Category: fiction

       So back in 2015 I stopped using Facebook and Social media all together, i did have a My Space before that. In-between I dabled in Reddit, twitter, and Instagram all of which in my point of view are cesspools. Not that I’m a saint, but I detest those who catfish & scam, trolls, asshole partisians, virtue superiority signaling, maga, aggreivment gender supremacist, trauma grifters, and the general way people treat eachother with disrespect and make instant judgements on your life and character. Also, the stalkers, who go after you, plenty of those ass hats.

     I orginally quit social media in 2015 for two reasons, with my friends it felt hallow and fake why not just talk, the second was how MAGA used it with Cambridge Anylitica to get Trump elected, blatant manipulation and FaceBook was cool with it: that was to me grounds to tell FB to fuck off. I haven’t been back since, nor Amazon for that matter. I’ve always made decsions based on my politics and where I spend my money and what platform I allow to advertise to me i take important. One of the reasons I left Substack, because it’s owned by a libertarian tech bro. After the Charlie kirk assination they let MAGA gaslight and make death threats for at least a week. I have no doubt just like Zuckerberg & X, soon as a writer or blogger they will write into the terms that your work, copyright, or IP will no longer be protected.                                      

The thing that disappoints me the most about social media is relationships with other people, or the superficiality of them. I am a person who always is trying to “bond”. I’ve found that the vast majority of people you think you are bonding with are not treating the experience of learning about eachother the same way you would physically, as in face to face. It’s as if the wired has a “buffer” that keeps these bonds that you build from ever becoming reality. I can’t imagine how it is to date with online apps, it must be like going through a menu at a 24 hour greek restaurant at 3am with a bunch of other drunk people.

  In December of 2024, I went back in and to blueskye trying to push back against X like many X’ers, then came WordPress for my writing, then I left both for Substack in may of 2025 (also, partly because a WordPress writer was actively gaslighting me). I went to SS just when the notes part (the social media part) of SS came online. Though, I met a lot of cool people on Blueskye & Substack many who had helped me through some of the toughest emotionaly horrible months of my life, there has been only one that I have a meaningfull relationship with that I have from all of it.

     The cruelty I faced for coming out regarding my assaults was sometimes overwhelming. The anger and spite directed at me for speaking out just to be heard, the cruelty, the hate, the rage. I finally had enough of it on SS too, like I had on Blueskye. Living with an assault considered taboo, I have no idea what I was thinking trying to find answers on social media sites. I was desperate just to find some grace in a world that views you as a villian at birth, even though you were not the villian, and the experience goes against the narrative.

  Now, I plan on staying on WordPress. The last year has been an education for me. Social media is not for some people, I am one of them.

       I’m a writer, on the darker side, and a terrible artist, but what I show you and what you read is genuine, it’s from my heart and mind. The majority of the art or images I take myself.

     I give you me and I ask nothing from you in return.

©️ Jacob Pickard. 2026.