The Social Media Blackout Turned Me Into a Lunatic

I recently read a blog post by a writer who bragged about all the work she tackled during the Great Facebook/Instagram Outage of 2019*.

(*actual title)

This writer is a far better worker than I am.

I noticed Facebook was acting glitchy sometime in the afternoon. I tried to share one of my articles to a writer’s group and when it posted, it was just the link, with no pretty photo preview.

I deleted the link, tried again, and got an error message.

Sigh.

I shut down the tab, then reopened it. Half the page was blank and most of my newsfeed wouldn’t load.

I went back into the writer’s group page and tried pasting the link again. No luck.

Damn it!

Right around here is when I pulled the plug on my modem, assuming the problem must be with me. I mean, Facebook can’t be having issues — it’s FACEBOOK. It can do no wrong.

(I mean “can do no wrong” in a way that a scummy hot boyfriend could do no wrong — sure, he might cheat on me and sell my personal info to others and lie right to my face but I’m soooo into him and he always introduces me to cool new people and helps me promote my writing, so it’s all good, you know? Eventually he’ll come around and straighten up his ways. Any issues we’re having are totes with me and not him, k?)

Anyhoo, I blamed my modem and my laptop and did a whole bunch of pulling plugs and restarting things.

Eventually I was back online…but Facebook was still acting up. So, naturally, I blamed Firefox. It MUST be my browser!

I opened Chrome. This time, I couldn’t even log into Facebook.

So, I picked up my phone and decided to mindlessly scroll through Instagram, thinking it would take my mind off things. (While totally forgetting that Facebook owns Insta.)

My IG feed wouldn’t load.

It was then that full panic set in. Facebook was DOWN. Instagram was DOWN. How does one function in a FB/IG-less society??

I tried Twitter, but that was a hot mess.

So I kind of just stared at my screen. I realized it was pathetic but I couldn’t figure out what else to do. I’d just published a piece on Medium and it had been curated. I wanted to share it! I wanted readers! But I couldn’t, because my boyfriend Facebook had turned his back on me. He wouldn’t even let me in. I was crushed.

So, I did the only thing I could think of: I took a nap.

Eventually, many hours later, the platforms came back online and all was right with the world. Sure, the sites are still stealing our data and exploiting us relentlessly but hey — at least I can post my writing and laugh at silly cat memes, right?

Again: sigh.