Mr. Robot and abyss of social media "connections"

These promotional posters must be seen to be believed

This last couple of weeks, I've been watching Mr. Robot with my friend Chris. It's the first TV show I've re-watched from beginning to end in a long time. Probably the first one ever, actually. I can barely get myself to get through a whole season of TV once (still haven't finished the second season of Daredevil).

I've noticed several things about Mr. Robot the second time around, some of them big and some of them small. Darlene's early behavior doesn't seem so invasive in context, for example. Talking about the show with another person has also changed my mind about certain some of the show's themes. Most significantly, I'm not sure Mr. Robot's central premise about the loneliness of modern life, and the oppressive nature of its false choices, is as shallow and juvenile as I first thought.

Though I still think that Elliot is over the top with his multiple speeches about how the world sucks because everyone is always drowning in pop culture and posturing in social media, I've had time to consider that my reaction might not be so objective. I don't disagree with Elliot's conclusion that getting caught up with presenting a perfect, always-interesting face on social media generates anxiety, loneliness, and isolation, but I also believe that engaging in social media to that degree is a choice. So I couldn't fully sympathize with his anxiety because I felt like he was choosing to judge people sole through what they post on Facebook/Instagram/etc.

I never stopped thinking that people, no matter how obsessed they might be with how many likes their last post got, are more than what they post online. Elliot never seemed to consider this, though admittedly he got to see more than what most people see (like people's private emails, or purchasing histories). When Elliot started crying because he was so alone, I felt bad for him, but I also concluded that he would feel better if he stopped hacking people and tried to actually hang out with them for real. If he found people's social media profiles shallow, then nothing was stopping him from leaving his apartment and forming "real" connections. Except for the schizophrenia, drug addiction, and social anxiety, which is a combination of mental illnesses that most people thankfully don't have to deal with.

So while Elliot's problems seemed understandable, I couldn't see the fixation with social media as something that should be such a huge problem for any random person. Then I realized that I'm in a profession where maintaining a social media presence is not essential, so I can easily avoid the drama of instagram/facebook/tumblr/twitter/LinkedIn/etc. This might not be the case for the average person trying to advance their career, or just look for any random job.

In fact, if I had a stronger presence, or any presence at all in social media, this very blog might be more successful. As it is, I don't pay much attention to its traffic because it's a hobby site. Could I be so breezy about it if I was a professional author, and this was the only thing promoting my work? Would I have to spend hours a day on Facebook/Twitter promoting my blog? Would I be having fun with it if that was the case?

I don't have to think much about that. The answer would be no. I don't enjoy social media, or having to maintain "relationships" with whatever random person I might've known for five minutes ten years ago. If my job forced me to be more active online, I would probably end up as depressed and angry as Elliot.