I killed myself four months ago.
That is, I deleted my Facebook account and waited in purgatory for friends to text or notice I was gone.
I disconnected permanently all the data associated with the profile I had created in 2007, the year I met my husband. That deceased account held in its memory the births of my children and every first day of school photograph.
I didn’t leave as a statement, political or otherwise. I left for myself. I simply couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being controlled by social media more than I was controlling my use of it.
I scrolled without thinking, awaiting the next funny meme or sarcastic joke to make me smile and stay distracted. I accumulated hours daily of phone screen time spent on social media, while I “didn’t have time” to get X, Y, Z done.
My neck was curved, not from reading a book every spare second like I did as a teenager, but because I constantly hunched over my iPhone, engaging with “feeds” of Facebook “posts,” Instagram photo “stories,” YouTube “shorts” and “tweets,” which could now be “Xs.” (This idea makes me think of the Charles Manson “family” who carved Xs in their foreheads as a symbol of “X-ing” themselves out of society, but I digress.)
Facebook is the water cooler at work, the hallway conversations between classmates, the community bulletin board, and the town center where we shout from our soap boxes.
“They have us by the eyeballs,” I thought, before pulling the trigger.
Dopamine rushes from validation in the form of reactions, shares and comments disappeared and I struggled with withdrawal, unable to constantly check my phone like a rat conditioned to click an emoji for an emotional reward.
Pita Steal arrived January 27, 2025, a bastard profile born from a need to access public posts on Facebook.
Pita like the bread; steal like stealing bread in the song “Hunger Strike” by Temple of the Dog; Pita Steal like Peter Steele, the deceased frontman for the band Type O Negative. I amuse myself .
Here on Facebook, friendless Pita sees advertisements, sponsored posts and suggestions to connect with profiles of people I might know. I choose not to create an authentic social network. I am here to observe.
The algorithm regurgitates sponsored ads for twisted versions of the things I like – or, at least, things I hover over too long.
I follow several pages and groups, but most of the information in Pita’s Facebook feed is not what I choose to engage with.
“What did I want when I created a Facebook profile in 2007?” I ask myself. “To see what my family and friends are up to,” obviously.
I created the first virtual version of myself as an online update about who I’d become in the decade since graduating high school and settling in Woodstock, Georgia. I joined the year I met my husband, and I announced our engagement March 19, 2008, as a “life event” post on Facebook.
My social network included the people I would have previously written and mailed letters to, but now I could connect with my support group across the World Wide Web.
The account I killed deleted data representing parts of my life and art that I wanted to share with my community.
I still want to share these things with the people I love, according to my privacy settings.
So, I’m rebuilding my network here, on what began as an alt account for Facebook access.
I intend to use this platform as the community bulletin board, the water cooler at work, the hallway conversations between classmates, the town center where folks shout from soap boxes and the coffee shops where I catch up with old friends.