Don't Ask Me if I Want A Cupcake

I was at a wedding a few years ago where a four year old laid down in front of the cupcake table and, with her wrist flung over her eyes with dramatic flair, her hair trailing behind her on the floor -a tiny Ophelia in a flower girl dress- said to any adult who came near her in a beleaguered voice, “I’m too tired, don’t ask me if I want a cupcake. I’m too tired for cupcakes. I do not want a cupcake.”

You know she wanted the shit out of some cupcakes. 

This comes to mind when, at least once a week, someone on my Facebook feed says they’re thinking of leaving Facebook. I picture them sprawled on the floor in front of a digital cupcake in the shape of Mark Zuckerberg, arms flung dramatically over their eyes, telling the whole digital world that they emphatically do not want a cupcake. On one hand, fuck yeah. I’m really sick of Facebook, too. Go. Fly. Be free. Get out while you can.

On the other hand, do you want a medal? Are you expecting Saint Peter to put you at the front of the line for heaven? Can you take a poop without taking out a front page add?

I know. Ring the hypocrite alarm.  I shared this on Facebook.

Social media has a specifically weird hold on my generation which has produced really weird results. Physically, emotionally, we can tell when something is bad for us and studies show that social media has a lot of negative effects. I think it speaks to how intense social media has become that we feel the need to take a social measurement from the echo chamber before pulling away. It’s weird and annoying.

But it also addresses something that needs to be talked about among older millennials, those of us who straddled the I drank from the hose and didn’t die! generation but also live that #blessed life. Social media has impacted our generation in an intense way. 

I didn’t feel the effects of social media until I was in my mid-twenties. During my Freshman year of college the internet was still this gauzy thing that other people spent a lot of time on and wasn’t a necessity for daily life.  By the time I graduated college, I was intensely curating my social media pages, both Facebook and MySpace, my AIM profile, and my OpenDiary. By the time I finished grad school, I spent a majority of my time on social media looking for answers to things I wasn’t handling well in the adult world. I combed through the profiles of people who treated me badly and then sent me friend requests five years later like they didn’t still owe me $150, of people I had treated badly and wanted to stalk, hoping to rekindle that fight to get one more final word in. It played a role in warping my perception of friendship and happiness and of life. 

And every step of the way, I had the option to not participate.

The memories section of my Facebook isn’t a happy place. It’s not photos of stuff I did or people I hung out with. It’s just regurgitating to me cringe-worthy shit I said from three years ago, six years ago, ten years ago.

It’s a depression scrapbook. It’s a toxic relationship archive.

But like anything that’s a huge grey area, without Facebook I wouldn’t have reconnected with amazing people that I almost lost to time or childhood misconceptions. I wouldn’t have gone down the clickhole that lead me to the job I currently have now and adore. I wouldn’t have my first book coming out soon, I’m pretty sure, if it weren’t for Facebook.

But Facebook is also where I found out someone close to me thinks David Hogg and Adam Lanza are the same person. It’s where I found out an entire relationship can be blown out of the water over the order in which your post shows up in someone’s feed. 

Especially now, when the world feels like it’s on fire and the news every day brings one more blow; school shootings, anti-vaxers, climate change, police brutality, student debt, and so so so much more, we get to find out via the comment section what our 500 nearest and dearest think about things that hold our society in a tipping point. We get to find out the hard things about ourselves and the people we love via social media.  Misinformation shared under the guise of heroism can spread like wildfire and put people at risk. It’s literally putting our country at risk, and our mental health.

So what do we do?

Do we all unplug?

Do we all lay in front of the cupcake table to make a point?

Because I don’t have an answer. But what I can say, is like…

You guys. 

I think….

I don’t want a cupcake. Don’t ask me if I want a cupcake.