What Did I Used to Do Before Social Media?

I’m supposed to be taking a nap to while away the time, but I couldn’t sleep. Then this thought popped into my head: what did I used to do before TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp?

Oh, and before I forget, Snapchat too.

But then I remembered that even before I became centred around all of this, I was a chronic 2go user. And Facebook. And Musical.ly (presently called TikTok). It’s like I can’t remember a life where there wasn’t a time I was using my phone, but I genuinely believe there was once a time when I wasn’t picking it up and losing hours of sleep to social media.

What was I doing before searching TikTok for “ways to glow up,” “how to spot a fake friend,” “is this man good for me?” or “when to walk away?”

The list goes on and on and on.

No, social media isn’t my personality, but I remember when people would ask, “What do you like to do for fun?” or “What are your hobbies?” and I’d hit them with, “Oh, I love dancing and writing.”

Now, I still say those things, but somewhere along the line, I could also add, “I love doomscrolling on social media.”

And that’s a little scary.

I honestly understand why people take breaks and regulate their screen time because of how much you can lose yourself to… digitality. I know it’s not a word, but you understand what I mean.

Before AI came on board, it felt like most of my thinking had already left me. I stopped asking Google and started asking these apps instead. It’s like I can’t be who I want to be without searching for a script online.

What should I wear?

How should I respond?

What does this mean?

What would a confident woman do?

How do I become that version of myself?

And before you know it, you’re searching for instructions on how to live your own life.

Even as a Christian, sometimes instead of praying, I’d rather search for videos that cuddle me and make me understand that, yeah, it’s okay to drift away from God because life happens.

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And I know there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel understood. Sometimes you just want to hear someone say, “I get it.” But I wonder when we stopped sitting with our thoughts long enough to figure out what we actually think.

Sometimes, I wonder what life was like when people used parrots, quills and ink. Of course, I know it wasn’t all peaceful, I know history, but I still wonder. If there had been social media back then, would somebody have sat down and invented some of the things we use now?

Or would they have been too busy scrolling?

“Another man’s food is another man’s poison.”

I believe social media was intended to be a good tool, and honestly, it still is. I’ve learned things from it, laughed because of it, connected with people through it and found answers I probably wouldn’t have found easily otherwise.

But at the end of the day, some people are even suing the owners of these apps.

So maybe the problem isn’t always the tool.

Maybe it’s what the tool slowly takes from you when you don’t realise how much of yourself you’ve handed over to it.

Maybe I just need to remember how to do something else again.

I mourn a lot of things, and most times, it’s not even the death of a loved one or someone close.

I mourn the loss of things I once had within my reach but have disappeared into a mist.

I mourn who I could have been if I had known a lot of things sooner.

I mourn the people who didn’t continue with me.

I mourn my lack of intention, my lack of knowing how to have day ones, people who stay, people who grow with you, people you don’t have to keep finding your way back to.

I mourn my jealousy, how deeply it burns when I see what I could have been, but can’t seem to be.

I mourn my regret, because not a day goes by that I don’t think about and regret so many things.

I mourn my childlike joy, the excitement of a thousand laughs, the little things that once filled my spirit.

I mourn my naivety. You didn’t know better, and people called you stupid for it.

I mourn endings, because I’m often left unaware of what step to take next.

And maybe that’s what mourning is sometimes.

Not just grieving what is gone, but grieving what you thought would stay.

Grieving who I was

Who i could have been.

Who i thought i would become.

Maybe it’s time for me to let go, there’s no need holding to pieces and bits of things, holding on to a time I can’t rewind, trying to beat the universe and it’s plan.

It’s easier this way, there’s a peace and even though it’s out of reach. It’s neat and it’s beautiful.

I wonder if I over reacted but I was hurt or were we both victims to untold lies, misinterpreted truths or was I naive.

But I was hurt. I don’t get why I got to see just your bad side but all of them got to see your good side, everybody praises the good you but I was stuck with the person who dragged and degraded me.

There really is two sides to a coin and more than one perspective to an action and a person.

Talking isn’t easy, I’m talking to my notes app and it’s not responding, it’s not saying what I should do and if it’s all my doing.

I want to live and let go, love and let go, but there’s so many things untold.

I need a room where I can sit down with everyone, with letters tucked at the back of my chair and pour it out.

I hope this isn’t all to life, my breath hitching at my unforgiving memory, my throat constricting because I’m holding tears, my tummy paining me because of so much nerve.

My heart beats but not for lola (please get it )for so many untold stories, so many things that could have been but didn’t and finally for me because I still don’t get it.

Before I explain further, I had to make sure I knew what stereotype meant so I just don’t fling a long word and call it a title.

Now let’s get into the few ones I’ve gotten pass.

Beauty without brains

This! This one right here stands amongst the most common one that gets thrown at me. What do you mean because I look a certain way, I ought to act a certain way? And why does that way have to be that I’d be dumb? I read an article about a girl, who got back handed compliments when they found out she was beautiful and smart apparently you have to have this look if you’re smart. You can’t have a nice face card and be brainy at the same time. Unfortunately for me I can’t remember the her substack handle and by the time, I started writing this i couldn’t find the article anymore, bummer! But basically, she had the same problem.

I go this a lot in senior secondary school, which was even more weird because I’d get it in this form

“Do you know Mr Amos’s office (literature teacher ), I get a tap on my shoulder and behind me is a girl I don’t know, realizing she asked a question “sorry what did you ask?” she rolls her eyes “I asked if you knew the literature teachers office?”

“Oh I’m sorry, I don’t know his office but since all the staff share an office, the staff room. You could find his table if you ask a few of the teachers inside.” Like any normal person giving a direction I expected a thank you or further directions but instead I got “you’re not in art class?” “No, im not. I’m in science class” “ ahh, you don’t look like somebody that can read chemistry and physics o, but thank you”

And I loved physics, heck I was even teaching my class mates sometimes.

I didn’t even understand what that meant, chemistry and physics people have a look? Sorry I make sure my hair is combed and my uniforms are always tidy I guess?

This isn’t even a shade to people who were in art class but i remember back then after I got told this more often than I can remember, I’ll go back and ask God if i should just switch to art class because back then i didn’t see it as someone calling me out for not being smart but rather felt like i was told to leave science class. I think, it hit me one day when during my extension in secondary school, I was asked to teach jss3 basic tech and one of my juniors said “why did Uncle T choose you? “ I asked her what she meant and she said you don’t look like you like school. Jesus Christ! Me??😭 and apparently some of her friends agreed with her, I asked why again, she made reference to my old ig account( I used to be very involved in social media) and my musically account which is now called tik tok. I had to explain to them that, I may dress up and have pictures on the gram but that doesn’t mean I don’t read and I like failure.

You'd think after secondary school this would stop, in university whenever I told someone the course I was studying, they’ll be surprised “ you don’t look like you can draw” you don’t look like you can handle the course” omo it’s well sha.

Only child

This one isn’t even bad but when I was an only child (I have a two year old brother now) anytime I mention it. I’ll get “your parents must be very busy that’s why they gave birth to only you” “were you a mistake? Because if not you’d have other siblings by now shey?” Omo people can think sha, because how did you even think of this. “Don’t you get bored or lonely?” No I didn’t I have a lot of cousins that I grew up with. “Ah you enjoyed very well o, not having to share things” well that was a plus I guess ? “That means you’re very rich, it’s rich people that give birth to plenty children” stares in disbelief my parents made sure we never lacked but i didn’t know being an only child meant I had money Omo please involve me with those type of kids/settings. I’m on my kneeessss (in OBO’s voice).

Big clothes

I have body dysmorphia on any other day. It took me a very long time to accept my slim body which is weird because I got complimented more than I was called “lepa” or asked if there’s food in my house. I got into university and suddenly I just wanted to be covered everytime and that’s how ladies and gentlemen I got roped into the “Pablet” name now pablet is the female name for Pablo which in simpler terms either means you’re a yahoo boy or a Yahoo boys babe or a Yahoo girl proper proper. I was confused because, I wasn’t out there wearing mis matched outfit, I wasn’t wearing pajamas and bonnets to class so where did these rumors even come from and oh I wasn’t even dating or following a yahoo boy. It was when i casually asked someone who called me pablet and he was like “ I’m always seeing you on polo and baggy jeans “ oh I see. Anyways that was my freshman year. I stopped the big clothes outfit everytime.

Owning an iPhone

I didn’t even know this was a cause for being stereotyped. You own an iPhone and suddenly everybody assumes you don’t have present parents and the only way you could have gotten this phone is from a boy. We’re finished in this county, you mean my mummy and my daddy and my cousins can’t pitch in to buy a phone for me because, just because! It has to be a boy or it has to be that im into runs? Mehnnn, so much to say, so little to voice out.

Idoma people and kunu

I like kunu, it’s even an inside joke between me and my friend who’s idoma too because atp it’s like a drink accustomed to us. But I hate it when I’m talking to someone and I mention I’m idoma and they’re like “so you drink kunu instead of water” and proceeds to laugh but I didn’t get the joke? It wouldn’t be a problem if this person says it once and moves on but nope he goes ahead to streamline that as the basis of our remaining conversations.

I have a lot but can’t even remember most anymore. I’ll still be stereotyped before today ends, if I leave my room.

And i started writing, I saw the words pour out of my mind like and endless Dam. And damn!! did I like how that felt.

My mind an open book, the alphabets forming hooks, my thoughts calling on me to come look.

I was drawn, there was no going back. I liked it this way, but the words became too dark.

They echoed so much doubt and how much I left to drown.

It screamed at me “let me out “ but I didn’t want the world to see that part of me.

Didn’t want to be viewed like a zombie.

It was the truth, i layed low, never touched a pen because I was scared of how much my words could tell.

I write letters to everyone, lovers, foes and friends.

I write letters to everyone except myself.

I write letters to God, with so many request, my parents to help quench my thirst.

I write letters to everyone except myself.

I say sorry to the best, the worst and the rest,

I never give myself the test, the best always the less.

I say sorry to everyone except my self.

I toss, I turn to make things right,

But I move so frequently with way too many lies.

I tell the truth and hope no one sees,

The eye catching ugliness, you wouldn’t believe.

I write letters to everyone except myself.

I say sorry to everyone except myself.

If it’s not seeing insensitive comments under people’s post in the comment section, it’s seeing jokes about the current state of this country.

I understand that humor has become one of everybody’s coping mechanism in this country as an escape from reality, but shouldn’t there be a point where we draw the line?

Now if you’re very active on tik tok, there are times when you come across a post of somebody talking about a failed marriage or grief or even kidnapping and then when you enter the comment section you’re left wondering if there’s any empathy left in people. You start reading things like “I’ll marry once and I’ll marry right” “I’ll not bury my parents early” “I’ll not be a victim of kidnapping “ While these may be very good words to proclaim over a life, it feels very wrong 😑 writing it under someone’s post, at the very least give your two cents and leave, it’s not even compulsory to comment. Read the room!! This is the first issue on “Nigerians insensitivity “.

The second one would be the issue on bandits, we are quite aware of what the current state of this country looks like but joking with it, is very very unreasonable.

I was scrolling through tik tok and I saw this and I was so irritated, because now we use the littlest things to trend, anything for the plot “click bait” this isn’t even funny and it’s because people still walk around with the fact that “it cannot happen to me because I’m careful” remember it’s closer to you than you think. Who would think those children wanted to be kidnapped? Or the girl traveling wanted to be ganged raped? Hate this country! Because why would you even think this is okay to joke with.

This isn’t even half of how insensitive Nigerians can be but these are the ones that trigger me!

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I believe in miracles, I believe that it’s possible for you to get a strange phone call at one in the morning telling you “ Your job application has been reviewed and you’ve been invited for an interview “ when you didn’t apply for sh!t. But the thing is, this type of thing hasn’t happened to me so I’m more realistically inclined than biblically inclined to believing in miracles. I believe in miracles because I’ve read them in the bible.

“Open your mouth and pray, don’t pray in your heart” I can’t count how many times I was told this as a child growing up, even the church teaches you to open your mouth and ask even though God can clearly read your mind and see your heart, but the both go hand in hand because the Bible tells you out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks so opening your mouth is essential.

if you’ve come this far please like and comment, muahhhh

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Now that I’ve been able to make a point with the Bible, let’s bring to another point using life, if you’re lucky enough to get things handed down to you, that’s good. If you’re not, then you need to learn how to ask, learn how to open your mouth essentially. I’ll make reference to the note I posted .

I posted this on a random evening because I wanted my work to be seen and oh boy! I got the notice and the notifications. I didn’t essentially join Substack because I wanted to have a big platform, but rather because I had been told “your writing is good, have you tried substack?” “Your imagination is crazy, try writing them on substack” and eventually I gave in. Even though I like writing for the fun of it on this app, sometimes I crave the little numerical validation ( not good, I know) maybe it’s just a part of me that wants to be seen for my work. I’m not the best here, I’ve read so much and I’m in so much awe of people’s brain.

I’m digressing, what I’m saying is that, if i didn’t post that note that evening, even though i wasn’t basically asking but there was a little plea and somehow Substack’s “algorithm” worked in my favor and I got a lot of likes plus 10 new subscribers, I had six earlier on and I’m connecting with a lot of people who likes writing too. I wouldn’t have gotten any of these. Most times you’re your own little external force, your own miracle and you don’t even realize it because you’re waiting for it.

Miracles still happen, but in the mean time you can ask, you can reach out, you can keep applying, you can preposition yourself and you can do it for you!

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You’re using this your epistle to win my man?

Like a lot of people I use two things as my means to escape reality; writing and social media. So of course I love to write, it was always the first thing I’d mention when someone asks me for my hobbies or things I enjoyed doing. That was until…… (inserts dramatic music) dun dun dun dunnnnn!!!!

I had this friend( a guy) who I had been pretty close to, we were so close that maybe we could pass as best friends that was until he wanted more and I didn’t have that “more” to offer. Maybe I was selfish for wanting to just be friends and keep eating his money but we genuinely had a bond ngl.

Anyways I knew that couldn’t continue, so I backed out and then he got a babe and somehow i entered into his life again but this time it was because his babe wanted to me to stay away ( story for another day) and we weren’t even talking to begin with. Skips into another year and suddenly he texts me on snap “I’ve been in the hospital for a while”

I see the snap, Ignore it, curiosity gets a hold of me and then begins a series of unfortunate conversations i should have seen coming despite all and everything his babe had been doing to sabotage me. But oh! No peace had to learn a lesson and not look back.

I ask him genuinely about his health and then we start talking again, like we didn’t fall out for over a year. He rants, complains about his babe, I take screenshots just incase I need it, stay quiet and stay neutral and then he asks if I still write, I get so excited when someone asks for my write up i tell him “yeah, I do. I even wrote one a couple of days about ships; platonic and romantic” he asks for it, I send it and somehow that backfires.

His babe gets a hold of his phone and sends the write up to everyone we are mutually connected to, telling them I’m trying to steal her man. Ah mee!! I was on my own and to back her claim, her babe, my ex friend deletes part of the conversations where he was ranting about his babe and being suggestive with me. But it was too late I was the “home wrecker”. Thank God I took those screenshots because some people who genuinely wanted to know the truth asked and all I had to do was just show it to them and to top it all, she threatens me! women!!!!!

I had to make up my mind and stop trying to accommodate that boy, because there was no type of ship that was going to work out, blocked him everywhere and makes sure to avoid the babe, but that’s hard considering she’s friends with a lot of people I talk to.

I want the fairytale ending I see in books, but each time I’m reminded that, that isn’t how it’ll be for everybody.

Today I read an article on ig about these two lovers who fell in love in university and have remained together till this day. And my oh my they still talk about how they don’t think they ever left the honey moon phase even after more than ten years.

The story was so beautiful i genuinely couldn’t stop smiling and then I snapped back into reality when i started reading the comments, although a lot of them were sweet but it’s Naija now, it doesn’t take time for someone to sprinkle a little bit of “results may vary“ and that’s true, a lot of people wouldn’t have gotten their happy endings, hell these couple whose story I read were even trending in their university because a lot of people thought they wouldn’t make it.

I’d always feel like the toughest lady on earth, the “hard guy” but honestly I’m really just a big ol’ softie and it’s common but sometimes I wonder if love chooses favorites. I like to say my if I can imagine something or be delusional about something or a situation it’s because I feel like these things can happen and they are happening to people so it’s not unbelievable and it’s very common.

But as our faces are different so are our heart desires just like we would say when praying, then it’s applicable to love “different faces, different love lives”

One minute I’m grieving my friend, the next minute I’m being called to clean my younger brother’s mess.

All I wanted to do was mourn a friend but the next minute, I’m being called to clean up my brother, because at that point he decided that he was done with metabolism and his digestion, I don’t know how to place it but whatever biology term I can use to describe it so it doesn’t gross you out.

This isn’t the first time, I’ve been in this scenario the other time I’m crying because life is overwhelming but the carrot needed chopping and who’s the best option to do that, take a wild guess “me” the first and only daughter.

Sometimes I wonder what it will be like to genuinely cry away in the open not in the night or solace of my pillow without being whisked away for an emergency chore or something that all of a sudden my parents can’t do. Reminds me of one time, somebody I knew lost her boyfriend and all we could think of was how was she going to mourn in the house without them calling her to turn semo? Or to be fair it’s much harder to cry as a girl at home if you have a typical African parent, I was honestly curious but I haven’t gotten the chance to know how that went. It’s times like this that I don’t blame people who move out early but until I can afford that, my pillow is ever ready to recieve my tears in the night when everyone is asleep.

“Your purpose is to serve God, what happens when your mind battles with this ?”

As a Christian I was made to understand that my sole purpose for why I was created was to serve God, even though He gave us the choice to choose but, it’s wiser to follow God.

My brain battles with Bible thinking and the logical thinking every time. For example “why can’t i question God? When I don’t understand the way things are going. It’s the same Bible that tells us that when we think about God we should think of him like a father but a more superior father and that’s fine, but when there’s a troubled heart, an event that shakes faith, I’m suddenly not allowed to question God.

The concept of death is so mysterious, we’re meant to live and some how meant to die after everything, grief has become a very close companion, it’s like the moment I blink there’s death around somebody I may know. So “what was I made for ?” To live or to die. If I was created to live, why does death come untimely? why does it battle with the good ones and the evil ones get to live longer? What exactly does my creation on this earth entail? why struggle when our utmost goal is to please God?