Social media is cancer and this is not a goodbye letter

(but it kind of is)

Social media is cancer.

There. I said it. As someone who has made a full-time living from social media for the past 5 or so years and is now getting out, I'm saying: social media is cancer.

The loudest voices saying the most brain-blisteringly dumb things get the most attention. There are so many people who automatically believe that something that gets a lot of views must be true/someone with a lot of followers must be credible. I just watched a Reel where that girl that does twirls in the supermarket and then tells you your groceries are bad for you called Mrs. Butterworth's "maple syrup." It's not maple syrup. They don't even market it as maple syrup. Get your facts right. Jesus Christ. This Reel currently has 5M views. Also leave my pancake syrup alone.

People are out there telling you that sunscreen is bad for you. That you can change the shape of your actual skull with gua sha scraping. That overpriced OTC serums are more effective than prescription retinoids. That consuming seed oils makes you more susceptible to sunburns. That displaying your butthole to the sun has powerful health benefits. And that's just the first few dumbass things that came to mind when I sat down to write this. There have always been stupid health and beauty fads, but social media has enabled turbo mode on the firehose of bullshit.

Looking at it from the perspective of someone of the big age of 44, it's so easy to see the formula too. You know all those grifty "HOW TO GO VIRAL" social media "expert" accounts? Here, let me boil it down for you.

Come up with a dramatic statement. It can be a claim that something extremely commonplace and either of neutral or positive benefit is actually the worst thing ever and will kill you/destroy your skin/ruin your life. It can be a claim that something many people wish they could change but would need extremely expensive and dangerous plastic surgery to achieve, can actually be done at home with just this one simple secret DIY trick. (Think: Making a square face oval with face massage, carving a tiny snatched waistline out of a wide ribcage and apple-shaped body type, melting away arm fat by swinging your arms around in circles for 2 minutes a day.)

Film your short form video where you will enlighten the world on this incredible revelation. Make sure to present yourself in whatever way is currently popular among your target audience.

For example, if you're targeting women with an interest in beauty, turn your beauty filter up to high (normal human skin is not enough!) and copy the exaggerated hand gestures that the other influencers do. If you're targeting teenagers and very young adults, do that thing where you violently swing your phone at your face and then pull it back while making a lot of cartoonish facial expressions.

If you're a guy targeting hetero men, I guess film yourself after a good upper body pump and make sure you're sweaty and shouting? The objective is to signal to the algorithm that you intend to reach a wide audience and are willing to sacrifice your individuality (and probably your dignity) to do so.

For the long term, come up with a visual gimmick. Maybe you always put on a certain headband. Maybe you always have your boobs out or you're always shoving something in your mouth. Maybe you do pirouettes in the shampoo aisle at Costco. (Other people just trying to shop? Who cares?) Whatever. What you're shooting for is something that's easily recognizable in the chaos of people's explore pages and fyp.

Be loud. Be declarative. Be black and white. Be complely unconcerned with nuance or evidence or any worry about whether you might be wrong. Even if you're flat-out debunked later or decide to do a total 180 in accordance with the trends, it's okay! The nature of short-form video content means that whatever you said before will be pushed down so far on your page and people will have watched so many other videos at that point that no one will remember you once said this thing will kill you and now you're saying it's the best thing ever.

Be a caricature of yourself.

Profit.

That's the formula.

I am really, really old fashioned in some ways. I have absolutely zero interest in embarrassing myself or spreading oversimplifications or outright untruths for clicks or profit. I've been thinking about this for years, ever since Tiktok blew up (and Instagram copied the format). Like I already thought people like Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil were bad (especially Dr. Oz for being a genuinely brilliant and celebrated surgeon who decided to use his hard-earned professional credibility to shill snake oil for clout and money) but here we are with thousands of wannabe Dr. Ozes attempting to do the exact same thing.

Maybe it's my old school Asian upbringing, but there's a very special kind of cringe one experiences when seeing a technically respectable surgeon doing dances and acting out childish skits while bleating about bakuchiol in their scrubs.

But although I can sit and bitch about fearmongering medical professionals all day long and say I'll never play the clickbait game, ultimately you have to play the game to some extent if you want to stay in it. Even more so if you expect to continue making a living off of it.

It got exhausting trying to find compromises to play the algorithm game without feeling gross, or putting more energy and effort into the format than the actual message. I just like talking about skincare and beauty and yoga and all that stuff. The rest of it is just window dressing.

Also exhausting: The constant awareness that you have to play the game to make the money. I'm not even talking about taking on sponsorships or promoting products I don't believe in. I've never had the stomach for that and all the things I've said I loved, I loved. I still use my red light mask whenever I remember it exists. But the frequency of it. The timing. Checking your affiliate dashboards and thinking a couple months ahead, going "oh I need to share some links and get some more sales in before the end of the month."

Having my content schedule be somewhat dictated by concerns like this, or by the need to appease the algorithm with something I know will get more views because you need to do that at least once in a while to stay attractive to sponsors. Feeling the need to pump out content, anything, just because you're supposed to post regularly and frequently to stay on the robot's good side. You know how so many accounts just post mountains of fluff and memes in between the few really useful, purposeful gems? That's why.

I'm tired of it. Also tired of playing nice out of a probably outdated sense of collegiality and professionalism. I know there are plenty of creators who do just fine while being harsh and combative, but I find myself reflexively biting my tongue all the time because if this is my job then I should be approaching it with that customer service mentality. Putting up with rudeness and, at the very most, ignoring/restricting/blocking when my actual true nature is not that.

This is a very longwinded way of explaining that I've taken a full-time job offer completely outside of beauty and I'm so excited about it. Mostly, like I told some friends, I'm excited to remember what a tax refund feels like and to not have to pay for all my healthcare myself. But deeper down, I'm excited because I feel completely liberated from the need to play the game.

I'm not going anywhere. Obviously I'll have less time to post, but I started doing this because I love all things beauty, and I still do. Plus, social media is a great outlet for my (I think) benevolent narcissism. But freed from business demands, my page might evolve into something pretty different from what I've allowed it to be so far.

I've been extremely lucky. My following on Instagram is very modest compared to a lot of other creators, but I've been able to make it work financially for the last five years. But I've also been feeling more and more worn down by the internal expectation to play nice.

So this isn't a goodbye letter because I'm not going anywhere. What it is, is just my way of saying the gloves are coming off. I just want to play with beauty products and share amazing skincare and call out bullshit when I see it. There's plenty of bullshit so that's really a lifelong commitment. Which I think I'll be able to commit to much more now that I don't need to worry about it affecting our ability to pay rent and eat in a very high cost of living area.

Let's have some fun!