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"I want to write a novel about silence. The things people don't say." - Virginia Woolf
Say the thing(s) no one wants to. Any form.
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thisisit

I’m not silent, I’m not even real

You do not get notified when someone unfollows you. But I want a reason. There should be a pop up window that says, "Be honest, why did you unfollow this person?" I could collect the responses like data points, but maybe some of them were from internet robots, and the responses weren't real. I start to wonder if I'm real, what it means when someone clicks a button and I disappear, forever, from their feed.

I like to scroll through Facebook, where I have an account only in order to read the comment sections of politically loaded posts. Some people might call that being an "internet troll." But hey, they posted it. I'm just an innocent bystander, reading it.

I never comment. Complete silence from my little computer, a rectangle I carry around with me like it means anything except that I'm being tracked by Apple, Inc.

I judge them, silently. I am the same person who unfollowed me, the infinite loop of social media. People in the real world can't just press "unfollow" and walk away from someone talking to them. That would be considered rude, but on the internet, you can do that with one click. You have been silenced.

I see people's comments and wonder if they know that they are only one of billions of Facebook users, that they are a single grain of sand in an hourglass that makes Mark Zuckerberg another dollar. If they know that their iPhone is listening to them, pushing targeted ads at them, and they don't question it. That Facebook, and all social media, are constantly changing to better suck us into it, to make us addicted.

Maybe my silence is just as toxic, my laughter at my fellow Americans on Facebook only heard by Apple, Inc., and then later I get a push ad from a mental health agency. Go figure.

But, jokes on them - I can't afford healthcare, like every other American. It's funny, how we throw insults at each other online when most people probably couldn't define the term "algorithm" to save their lives. Who are you talking to, really, on the internet?

Likewise, who are you choosing to listen to?

And maybe that's the point. I'm laughing at Facebook posts daily and the billionaires know that they got me, hook, line, and sinker.

Just because I'm only listening, doesn't mean I am not a part of the conversation about social media.