Social Media Digital Detox Challenge: An Empty Camera Roll…and Life?

Someone tell Dave Chappelle he was right, keeping it too real can most definitely go wrong…

Walk of Fame stars. Your favorite celebrity memorialized in wax. Double-decker bus tours of multi million dollar mansions.

Pink’s Hot Dogs, pinker social media selfie walls, and where the green is so plentiful Los Angeles County is a joint away from another layer of smog bordering its sunsets.  

Hollywood is indeed one of the world’s many if not most eccentric marvels, though it’s fascinating what we may or may not consider worthy of a photographic memory. 

It’s Los Angeles! HOLLYWOOD. Where stars are born, where stars are made, and those who already know they were born stars come to shine. 

Demoting your own two eyes for a camera lens nearly feels insulting to the opportunity to experience such a city.

Though you can easily switch out this narrative from big, bustling city to small, quaint countryside…but Danny couldn’t be the top toe tappin’ cat if he stayed in Kokomo (for all my Gene Kelly/Old Hollywood fans, do yourself a favor and watch Cats Don't Dance).

However, what do you make of the circumstances, or better yet, what do you make of your personally poignant “Why?” when you decide you’ve spent too much time capturing a moment on your phone instead of you capturing the moment for yourself?

If you choose to use your photographic memory, versus collecting memories in the form of photographs? Do you want to? Do you need you? Do you have to?

What Is A “Social Media Detox” And How Do You (Or Do Not) Participate?

Nobody:

Nobody at all:

Absolutely nobody:

Older parental figure: “Because you’re always on that phone”...

A “social media detox” or “digital detox” is a period of time when a person voluntarily refrains from using digital devices such as smartphones, computers, and social media platforms, if not opting out of participating in the aforementioned completely.

Where integrating mindful practices, improving overall wellbeing, and/or simply establishing personal discipline to become and remain present in the moment. 

If your birth year begins with 19-, chances are you remember when social media was a miscellaneous activity done recreationally, versus an obligatory tool used in the life of public figures, creators, artists, business owners, and everything & everyone in between.

It began to branch gaps for promotion, information, and communication to reach higher, further, and faster. 

However, discussions on how technology codependence have become a movement in and of itself. From long-term physical, mental, and emotional side effects of social media addictions, to how smartphones and technological advancement overall has become a main culprit for how we've in many ways regressed as a society.

How phones became a status symbol, and no longer simply a way to get in touch with one another. Devices we are now obligated to have in order to navigate the world, or exponentially left behind if you choose not to update along with it. 

When a generation collectively resigned as Myspace web designers & coding specialists (deep sighs in the six to seven figure salaries that could have been), and scrubbed the Internet clear of tweets and/or photographic evidence that would subsequently cancel you - being granted the opportunity down to begin your tenure as an Artist in the very cities where the wannabes want to be - why take pictures? Do you not wish to be one with the experience? To live in the moment?

Survivor’s Guilt & Doom Scrolling: The “Live In The Moment” Militant Makers

Gun Violence, Mass Incarceration & Police Brutality, Mental Illness, Substance Abuse, Cost of Living, and Socioeconomic Issues have become red button topics in various underrepresented communities within the last decade, so potentially assuming a life in a place like to City of Angels while having to come to terms with your own mortality is a masochistic recipe for disaster. 

Regardless of where you were, who you were, what you did or intended to do - depending on your community, it was virtually impossible to not partake in honest, bittersweet discussions about how communities thriving through endurance, hope, faith, grit, and heart still would not exercise restraint on killing you or your dreams - if you weren’t already a victim or direct witness. 

As Instagram, the new successor in social networks, began to establish itself as the new Photobucket (iykyk) on the block with a communicative twist in the early 2010s, there was an underrepresented subset both directly and indirectly affected.

If this indeed applied to you, there probably wasn’t a thought in your mind making you feel pressure, nor pleasure to show anyone the capacity with which you enjoy things.

You woke up every day, vowing to keep your eyes open and focused - for yourself, and those who have no longer been granted the privilege.

But before you take on that responsibility, ask yourself: Are you making your phone less of a priority to make a bold statement and protect your wellbeing, or are you simply adhering to a social media digital detox challenge because you have nothing challenging you? 

An even better question: Are you not actively participating in social media because you're challenging yourself to find the beauty, influence, and something to like within your own reality? 

The Influencer Pot o’Gold At The End Of The Student Loan Debt Rainbow

Want a woman to spiral? Prove to her that something she once hated and/or was indifferent towards just might be the missing ingredient to the recipe for her succeeding in life.

As our Gen X siblings & relatives recovered from the wake of the 2007 Financial Crisis, many of us wee 90s born baby Millennials with freshly pressed high school caps and gowns considered capitalizing on more non-traditional career paths, and the platforms for you to establish them. 

Tell the children the author of this blogpost is this makeup tutorial years old:

Now why was Los Angeles referenced as the jumping off point for this blog post? From the high rise apartment aiding as backdrops to show off how many PR lists they’ve made.

From the lavish, extravagant brand parties, events, and infamous brand trips ($10,000 gifted drones while gurus were Trippin With Tarte in Bora Bora, anyone?)

Becoming a Beauty Influencer became a perfect unlocked side quest for even the most novice beauty enthusiasts to to make money.

Damn good money.

When you tell starving artists all they need to do to get Sallie Mae off of their back is to have a camera, a makeup brush, a face, and a dream? It’s no wonder we all worked ourselves into a neurotic, content creating frenzy for friends, fame, fortune, and free products. 

What did all of your faves do the second those big sponsorship checks began to roll in?

Precisely. Now Choose Your Fighter.  

From gray sweater post-scandal apology videos to 240p quality, you remember because that’s when it was still about the artistry.

We wanted to connect with likeminded artists who loved using something as simple as a smokey eye or vampy Nightmoth & Ruby Woo ombre lip. Or were you more of a lined with Subculture, Stone, or Whirl with a dab of Myth in the middle girl? 

Now raise your hand if you opened an Instagram account to become a professional makeup artist. Now raise your hand if you instantly felt discouraged when every brand you tagged, not one liked your content. Now raise your hand if you felt envious of a Pr unboxing?

Now raise your hand if you ever unfollowed a brand because you were bitter you’d never be invited on a brand trip. Now raise your hand if you knew someone that did, that you felt you worked harder than. 

Now raise your hand if you flooded your feed with content, used 27 hashtags under each and every post, went bankrupt buying every ring right, black studio backdrop, and DSLR camera you didn’t know how to use.

Now, and finally, raise your hand if after all of that and then some - you still weren’t followed, you still weren’t reposted, and you finally let a combination of imposter syndrome, comparing yourself to others, your lack of consistency, and for many of us, a face now full of blemishes & imperfections that still looked awful after hours in Facetune - you swore to never pick up another beauty blender ever again?

A lot of exposed armpits in the room with us right now…

The Old Social Media Digital Detox Challenge - Part One

Though let’s not fault social media for being and becoming a method to generate income, especially with the fluctuating to broken job market Millennials, and more recently, Gen Z college grads have been forced to navigate and conquer.

With the social media influencer space being its most eclectic & economically enriching as it’s ever been, it’s easy to see how confused someone who has found a way to use the algorithm to their advantage would scoff at this entire blog post.

After reading a rough outline of a social media influencer's potential gross earnings in 2023 - 14 years since that Michelle Phan video above - you might be wondering why the social media digital detox challenge I’m not talking about is how to dominate JuicingTok.

But that same vast eclecticness could spell impending doom for those who cannot seem to find their own footing (or in this case, their fame & influence) when it seems there is so much room for your feet to land without stepping on someone else's toes.

A recent August New York Post article states studies show excessive social media use and substance abuse have similar effects.  

Let’s be frank. The need for social media digital detox challenges are a direct result of a person never feeling good enough, and/or an inability to compete with, compare with, share with, and/or relate to your fellow peers.

Deeming yourself, your life, and/or talents unworthy. 

You’re constantly searching for something more fulfilling, something better - for your feed, not for you. And if your “content” doesn’t meet your standards, let alone the masses - why make memories, let alone a referrable and traceable one? 

You soon learn you're no different than the girls actively posting, desperate for their double taps. 

Your New, Healthier Content Consumption Cleanse - Part Two  

Funny how social media digital detoxes and irony challenge just how dirty little miss number 30 could be…and we know how much social media has made us fear that number.

A social media digital detox challenge does not mean removing yourself from social media completely, but being more honest & mindful of how social media makes you feel. 

Do not sell yourself short. 

Anyone who resonates with making certain their life is always being lived to the fullest can vividly and thoroughly recall the details that frame their most unforgettable moments.

With obvious personal limitations and exceptions aside, you remember everything an iPhone Cloud could and then some. You remember nuances. You remember feeling. The smell. The sounds. The colors. Your outfit. What you ate, what you drank. 

And though you chose not to take out your phone to prove it to anyone, it does not make the bites out of life you take any more or any less sweet. 

A social media digital detox challenge is yet another effortless, idiosyncratic life choice versus another ironic way to give yourself the same linear labels you placed your phone face down to avoid in the first place. It is a practice that can be picked up, or put down when needed. 

Feeling discouraged? Maybe it’s time.

Feeling FOMO? Maybe it’s time.

Constantly comparing yourself to others? Maybe it’s time. 

Depression? Anxiety? Suicidal thoughts and idealations? 

It’s imperative we understand the difference between practicing grace with ourselves, and putting forth sincere gratitude for the world around us, versus pressure to prove how graceful & grateful we are to the world.

Once you gain perspective that no life backdrop is not meant to be graded nor be measured for how scenic they are - they're simply scenic.

Find what makes them so. For you.

✍️ Written by Nichole Nealy