Antisocial Media
We’re connected but alone in here
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Perhaps like many of you, 'm pretty sure I lived close to two ... maybe two and a half ... lifetimes before the invention of what we now call social media", though there's very little "social" about it. My heart breaks for those who not only grew up with it but have been consumed by it. Not that many in my generation haven't but at least we remember a time before the likes and the dislikes, the shares, the community violation strikes, the shadow banning, and the deplatforming.
While there are certainly ways to use social media for social, political, and societal good, that's seems to be in the vast minority of use cases. Instead, it's used for propaganda, moving the Overton Window, shaming, discrediting, soliciting conformity and, it seems, sometimes plainly evil purposes.
This piece is mild commentary on the sad personal losses too many in the younger generations experience as a result of "antisocial media."
Antisocial Media
[instrumental intro]
[Verse 1 – Male, soft and low]
I used to know your laugh by heart
We’d talk for hours in the dark
Now I know your filtered face
A thousand likes but not your grace
[Verse 2 – Female, fragile]
I saw you at the grocery store
We both looked down at glowing doors
Two feet apart, a world away
Our thumbs still scrolling what we couldn’t say
[Pre-Chorus – Both, whispered]
We gave it all for free
Every secret, every need
Now they sell us back to ourselves
[Chorus – Full choir enters, soaring]
Antisocial media
You taught us how to disappear
We’re connected but alone in here
Antisocial media
You turned our hearts into a feed
We’re dying in the glow
Of a screen that doesn’t know our name
[Verse 3 – Male]
Remember parks and bowling nights
Third places full of real-life lights
Now the bars are quiet, chairs are stacked
We traded touch for double-tap
[Verse 4 – Female]
They know the words that make me cry
They know the posts that make you fight
They keep us raging, keep us small
While the real world forgets us all
[Pre-Chorus – Both, rising]
We’re numbers in their game
Addicted to the shame
And we still hand them the keys
[Chorus – Choir bigger, drums kick in]
Antisocial media
You taught us how to disappear
We’re connected but alone in here
Antisocial media
You turned our hearts into a feed
We’re dying in the glow
Of a screen that doesn’t know our name
[instrumental interlude]
[Bridge – Both, almost spoken over piano]
Put it down, just for a night
Look me in the eyes
Can you feel the silence
Like the first time we felt alive?
[Final Chorus – Massive choir + band, key change up]
Antisocial media
We don’t have to disappear
There’s still a world that’s waiting here
Antisocial media
We were born for something real
Turn it off, come home
We still remember how to feel
[Outro – Choir only, fading]
We still remember…
We still remember…
How to feel
(How to feel)
This is original work is produced by AK Darvinson with a combination of observation, critical thinking, insight, heart, compassion, passion, creativity, and technology. All rights are reserved. Free sharing is encouraged. Commercial use via license only.
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