A few weeks ago I was – not for the first time – embroiled in a low-grade internet fracas.
I should have risen above the whole thing, but instead I ignored the first rule of internet arguments and engaged endlessly, often with people who were using fake names and pictures of cartoon characters instead of their own faces. In short, I did everything I could to make the situation worse and it really ruined two full days of my life.
This has happened more times than I can count. On holidays, birthdays and date nights, Christmases, Easters and hen-dos. I’ve said something spicy online, annoyed a large enough group of people that it’s become actively combative, and then pretended to be present with people I love, while thinking about witty ripostes I can make to strangers to win an argument which has absolutely no reward.
Following this latest incident, my newly minted husband suggested that I might want to stop using X. Initially I reacted like he had suggested I give up my career and move to the countryside to focus on raising our children without inflaming my delicate little lady brain.
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I demanded to know why he would marry a woman with a voice but seek to silence it, and said lots of things about caging a free bird (please keep in mind, I am extremely pregnant and steaming with hormones). Half an hour later, after the initial rage had settled, I apologised for throwing a Scarlett O’Hara tantrum and agreed at least to consider his suggestion.
I’m pregnant, I have a toddler and I have a job. It’s possibly fair to suggest that getting into spats online isn’t the best use of my spare time. So, as a compromise, I locked my X account. My Instagram is already locked, and I don’t use Facebook. I no longer have any open social media platforms.
After 15 years of hot takes, semi-viral tweets and losing followers as steadily as I gained them, I said goodbye to all of it.
Initially, it was nice. I can admit that. There’s no gut twist when I open X, waiting to see if I’ve accidentally made someone from Reform cross or had a joke go viral at the expense of a man I dislike. It’s certainly a calmer way to live. But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss it. I really, really miss it.
I miss having a post do big numbers, having a joke get a great laugh, or connecting with a complete stranger over a shared outrage. But I also miss the worst bits. The adrenaline rush of seeing a post start to circulate in the nastier parts of the internet. The sharpness of the nastiness, the ego trip that comes from being at the centre of a discussion. It’s one of the worst aspects of my character, but it’s also, unfortunately, just the truth. I’ve been on X since I was 18 years old. My entire adult life was spent in internet Fight Club. Perhaps it’s no wonder that I’ve become a bit of an argument addict?
Like all addicts, I’ve found myself looking for hits in other places, now my drug of choice is unavailable to me. It started small. I commented on a video on TikTok about Taylor Swift which annoyed me. Within a few days I’d become the saddest thing an adult woman can be – a regular commenter on TikTok. At least in the heyday of X I had a blue tick and some celebrity followers. Now I’m below the line on a TikTok video about breastfeeding, citing studies no one is going to read in rows with people who might well be teenagers.
My fighting spirit has, perhaps more worryingly, spilled over into the real world. Perhaps because I’m jonesing for an adrenaline rush, I’ve become more assertive in the world around me, and assertiveness wasn’t something I struggled with previously.
Last weekend I asked a woman in Waitrose why she had the gall to park in the parent-and-child space when she wasn’t with a child. She looked aghast over the sourdough, both of us very much aware that this was not Waitrose behaviour. As she walked away, I heard myself calling: “The signage is extremely clear, don’t pretend otherwise!” and wondered internally why I’m like this, why I can’t just quietly seethe and say nothing like a normal British person.
When I think about reneging on my promise and opening X, going back to spats with strangers, I won’t lie, it feels tempting. But a quieter life online has unquestionably been good for me. It’s been about a month since I was only half present at a social occasion because I’m wondering what BigMan777 has replied to my most recent post.
I remain hopeful that the TikTok and Instagram spats, and the occasional Waitrose row, are merely teething problems as I gracefully develop into the kind of person who doesn’t need a weekly scrap to feel truly alive. One day at a time, as they say in AA.
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