i know a guy who’s in his sixties. 

he’s a simple guy.  he’s worked for the same company for decades.  he’s the type to be the first one there and the last one to go home.  he’s kind.  he has a big heart.  he’s got a great sense of humor and can laugh at just about anything…. just about. 

recently, the social media manager at his place of employment asked him to be in a tik tok video to promote a sale. 

they shot a short parody video to a popular song that ended up earning them over 100k views in about a week. 

this seems like a big win, right?  my friend got to contribute to the promotion for his employer, the social media manager had a successful campaign, and the company got attention for their sale and added to their bottom line. 

but my friend, who wears his sense of humor so well – the sense of humor that was a large part of making the tik tok so successful – he’s having a hard time laughing at the hate comments on that post. 

my friend is a grown man in his mid-sixties.  we’re not talking about some kid who’s just figuring out his/her place in the world.  he’s heard it all and seen even more and he’s lived on the dirt for a good long time.  it’s not his first day and yet, he is genuinely hurt by the things people are so easily typing into the comment bar. 

words have power.  immense amounts of power. 

nearly every major religious text warns people of the power of their words and the great responsibility we have in wielding them.  we say things like ‘sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can never hurt me’, but that’s just a flat out lie. 

in the post social media world, words alone have had a devastating impact on mental health and suicide rates.  before social media, a well written article, speech, or essay sparked entire social movements and changed the course of our histories.  words have incredible amounts of power and can spark life just as easily as they can take it.  proverbs 18:21 says, “the tongue can bring death or life.”  and boy, is it! 

i’ve said several times throughout this project that my objective is not to convince you to ditch social media, but to instead share the freedom that i experience in not using it.  and this place – the place away from the influx of hateful words – is a great place of freedom. 

in this life, there’s no escaping hateful words.  someone will always find a way to get in your space and spew hate your way – i think it’s inevitable for all of us in one way or another.   but we don’t have to swim in it. 

since i was a kid, my parents have said, ‘trash in, trash out’.  meaning if you put trash into your mind, body, and soul, trash will come out of your mind, body, and soul.  this was specifically intended to guide us in our choices of media utilization, to help us choose wisely what magazines, music, video games, movies, and tv we consumed, knowing that if we watched and read and listened to dark stuff, it would directly impact our moods, thoughts, and processing. 

no one is immune from the influence of their media choices.  and these days, much of our media choices come in the form of social media.  in the choice not to use it, i’m not escaping hateful words – they’ll always find a way, but i am actively choosing not to indulge in them.  not to let them flood my mind.  

and side note: i don’t want to read hate comments about me, but i also don’t want to read hateful comments about anyone else.  consuming hateful words – regardless of the recipient – creates a pathway for them to exist and flow out of our mouths and hearts with ease.  i don’t want that.  i don’t want to think them or read them or normalize them.  and that’s exactly what social media has done.  it has become a normal thing to use hateful words to slander people.  their appearances, their lives, their choices, their beliefs, their pictures, their pets, their dreams.  anything can be critiqued by a stranger behind a screen. 

something about the anonymity of being behind a keyboard is allowing people to say things that they would not have the courage to say in front of a real person, but it is a real person on the backend of that screen.  a real human is digesting those words.  consuming them.  processing them.  considering their validity and weighing their worth inside a real life.  even from a stranger – words have power.  immense amounts of power. 

perhaps you are one who can easily skip over the hate that runs so freely through socials, but my guess is even if you are not being tossed around by hateful words, you know someone who is. 

i don’t have a fix-it solution to this.  socials are here to stay, and people will always engage with them.  i offer these thoughts to share a set of choices:  

the choice not to engage with words that harm you or someone you love. 

the choice not to type words that harm. 

the choice to not indulge in hateful words that bring trash in and out of your mind, body, and soul. 

the choice to be the source of words that brings positivity and encouragement and inspiration. 

the choice to lead someone away from the screen and to speak truth and life to them. 

the choice to take the power away from the strangers behind the screen and put it back into your hands or the hands of someone you love. 

the choice to be free. 

the choice is yours, not mine.  i raise the curtain only with the hope that collectively we can live with a little more intention to speak life instead of death into a world that already has enough of it. 

this is life without social media. 

this is life. Unchained. 

love, Nic