People take social media seriously. Too seriously. Platforms designed for communicating with friends and family, later used for cat memes and useless political ramblings, have devolved into a feed of content we did not ask for. There is no way to get our feeds back on track.

Many years ago, our preferred social media platforms became ADHD TV, prompting many to abandon ship for other, near identical platforms. Sure, IG and TT arguably do a better job of providing content based on your ogling history, but also, for sure, rot your brain.

I stuck to Facebook and LinkedIn. Yes, I stayed with the classic clickbait hell, today receiving content ranging from:
1. The latest bad podcasts. Bobbi Althoff, please gtfo my feed!
2. Staged OF and YT content posing as candid videos.
3. Comedians practicing their iMpRoViZeD cRoWdWoRk.
Todd Barry, Jeff Arcuri and Matt Rife: you get passes on crowd work vids. Nobody else!

Going on Facebook feels like going to Dick’s Last Resort. 

Around 2018, I decided to (metaphorically) suicide bomb my social media accounts to counter a growing judeophobic movement, parading itself as a social cause for the most ignorant and racist. The anti-racist in me could no longer ignore a rising voice pushing for Jews to be forbidden from Levant, often with open calls for terrorist actions, labeled as “resistance.”

While I was getting death threats from the most violent people on Earth, I decided I might as well continue to trole and lose followers. I sent conspiracists scientific articles and Wiki pages, knowing they would not, and likely could not, read them. I pointed out obvious logical fallacies, even with takes I agreed with. I wrote 500 words, knowing people’s attention last 5 and an emoji. 

Losing likes and reach was fine. 

There was one action on Facebook (and Discord, which I’m not on) too heinous to try. I knew to save it for a special occasion.
I am speaking, of course, of the dreaded @everyone .

The first time I received an unwanted @everyone post on Facebook, I was infuriated. How dare they! I took a deep breath, realized social media is a joke (where the users are the punchline) and left the group thousands were unnecessarily tagged in. One person had done me a service by shouting, “Hey! You! This group is not for you anymore.”

Others replied as if it was the worst thing to have ever happened to them. What privilege.

Within our social media graveyards, why does @everyone unleash a torrent of fury amongst the living?

Let’s break this phenomena down. Social media zombies, myself included, do what is colloquially called “doomscrolling.” They scroll past irrelevant content for hours, including native ads and sponsored content posing as trends. We zombies stop on occasion to ogle something we did not ask for, but find mildly entertaining. The algo treats this as a sign to send more unwanted content.

Then comes the ding. That sweet, sweet notification ding. A moment of hope for something we signed up for.
Mrs. Sarah Tonen.

Alas, it is usually a birthday reminder for someone you haven’t talked to in years, a reminder of a sad memory exactly X years ago, or a status update from a friend you do not care to talk to. All of this is unwanted, but expected. We chalk it off as the horrors of an algo that forbids customizations. We signed up for this algo hell.

@everyone tags are unwanted, but also deliberate.

This tag is a reminder that behind all this algo madness, someone could be sending relevant content. It’s a reminder of that FB Group or Discord Channel you used to love, that fell off. We’re reminded our useful entertainment device has become pure addiction.

@everyone shatters the mindlessness of doom scrolling. It forces you to be mindful.
One wrong note ruins a cacophony of catchy, pop noise. It’s a screeching saxamaphone harshing your digital high.

We zombies are reminded we made an unconscious choice to be mindless zombies. When we are summoned by that @everyone tag, we’re awoken from a deep slumber. Our feed is not random. It is a hodgepodge of people telling us what to think and do. Here is an opportunity to misdirect the anger of a Billion+ person, egotistical community at the one person who called themselves out.

We zombies become aware of our existential despair and the ongoing keyboard warfare we drowned out.
It’s all Guy’s fault. Or Steve’s fault. They woke you up from your trance.
Let’s direct our anger at that one person trying to get an online community active.

“How dare you waste my time on this time wasting device!” Nevermind that our feeds were already a buffet of trivialities.
Self-awareness is hell.

Many of us already learned to unfriend people when we don’t want to wish them a happy birthday. So I’ll remind the reader again that you can simply leave a group if you don’t want it tagging you (a maximum of once/day). You can leave the social media graveyard whenever you’d like. Or better yet: Burn it down.