Facebook thinks I'm bad

There is life behind the wall

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Kia ora koutou,

Last Monday, I picked up my phone to send a message to a friend on Messenger, but could not get into the app. I was redirected to a page that told me that activity on my Facebook account did not meet community standards and my account had been shut down.

I was baffled. I thought back to something I’d done which maybe could have been misinterpreted by an AI bot that would have triggered this, but I didn’t know. I still don’t.

Part of me is outraged: You can’t just kick me off! I’ve done nothing wrong! I have submitted an appeal to have my account reinstated, but I don’t know if or when that will happen. Where there was once Messenger, Facebook and Instagram there is now a wall.

Part of me is relieved. I’ve idly wondered for years what it would be like to live without social media, and now I don’t have much of a choice. I’ve wanted to slow down, join the Feast of the Real, all that.

There have been times when I felt disgusted and out of control with my social media usage. Haven’t we all lost too many hours scrolling and suckling at the sweet little red notifications button?

Sadly, being shut out of social media does not mean I suddenly have time to clean my windows. That’s because for the past few years, I’ve had pretty strict controls on my social media usage anyway. (Willpower is something I have in limited supply, so I’ve had to use strategies which don’t require me to use any. Ask me how if you’re interested).

I haven’t gained all that much extra time, but I do feel more here and less somewhere else. I probably have less FOMO because I’m not being exposed to all the lives I’m not living, events I wouldn’t be going to anyway, and ads for things I don’t need.

Also, importantly, I’m still alive. (I’m just telling you that in case there is a teeny part of you that wonders whether you will die without social media).

When I think of things that some people have taken from them — their health, their families, their communities, their livelihoods, their lives — losing social media feels stupidly insignificant.

Nonetheless, it does feel confronting to be blocked from my virtual town square by the monolith that is Meta. It makes me feel small and insignificant. I feel like I’m banging my fists against the side of a dumb giant.

I’m tempted to write something about how limits can be enlivening. How they can give shape to our life force: a cup is useful because it has sides, a life is precious because it ends, living within the limits of Earth’s biosphere is necessary for our continued survival as a species... Those things are all true.

But because you are an artist, I know you know well the power of limits — the way that having a deadline, or a restricted palette, or a certain number of syllables per line can bring life to your work. I don’t need to explain this to you.

What I really want to do right now is lean my back against this wall for a while, and just see what happens. Hang out with me here for a moment, will you?

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Do you know what to do with a wall?

You could paint the yellow 
shapes that the sun makes 
on the wall. Or light a cigarette 
and burn holes in the wallpaper. 
Lots of holes. In the shape of Jesus  
or a traffic jam or an albatross.

You could install a line of power sockets 
along the top of the wall, and plug in all your 
appliances, and they could hang down the wall like 
limp patients. Or you could hang seaweed from the top.

Did you know you can smear clay on a wall? And cake mixture?
You can also pop coloured bubbles on walls. You can dip your whole
body in ink like a Chinese fish and slap yourself against it.

You can run and jump at it and make shoulder shaped grooves and then 
you can pick through the gib with your fingernails. You can rip the wallpaper down, 
and into shreds, and then squeeze toothpaste on the wall and it will smell like peppermint. 

You can throw handfuls of flour, or dried coconut. You can mix the flour with water and paint it on the wall and then throw turmeric and it will stick. You can make moulds of your teeth from plaster of Paris and then video them chomping through the gib and it will make a chalky sound. 

You can nail on pieces of firewood and climb them, or have a series of pipes coming out and train a snake to slip around them. You can throw cups at a wall. New cups or old cups. Some of the pieces of cup might stay in the wall if you throw them hard enough. 

You can cut out shapes through to the kitchen. Square, circle, star, heart shapes. You can practice aiming toast through the holes. Or buttons. Or olives with their pits in. Or train a wax-eye to fly through. Or a swallow. 

You can fill the holes with potting mix, and plant strawberries inside. You can go into the garden, pick the chrysalises off the swan plant, and sellotape them to the wall in a line. The butterflies will spring out like magician’s silk. 

You can also play music to a wall. You can cause it to vibrate very gently, by sitting in front of it on a chair and playing the cello. You can even just sigh. 

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(This poem from ‘Second Person’).

With love,

Rata xx

P.S. I’m currently building a new programme to support creatives just like you to stay connected to your creative projects, without needing to expend quite so much willpower to stay in the flow. I’ll be announcing details here real soon. Stay tuned!

P.P.S. You know what would make me happy? Since I can’t do this myself, I’d love it if you shared this, or another one of my missives that you’ve enjoyed on social media today. Thank you!! ❤️