Just B Rant: Publicly Personal

where you don't really know the people. And so when I first came on TikTok a long time ago, more than even Instagram, I would see people really emoting and crying about their skin, about their life, about their weight, about their loneliness, about their depression or anxiety. And I

felt that sometimes that seemed dangerous. I thought that it seemed like, if you're doing it too much, you're kind of using these followers as your therapists, and some this boomerang can smack you, like a therapist is not only professionally trained, but they're there to support and listen. Sometimes people can really sting you on social media. So you could be crying about something and one day they have compassion for you and they're telling you everything you want

to hear, and we're here for you. And then you do something wrong and unlike your therapist or your parents or your family, they're going to like come back and cancel you. So that's why it's a unique relationship and why I don't really advocate for people like all the time going on social media to treat your followers like your therapists or like your best friends or like your family, because the pendulum can swing and in a way that

unconditional love family members wouldn't. And of course unconditional love family members can can, you know, cut you off, and there can be extreme circumstances. But by in law, you can make mistakes and tell people that you know that you messed up, and they will be a nice cushion for you. This is an environment where it could be oh my god, we support you, we love you. And also sometimes people like when someone's not happy and like they want you to be down, and then once you

get happy, they're not. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that goes on because these are not professional So I don't really emote that much. I'll communicate and express, but I don't really emote, and I haven't really cried on the internet, and I have sometimes cringe when I've seen people do it, and I've done it on reality TV, and it's a cousin of this too, because it's a similar situation, and then there's an edited situation which is

more scary. But after experiencing the loss of my mother and some traumatic events, I chose to post something that I thought was fascinating because before my mother passed away, I was really I just had sort of an emotional breakdown. I just was I just was not doing that great. Like I just wasn't feeling right, I was feeling unsettled, I was feeling not balanced. And I recorded this short video during a period of that, saying like I don't want I'm not I'm not doing that great, and like

I basically need to stop. I need to stop this meaning social media. I need to stop working the way that I've worked. And I just I just it was not long. It was just very brief. It was just like a break and I said, I probably won't have the courage to post this and it's a little embarrassing.

And then I was looking through my drafts today because I haven't been posting at all really on social media, very very minimal since my mother passed, and said, since I've been going through it and experiencing and not wanting to distract and divert because social media, when people say doom scrolling, you're diverting, You're just it's eating junk food,

you're just watching crap to like just yourself. And I really have chosen, as I've talked to you about grief, the method of going through this stuff, so not like just taking the easy way out and not really medicating, not distracting, not going out, not you know, doing other things to distract. And so I was looked today and saw that video and I posted it saying how crazy

that this is right before my mother passed away. And it was interesting because I really do believe in energy and signs and things like it's almost like your body, you know your body, or the temperature outside, or like there's her there's actually earthquake weather, like people in La I remember there used to be earthquake weather, Like it's so nice right before crazy earthquake. Or you can feel like the swell before hurricane or before like the ocean

you could tell when a storm is coming. I feel like we feel that emotionally. And it was weird that I was just crying and I was like having an undefined, unspecified emotional experience. And then my mother passed away, and so I posted it today because I wanted to not only post when things are perfect. This should not be a habit of me just crying into the internet. But by the same token, I think that we should not

always make it like things are perfect. Now. Forget the fact that people are showing filters and their perfect lives and their perfect vacations and their expensive bags despite maybe them being broke. They're bragging only about the good in a relationship. Despite the fact that social media is now a commercial marketplace. It is a television show is everything is for sale, and people are selling things even when

you don't know they're selling things. People are finaggling and shady about the way they're doing it, and they're not saying that they're a partner, they're not saying that they're paid. But it goes so much deeper and so much more layer than that. So now you're on social media and treating it as like your friend and like your therapist and all this. So I think there has to be a balance between being authentic there and also just not

overusing it. It shouldn't be a place to live, and a lot of people that are these influencers they're gonna be like child Stars, where it's gonna run out one day. This is not going to go on forever, and there are gonna be some emotional ramifications. It's just sometimes too raw and too real to be expressing and emoting all day all the time. So I think I'm developing a

better relationship with it. Also, I just don't want to do it that often, and I want to live in what I'm actually feeling and not It's a great distraction, and the pandemic again made us insular, made us in our pajamas, gave us license to stay home and to connect with people that are, in many cases strangers. You get a familiarity with certain people, but they're not you know, they're not your best friends. And people expect something from you.

Once you become an influencer or a famous person. People expect you're going to tell us about your money, your sex life, your relationship. You didn't tell us this, what's going on with that? Like as if they're owed something, And it's like you want to say to the people that are they're like, okay with you. Tell me how much? How many times a week you fuck your husband? What's in your bank account? How much do you make a year?

You know, people are very very intrusive in a way that your own therapist will be a little more patient, thoughtful, all of that. So I think that's an interesting conversation. Where's the line, where's the balance? How much to share? How much not to share? Should you cry? Should you not cry? Should you be filtering, should you be faking? Should you be showing only the good and not the bad? You know what? Should you be on there only to sell?

And then it becomes, you know, it's just a commercial space. So for younger kids, they have to know how to navigate this. This is why it's been so insane with all the shit that they're buying. And these kids are literally they don't even know what they think. They're buying peel peel products on their face at eleven years old. It's why there's that problem. It's aphora. They don't even know what they're buying. They're just buying pretty colorful packaging

and what's being marketed to them. I give my daughter a lip oil today from a very major viral brand because like, it's not good, but I just knew that she would want it because it has this big viral brand name on it, and it's not a good product. I don't care if it's from the drug store or if it's this viral name product. But the truth is she cares because they're so influenced more than when we

were kids. More than when we were kids. It was around Christmas, you know, the Cabbage Patch dolls and that shit would come and everyone will be obsessed, and yes, I get that, but it wasn't every minute of every day. This is all these fucking kids want is what someone else told them to want. It's really insane.