all remember: kinky queer sex is an act of protest. Peace and love. Your friend, Rissa Groves.
P.S. I started reading How to Tell When We Will Die by Johanna Hedva (get it from Thriftbooks if you want but start at your library, then a local bookstore - not fucking Amazon) which is a series of essays about disability as it intersects with sex, activism, and life. Highly suggest.
