Vulnerability

I’m not sure if it’s apparent to other people, but to my mind, my social media angle (*gag*) has always been vulnerability.

Today, I felt the need to be “vulnerable” on social media because of how I’ve been feeling recently but I realised everything I wanted to say simply wouldn’t fit in the usual short form media that I’d usually use: stories, post captions, maybe even the nuclear option, a Facebook status. So instead, now equipped with a mind capable of professional writing, honed in the fine institutions of Britain’s Universities (250^th and 87^th, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024), I decided I’d write a blog post. The perfect solution, I could pen everything that I needed to share in excruciating detail, like when I got violently mugged 2 months ago, had my flat set on fire last September or when I had a psychotic breakdown because of multiple family members dying within one week. But instead several thoughts beamed into my porridge flavoured brain clear as day: “Who the fuck cares?” “How is shouting this into the void supposed to make me feel any better?” and most importantly “Why do people generally respond positively to what I have to say?”

You’ll be glad to hear that none of the things I just listed have happened to me. While I have been struggling recently, I’ve decided that sharing the details of my less savoury experiences isn’t helpful to me or those around me. Let me give you a deeper insight into what I’m on about: last year I started a finsta (an Instagram account dedicated to fitness, usually cataloguing the trials and tribulations of its owners quest to become a baddie and/or giga chad) and almost immediately posted a shirtless picture of myself as a starting point. Later that day I got a dm in reply to the post saying that I was brave and that what I was doing was inspiring. “Excuse me? What do you mean brave? There’s nothing brave about it! It’s impressive! If anything and you should be intimidated by my sinewy, emaciated form and the knowledge that I shall soon become even more powerful.” Was pretty much the response in my head. What has happened there was I had grown accustom to people responding positively to what I shared on social media and had gained the belief that people did so because they respected me, finding me to be insightful and entertaining, maybe even revolutionary. This comment made me realise, embarrassingly, shamefully, oh-my-god-am-I-an-idiotly, that people might pity me, or even worse, view me as a live action cringe-core reality show garbage fire that you just can’t look away from.

So, vulnerability. What is it that we like about vulnerability? It’s become a massive topic on social media while simultaneously appearing to be totally at odds with everything social media has come to represent. As much as my ego would like to view me as a trail blazer, I definitely didn’t come up with the idea by myself. I think it’s actually highly consistent with the negatives of social media which we’re all familiar with, like comparing yourself to others. Consider that I make a post saying “Oh my god, I’m so sad, I don’t want to do anything and I’m struggling to find passion for the things I care about, I have genuinely no idea what to do”, in my experience that type of post will get a few people messaging me really concerned asking if I’m alright, but will be largely ignored. If instead I made a post saying “Three months ago I felt like saying ‘Oh my god, I’m so sad, I don’t want to do anything and I’m struggling to find passion for the things I care about, I have genuinely no idea what to do’ but I remembered what was good about life and pulled myself through it.,” I can all but promise you that that post will get a tonne of positive engagement and people commending it. I have noticed this shift myself actually because I’ve been posting “vulnerable” stuff on social media for over a decade now (Jesus Christ), and have noticed a shift in the way people respond to me as my life has gotten better and my posts have moved to looking more like the latter example than the former.

This post came about because I was about to post ‘sad with no upside post’ and realised that I couldn’t handle seeing people check on me as if I was a wounded puppy. The point of my posts was always about self-empowerment, to bravely share however I felt regardless of if it was comfortable because it was my reality and I believed (believe) that people understood I was a strong person because I was able to push on through an unrelenting shit storm of bad luck and bad feelings. I thought that people didn’t respond because it was too real, because they couldn’t handle it and it disturbed their world view, but I know now that they probably looked at me with a deep sympathy and a hope that their life never sucked as bad as mine (regardless of their own DoLLA(Degree of Life Long Awfu)). I think that when I (or anyone) makes a post about how their life USED to be shit, it gives people comfort and sympathy that the person is either A. Worthy of respect as evidenced by their later actions, B. A plucky upstart who the person can feel sympathy for without feeling guilty or uncomfortable, C. A gossip generating machine which can be enjoyed with no ethical dilemma.

I can’t really be arsed writing much more just now but I want to finish this with a few thoughts. I want to clarify that despite how this post might seem, I’m not angry or annoyed at anyone, I’m frustrated with my own behaviour. More broadly, I want to rip my eyes out at how much talk there is on social media of telling people to share their feelings, therapy content, brave stories and other pop mental health bollocks, while fundamentally being an uncaring, lonely and nihilistic wasteland which actually exacerbates the vast majority of problems it claims to help. I think what I’ve described here is quite closely tide to my thoughts on men’s mental health and social media in general so maybe in the future I’ll ramble some words about them, I think it could make much of what I’ve said here make more sense.

Please ask yourself why you read this post and what you expected it to say, and I’ll ask myself why you bothered to read this far. Thanks so much if you did.

p.s. GUMT people: I’ll be back to full training very soon and if you haven’t taken this opportunity to surpass me you’ve missed your chance.