The algorithm tried to kill me but luckily I am God and will never die

Is the flop in the room with us?

I was crazy last night. I held wayyyyyy too much space hahaha. Like way more space than I should’ve… It was a movie…… GIRL, INTERRUPTED (1999)!!!! What I mean by all of this of course is that I had a fever of 102.9 last night and I cannot miss work or school and life keeps on moving so I am kind of going “loco bananas” and I am in a mood where I could say a lot of things, some of them bound to be regretted, some of them perfect for the internet, and some a little cocktail/mocktail (I’m being sober inclusive) of both. And if you’re like, “Wait Grace you were just sick in April and it’s June now,” yes! Thank you for noticing omg. You’re too good to me. I get sick every 2-3 months because of undefined autoimmune problems. Is it long Covid? Is it POTS? Is it something more sinister… Time will tell maybe. I hope. I’d really like some answers. If I got some answers for the table, would you guys have some?

I appreciate your attention to and care for my wellbeing, but ultimately that isn’t what we’re here for. So just speaking girl to girl (rests both my hands on the table, clasped gently together) let me tell you what I’ve noticed on here…

Let me start off by saying when someone brings up “the algorithm” I do think you should be allowed to hit them one time. It can be a really hard hit, and maybe even a hit that kills, but still you can only do it one time. And that includes myself so do what you need to. But yet and also in additionally, I see a lot of people talking about flopping every single time I log onto Substack and I’m TIRED OFETTE (tired of it) so here are my unfiltered thoughts on the matter…

You’re not a flop you’re just a normal person and most of the stuff you say and do isn’t supposed to go viral. Like that’s normal. And yes that’s true even if you get yourself a little microphone and make your little front facing camera videos. You’ve been conditioned to believe that 5 likes isn’t a lot and it is. You think that more is more, and it isn’t.

Our culture is obsessed with superficial excess; more followers, more matches, more comments, more views, and nothing is never enough to you. I knew a guy who never cleared out his Hinge likes because he liked leaving it at a high number. The little red bubble around the app showing how many people wanted him made him feel good. I briefly dated this model whose agency paid for everything he did, and despite the constant validation he got from his job he still logged into a second account so that he could leave comments like “You made it, [his name]” on posts on his main account to boost engagement. He’d check his followers app religiously, meticulously following and unfollowing people to build an impressive follower to following ratio. And we have all been the type of person to check if someone viewed our story or liked our post or some shit like that. Now, we have “flopping” (thank you Katy Perry!) and all anyone wants to talk about is what a flop they are, how their post flopped, how they’re in their flop era. GIRL… Enough. Oh, but there never is enough. That’s the irony.

When will it be enough? More isn’t always more. More is often empty. More is often a temporary fix to some other void inside of you. You don’t need to constantly be doing something new and constantly be growing your audience or building your brand because you are a person and not a product, but you conflate the two because you treat your life as content to be consumed rather than a life to be lived.

You have to stop. You have to stop. Like you actually have to stop. You’re depriving your life of meaning because you see everything you do as a performance and one day you’re going to be old as cheeks and your grandkids are going ask you how you spent your childhood/teenage years/adult years and you aren’t going to know because you won’t remember. Most of the stuff you see online every day does not make it to your long-term memory, and a lot of it doesn’t even make it to your short-term memory. You are treating your life like it’s a concert where you spent so much time taking photos and videos that you didn’t even really get the chance to listen to the music and then you never looked at those videos again. So genuinely what are you doing. For what. Like actually for what. Tell me.

Every day after I post on here Substack sends me an email telling me the stats and how my post “performed.” Girl, I do not care. At all. I cannot care, there’s real stuff happening. I need to buy groceries and go for walks and hang out with my family. I don’t care how anything I post online performs because I don’t share it to perform, I share it so there is a time capsule that exists of things I care about and thoughts I had and essays I read and liked so I shared them with other people so that they can read and like them too.

I’m tired of reading excellent essays that have 8 likes and changed my life for the better and really shifted my perspective in a new way and then seeing that same person who wrote it posting notes about how their new post flopped. I know people don’t mean it this way, but it comes off as greedy and ungrateful for the people who do show up and read what you have to say. When did the opinions and validation from a few people become obsolete? Why do you constantly ask for more when you haven’t even taken a minute to be grateful for what you already have? What are you doing?

I used to care about all of this stuff, and I don’t know really when or how that stopped. I knew I theoretically didn’t care about likes and views and all that a lot sooner than I actually stopped caring in practice. I know I am sounding holier than thou, like I am above it all and in a lot of ways I’m not, but in a lot of ways I did slash distractions and apps and all of that stuff out of my life in the last couple years and I don’t notice any of those things being gone at all anymore.

I do not have an Instagram account. I do not have a Twitter account and you will never fucking catch me calling Twitter X because I loathe that guy more than I can even say. I do not have a TikTok account. Even Substack gets dicey so I don’t allow myself to have it on my phone most of the time. And my life is pretty awesome and even when it is not awesome at least I can still say that it is mine. Like yeah, my life gets boring sometimes and I cry sometimes and I still find ways to waste time sometimes but at least my life is mine.

Is your life yours?

Okay I’m going to stop talking now because I can tell if I say more, I’m only going to say things I will later have to apologize for. And I don’t really have time for an apology tour rn.