S4E47 Can we just stop doom scrolling in 2024?!

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Speaker 1 (0s): All right, bows and bow ties. So I am sitting in a parking lot because this is the only place that I have decent wifi. It's not a parking lot where one of my children is practicing, but I couldn't get good wifi where I was. We locked my doors, you know, while I'm giving my, so I wanted to lock my doors while I'm sitting here talking. 'cause you never know. I don't want anybody to open up my door. Not that they would, I'm in a ultimately safe area, but you know, there's some wifi. I could do those out here, But. anyway, so I'm sitting in a random parking lot because I have some better wifi for my phone.

but yeah, I ran into this term, when did I write this up A while ago? This was back in January. I have my handy dandy notebook. I was sitting there doodling some notes, but I ran across this term called Doom Scrolling. And I wrote down my notes, sorry. Yeah, this is back early January. Goodness. And it basically says is when you continuously scroll through social media or the news consuming a steady stream of negative content, okay?

So at least anxiety, stress, and some other things like that. A sense of like not, it's like a sense of being overwhelmed. So what I wanted to do was just talk about like, just general, the overall toll on, I don Dunno, if I wanna call it mental health or self-esteem or what So, let just get on into it. I wrote a few things down. I wanna start off with, when you are constantly consuming social media content, let me tell you, it can make you feel anxious.

And it's not just like I think social media, it could be anything. Even the news. So like, it made me think of like during the pandemic, when I was constantly consuming information on the jab, whatever else I think, a lot of people now are consuming a lot of negative information on how men are feeling, how women are feeling, et cetera, right? And so what happens is, I just felt like when I was consuming all of this negative information, whether it was on a lot of stuff about the weather, it could be about anything.

It could be about the wars that are going on. It could be about health, whatever it was, I constantly felt anxious. I remember TI remember during the pandemic, I was so like, ugh, about what was happening, And, they were constantly reporting like how people were checking up outta here. And I remember one time, I can't even make this up, I shouldn't even be talking about this out loud, but I'm, I'm, this is just full disclosure, I somehow convinced myself that I had, you know, the pandemic Coie and you know what I'm talking about.

And when I thought, I mean, I don't know, it happened in the span of like about 20, 30 minutes. I was like, you know, I had a headache. I thought I was getting sick or something. And I came downstairs wrapped up in this heavy blanket. I went all the way to the basement to my husband, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm getting ready to check up outta here. I mean, full on panic. I was like, I think I got the so and so and I'm gonna be here for my kids and all the stuff. And my husband looked at me, he was like, well if you got the cooties, take yourself upstairs.

Because see right now I'm trying to watch, I don't know what he was watching on tv, a movie or something. And he was like, you don't have the so and so and I don't know why you're going crazy. He didn't use those words. But I'm keeping this pg because this, I mean, he doesn't really curse though actually. He rarely curses, but he basically was like, crazy lady. Well, if you think you have the cooties and get away from me, take yourself upstairs. but I literally became so anxious because it's all I would hear all the time.

And I got to the point where I somehow convinced myself I was unwell, full on tears. I was like, like full on panic attack. And he's looking at me like, we're, we're not doing this. I'm like, there's nothing wrong with you. Within the span of about 20 minutes or so, I was able to calm down all my symptoms went away. Like that was my first time actually convincing myself that I had the pandemic cootie.

And what I'm saying is all this scroll, the scrolling that we're doing on social media is the doom scrolling. It's so negative. At least the stuff that shows up in my feed half the time. Like the things that are showing up in my feed right now, the housing market is so and so, rental market is so and so, of course all the stuff I've been talking about recently, right? Like women are choosing to be single by choice. The four B movement, the this movement that, that movement. Men don't want these modern women and get your passports.

You've got women making videos on, you know, so many things. Why am I the ugly friend and all this sudden stuff? Well those are real issues that people deal with. But what happens is there was so much negative stuff showing up in my field. Like I I was feeling like there's no hope. Like, you know, I'm just like, goodness. Anyway, this doom scrolling thing, I think it is leading to a lot of anxiety. It's leading to a lot of things. So I'm move to the next point.

I think honestly, it's it's making me emotionally exhausted. Looking at so many people have so many problems. I mean, we all have problems, right? But it is exhausting looking at, because most people use like social media as in my opinion, an unhealthy form of therapy. Because this is the thing when you are venting about whatever it is, and then you put it out there in the ethos, right?

What happens is that becomes part of some algorithm. And so you're gonna get more information on whatever it is that you talked about or that you searched on. And all that is, is once you do one of these searches or if there's somebody that you follow, follow certain content and it ends up in your, your your, your feed, it's almost like anything that you say or search on, you are automatically confirming your own bias. And it can be exhausting because you're gonna keep getting fed the same type of information.

So when I have been doing my videos and I talk about how I try to cleanse my timeline, I'm serious about that. I, let me tell you, I literally make sure I look up things on like these, you know, I'm like into all the, like the cubs and the lines and stuff like that in Africa. Some of the stuff is arts and crafts. I have my other channel where I talk about travel. You go check it out, Bo travels, BOW travels.

I like to look up all kinds of things that are different just so that I can get some other things in my timeline. I just like between the constant, like the housing market, the job market, the dating market, the no children, the like the women and the men are fighting and all this stuff. And I'm sitting there thinking like, Satan is having a great time because we've got men and women out here going off on each other. It is exhausting. So I like to cleanse my timeline as much as I can so I can get other things recommended to me so that I'm not constantly seeing a bunch of psycho dudes with beards that don't look very clean.

And these psycho women out here trying to convince the world that I'm good, I'm good, I'm good because I'm single by this. I'm like, you protest too much. Anyway, it's emotionally exhausting because basically when you are doom scrolling and you're, you're selecting all of these videos over and over and over, you're just reconfirming all of your biases. So it's gonna continue to, to recommend this same stuff.

Anyway, let's move on. I I wanna talk about the helplessness or what I would even say learned helplessness. you know, I feel like when you constantly doom scroll and you're feeding this negative beast, that algorithm, algorithm, I algorithm, I can't talk. When you're feeding that algorithm, I feel like you get to the point where it's like there's nothing you can do. you know, it's just like a level of hopelessness. you know, one of the words I'm hearing recently, I even wrote it down because I was like, what exactly does it mean?

And I wrote it down, what was it? Hold on, go back to my identity notebook, nihilism, the rejection of all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless nihilism. N-I-H-I-L-I-S-M. So I've heard this term frequently and I was sitting there thinking like, I can see how people can get to this space. 'cause people start to challenge, you know, their morays and their belief in God and their, their, their belief in human, you know, not as humanity as a deity, but you know, hopefully like good tenets.

And I, I just felt like, oh my goodness, by doom scrolling, I kid you not, I feel like it get puts you in a space of helplessness because you feel like there's no use, there's nothing I can do. Everybody is going through it. I mean, you got women talking about a worldwide movement because you know, you know, like, like the population is decreasing. A lot of times they're saying it's because, oh, it it is men. But it could, it's not just men, it's it's economics. It's it's education.

Women are more educated, whatever. but I feel like when we are doing this whole doom scrolling thing that we're doing, what happens is it creates this sense of learned helplessness and then I think people become more nihilistic. Anyway, so I I I actually just recently learned what that was. I was like, what is nihilism? So for those of you who are like super smarty pants, kudos to you. I did not know what nihilism was. Let's move on. Self-esteem.

And this is more like for my, my women that look like me. I think there has been a huge hit to their self-esteem. And so what I applaud is when the women who look like me are trying to, I feel like I'm gonna contradict myself. Let me say this schedule is up, blah blah. Okay, sorry, sorry, I just got like a message come in.

So I just said that I feel like when you doom scroll, right, like it's like a sense of learned helplessness. Like there's no hope, anything like that. But now I'm going to say this, I feel like with the women who look like me, I feel like they, they were trying right over the last, I'm just gonna say five years or so, there's been several movements, some that conflicted with each other, some, you know, so on the one hand you got divest the center and four B, on the other hand it was femininity, coaching, soft life, that type of thing.

And so I think women were trying to find that thing, right? Like, what is it, what's, what's gonna help me? you know? So I think for those who wanted a life, like a long life, long-term partner, maybe they were more focused on their femininity. Maybe if they were looking to reduce their stress, they were more concerned about living the soft life. but I think it was also kind of like in conjunction with femininity or femininity coaching.

I just feel like what happened was in the process of all of this, I feel like some of these women are now just like checking out in terms of like, I don't want anything. I just wanna be left alone. That's what they're saying is like, we are like, you hear a lot of people like I think I saw on TikTok that was this trend about like, we're all the women, they're like, we're inside. We just wanna be left alone. We're not coming outside. you know, like I think women who look like me are now becoming so much more insular. I feel like the self esteem is being taken a hit. Because like you got, like I said, people were talking about them anin and, and, and beauty, beauty tips and stuff like that.

And now they're just like, I don't care. I'm just gonna show up on screen and about it. You know, you've got women going through discourse, having public discourse about colorism, but there's no real, like, what, what are you, what are you looking for? Right? You're really angry at the men and how they're choosing. But then it becomes this fight between other women.

And I get it, but I'm like, but you're not really mad at women. Well, maybe they are, right? Because sometimes women do uphold some of these colorist principles, right? I like I. think I said in another video, maybe several videos, a a long, long, long way back. Like in the beginning, once I became conscious of like colorism and these types of things, I don't, I, I didn't do anything. I didn't change anything but I.

I wasn't equipped. I was in my twenties, right? I wasn't equipped. I didn't at the time I could, I didn't know how to name it. I just, you know. But then as I got older, I found that I would get into, I don't wanna call them arguments, but I would get into debates with men over brown skin, women. And even though I had no true dog in a fight, but in a way I did because I'm still a woman, I'm still a black woman, right? And I was challenge and questioning them on like, well, why would you treat them like this? Why would you say this about brown skinned women? And you have a brown skinned daughter, like the psycho this of it all.

I'm like, anyway, we would have these discussions and debates, I think the point where I'm going is all this dooms growing. I remember there was a period of time when people were in their femininity phase, And a soft like phase And. they talk like this. And, they all had the same like wig and weave And. they all had the same makeup. And, they continued to talk like this and talk about their living in their soft life. And then they would always have the same like aesthetic for their apartment or their house. like, you see how annoying it is to talk like this.

Look, I don't think I come up as a man, but I definitely have a strong voice, right? I would see women because they did not fit that aesthetic. It was like the femininity movement wasn't for them. Like it was a whole movement. Like they, they weren't included because they didn't fit the brand of social media. Femininity and I think women were taking a hit, women started taking a hit. So you got women who were frustrated with all these weird weirdo beauty standards, et cetera, et cetera.

And it was so funny because I was watching women do everything they could to arrest their edges. And I never, well, I won't say never. I rarely do anything to arrest my my edges. It is what, it's, this is how my hair goes up. Well not the braids, but you guys have seen me with the afro, the twist outs, the, the braids, the straight hair you guys have seen me with wear it all. But like, I generally don't spend a whole lot of time arresting my an edges be.

That's just how they are. The point where I'm going with this is, but everybody doom scrolling. I especially like women who look like me. I felt like they were feeding, it was like becoming this self-fulfilling like prophecy that, that everybody's gonna think that you're unattractive because then everybody was putting out the same content. And, they kept hearing like, like I guess there was the, the, the he who shall not be be named. That that guy that passed away, that people he belonged in the manosphere.

He, he was famous for saying that somebody was average at best. And people went all out on like, I can't believe they would say she's, you know, a whole big thing. And I was like, oh my goodness, I'm seeing a whole bunch of women and men, but like women and men who look like me getting out here on the internet. I'm seeing like I think it's TikTok. People are doing this whole pop in the balloon thing. Like somebody will come out and then there'll be some, some, like, there'll be a contestant come out and they'll be like, I don't know, five or 10 men or women, whatever.

And then they pop it based off of what they see coming out like crazy content. Like, I, I just didn't find it attractive or you know, it was like crazy stuff. Anyway, you do all this doom scrolling over and over and it reminds you what it is. It's continually conti continuously scrolling through social media or news consuming, a steady stream of negative content leading to anxiety, stress in the sense of being overwhelmed by cons, by the constant influx of negative information. So I feel like that was what was going on.

We gotta stop all this doom scrolling. I did not realize when I put out those videos years ago, I hope I didn't delete those. 'cause I started cleaning up my account every once in a while because I have so much old content on there. I used to tell people like, get off these podcasts and stuff like that because they were constantly getting on these podcasts, allowing dudes who were completely like stupid and could not like, express themselves intelligently berate them.

They, it was like ation porn. These guys would get off on that and I think secretly the woman got off on being humiliated. It was really weird. But let me move on. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Black women were constantly being told how they're ugly. Undateable, unfeminine, et cetera. Oh, before I move on, yeah, I just wanted to, I remember I was watching. No, I was listening. What was it somebody was mentioning? Like, oh, black women don't have any options. I'm sitting there thinking like, apparently you have no idea what happens in the real world.

And, they got black women believing it. Let's move on. So back to the doom, scroll, doom, scrolling, I. think what happens is, which this is really I think linked to number one, I think it was leading to a whole bunch of difficulties in, in, in how you were getting your rest. Because you're constantly being like stressed out, which I think also leads to anxiety. I think people just like, were just constantly feeding, huh? All that blah, blah, blah. Okay. They were constantly feeding all of this stuff into their like soul.

And then what happens is it's like you're constantly replaying that stuff. What's what just happened? Oh, so you're constantly replaying back all these scenarios and conversations about how you are unworthy and like, it was just a really psycho, it's, it is still psycho. It's psycho. Anyway, I think it led to a disruption and my sleep pattern for sure. But mine was more along the lines of like, oh my goodness, the world is falling apart. Everybody's getting sick and they're dying. I am like, what is going with the weather?

Like anytime I see something tragic happens, like, you know, a week or so ago the Baltimore Bridge came, one of the Baltimore bridges came crashing down. You've got weather issues happening everywhere. Even the really cool solar eclipse phenomena that happened just the other day is still like an event. Like, well actually I was really excited for that. But the point I'm making was, I mean, I'm constantly putting certain things and you're consuming all of this negative content. Then I think it leads to things that, that are very psychological I. think you start to experience like helplessness, anxiety, low self-esteem.

You can become exhausted, emotionally exhausted. you know, I, I listed all the things earlier I think it definitely has started leading to a very nihilistic society. I'm so glad I actually looked up that word nihilism. You're seeing it happen now, I will say, because moving on to the next point, because of all that doom scrolling, especially during the pandemic time, I think I was starting to become, with each passing time, I, I had all this level of anxiousness, but then I, I I I started to expect so much negative stuff that I was slowly becoming desensitized.

you know, in terms of like, I couldn't, let me rephrase that. I felt like my empathy started to change a little bit for the situation, right? Like, I would see people out on, on the internet, I would see people like me, women who look like me, and then I could tell they were frustrated and I was starting to feel so helpless and I'm just kinda like, stop getting on these podcasts. Stop listening to people. Like, as if it was just that easy, right? You're trying to, to make, tell people to change the very habits that they have already created.

So trying to tell people to stop doom scrolling became frustrating. didn didn't know that was a term, but I think I've just became desensitized too because I felt like I couldn't help in any way, right? I couldn't get people to understand their value, their beauty, or just understand like, get off of these things so you can try and to appreciate something else. Hear a different voice, right? Like I I was feeling like, I'm tired of hearing you complain about this. I felt like I was losing my empathy for people.

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Speaker 1 (23m 31s): And so then, you know, once you start realizing that you're getting into that space, I kind of felt like, wait a second, I don't wanna be in a place where I don't have any empathy. I don't wanna be in a place where I don't have, or I extend any grace towards anyone. you know, I just, I, I I I don't know I think even like right now when I listen to some of these hyper feminists wanna like, I don't know what they think they're proving at this point. I don't know what they think they're proving by trying to tear down all these other women.

So they, they have a clear hatred for men. I mean like, we literally have come to a society where the men and the women just don't even like each other. And then we got these, these hyper feminists who are literally, I just feel like they're tearing down other women you got, if a woman is already broken, why would you kick somebody when they're down?

You understand what I'm saying? Like, like why would you kick somebody when they're already down, they're already in a bad place and, and maybe they play a hand or maybe not, I don't know, but maybe they played a hand in their own downfall. But these hyper feminist women are like, if you don't believe exactly what we're saying to the t you are a pick me or they all these things are wrong with you. And like, you can't be part of the womanhood. So I'm sitting there thinking like, so these women can't be protected by men And, they can't, you know, seek, you know, collective protection or support from the women.

Anyway, the point I'm making was I got to the point where I was feeling no empathy and a lack of grace, but it was only for a short period of time. And I was like, no, this is not how you wanna be. And I think it's because you're constantly consuming all this negative content to the point that it becomes boiler plate. It becomes like standard, it becomes like regular. Okay, okay, let me see. Last thing, I just think that, which I already talked on. We just have like this negative outlook on everything now I think the thing circling back to the four B movement, I think the thing that is so sad about it is there's, this is a very nuanced and lay layered argument, right?

It's not an argument, it's, it's just there are women who are, They're, they're treating the population decline. Like, like some sort of badge of honor. If you are saying, I'm sad that the population is declining, but I can't do this now because I'm trying to make myself healthy. That's one thing.

They're more along the lines of don't talk to men, don't date them, don't marry them, don't have their kids, don't have sex with them. Like we want nothing to do with them. And if we have to exterminate our own existence, like there, there's a level of sickness here. There's a sickness here. The men are just a psycho. They don't like women the way they talk about 'em. I'm just kind of like all of these extreme people. 'cause they don't see that they have a blind spot, right?

I say put all the angry women and the whacked out, weird manosphere dudes. Put them on an island together and let them work it out. And I said what I said, because what happens is you have women who are out here with this negative outlook. I'm like, don't worry about what the men are doing. Worry about fixing and, and healing yourself. Centering yourself or healing yourself doesn't necessarily mean you, you have to be done with men.

It just means the focus should shift to you for some period of time where you get to explore your wants. Where you get to figure out how to make yourself less anxious. Where you get to, you know, work on your spirit, spirituality and maybe increase your education in some, some particular area that is needed where maybe you become financially healthy, where maybe you understand where real joy comes from. And like I've said in multiple videos now, when I listen to them talk, it's so negative.

And the only thing they seem to be happy about is the fact that they're making more money And they can engage in certain activities. And what happens if you are unwell and, and you can't engage in, you can't go to these places or whatever like that, and you start to run through your money, then what happens? Where does the joy come in? Where when you're saying to yourself, where, where's the real mental health coming in? Where does that come in? What if you get to the point where you know you're relatively healthy, but you can't travel and do certain activities anymore?

What does that mean? You know, I just feel like the outlook on outlook on everything due to all this doom scrolling now you got all these women who are out here. Yeah, yeah, they're like big up this four B movement. It is, there's a level of sickness here. And, and they're like, and you don't understand. And they're aggressive about it. They're aggressive. And I'm like, if you have to be that aggressive, I'm like, I don't need to hear from you. You don't have to convince me. You need to convince yourself.

You need to have a whole argument with yourself anyway. I just feel like the doom scrolling is putting us in this really negative place and we're creating a whole bunch of our problems when we're doom scrolling, we are automatically engaging in this, this confirmation bias. We are engaging in it because we're constantly feeding the algorithm to feed us the same information over and over and over again.

And it's weird. It is really weird. Like I, I am sitting here listening to these people And, they think they're doing something. Now, do you have some outliers? Right? you know, you have some edge cases where they are like, look, I want to decenter men 'cause that's the new thing. That and four B, like if you're saying, Hey, I need a timeout because maybe I'm out of balance right now, I don't hate the men. But then you got the ones who are like, you know what? The men are all the that and the other. If you listen to what they're saying, listen, everything they're saying is in relationship to men.

Instead of just saying what it is they want, they're telling you what they don't want instead of what they want. They're telling you what they don't like. Instead of telling me what they want, they can't say anything without speaking negatively about something else is said. What? I said And, they, I don't know, excuse me, I don't know who they're trying to convince. I don't know how long this is gonna work. Now, will there be some success?

Of course, being proud of a reduction in population. I don't know if that's something you wanna hang your hat on. You hang your hat on things like, you know what, I've gotten to the place where I found real joy. What? Whatever. Right? I think, don't get me wrong, I understand not wanting to allow a man to continue on with his bloodline through you. I get that as far as like, look, I don't think we're a good match.

I don't think that I want to be tethered to you in terms of, you know, raising a child for any extended period of time. I just don't think that I'm the match for you. Like, I, I get all of that, but to log and applaud, like, yeah, we're reducing the population. I'm like that, that's, that's your end game. Like, I don't understand what happens in the four B movement or, or this decenting them. What is your end game? What are you looking to accomplish? I don't know what, I don't understand what the end goal is.

How do you know you arrived? Is it measurable? What, what does this mean? How do I know that you have seceded in doing these things? Then what, what are you trying to achieve? Anyway, that's just where I'm at with it. With all this doom scrolling and the things that it's I think contributing to and I think. That's pretty much it. Hopefully you enjoyed this. This is where you go ahead and hit the subscribe button because I'm amazing in every way and could do no wrong.

And go ahead and leave a comment. That's about it. You need to get off of these podcasts. So except for mine. Go, go look at all my videos.

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