As of yesterday, I made it so that my Instagram account is no longer private. We’ll see how that goes.

I like to keep track of who’s following me, because when I don’t do that, a ton of (allegedly) single men — most of whom I think are scammers — start following me and then immediately start hitting on me in a seriously personal way, and I am so not into that.

However, when I went into my settings to make that change, I noticed that I am now following over 800 people — about 10 of whom are actual friends who almost never post anything, ever.

The rest are film festivals and production companies,  bird and animal photo feeds, painters, photographers, bands I’ve never heard of, a ton of (apparently) really famous musicians that I’ve also never heard of; a small handful of famous musicians that I have actually heard of and have followed (in real life) for decades — and I cannot believe that they are in their 60s now, with grown children (??!!) (like, when did that happen?) — guitar gods, like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, both of whom I still think of as being about 32 years old.

But now that I’m following them on Instagram, where they actually interact through video clips, etc., and you can see their grown families and stuff — I realize that this is so not the case.  (It’s sort of mind-bending, because, of course, then that makes me feel really old.)

Well, my point is that apparently I follow over 800 people, and my constant Instagram feed is still almost entirely photos of Keanu Reeves. I’m not kidding, either — and not exaggerating. It is fucking ridiculous.

Keanu himself is not on any social media at all, so these are all just fans posting photos of him endlessly into their feeds. And I mean endlessly. So I’m wondering, if I go ahead and stop following the Keanu hashtag, will amazing things finally get into my feed??!!

I also think it’s interesting that a couple hundred people follow me, but maybe about 10 of those people are actually following me.  (I don’t really post much of anything — just my yard, the sky, my cats — so I doubt I’m getting into most people’s feeds anyway.) (Especially if they’re following #Keanu.)

But I find all this stuff interesting.

Some people have to really, really work their social media accounts, all day long, because they’re either famous and wish to stay that way, or they want to get famous, or successful, or whatever. And so they want those numbers and the numbers are important to them.

It’s the same here on WordPress, with people following blogs that they never, ever read. It’s just numbers. I totally don’t understand the point in that, but a whole lot of bloggers seem to think that that’s what blogging is — getting followers. And I’ve noticed that a ton of people give up on blogging relatively easily. By that, I mean, a couple of days, a couple of months, maybe even a couple of years, and then they’re just done. They go off somewhere and have a life, I guess.

Not me!!

I’ve been “blogging” since 1998, and I can’t imagine not doing it, but at the same time, I’ve seen just the constant, constant shift in “followers.” It’s sort of like a meandering stream, you know? The readers are always there, but 95% of the readers change over time — sometimes even over a period of a few months. So I just don’t see the need to hunt down potential followers for anything, you know?

They’ll come and then they’ll go, ad infinitum.

But it’s still all very interesting to think about — what our culture has morphed into; that extremely short attention span. I actually love Instagram, a lot. And I love TikTok — although that’s a really different type of social media. It seems to be more about performing.  (As near as I can tell, most of the people on TikTok are trying to gain enough followers who will follow them over to YouTube or Spotify, etc., that will then garner them a way of monetizing themselves.)

In my opinion, that is a tough switch — to follow someone for 25 seconds at a time and then swipe up, versus actually finding them on YouTube and watching them for much longer than 25 seconds, so that it will count as a “view.” I love a lot of the people I follow on TikTok, but so far, @TylerJarry and hi.this.is.Tatum (a rescued pit bull who has a funny human voice) are the only ones I’ve liked enough to want to watch more of on something like YouTube.

Still I do find it all really interesting — this whole shift in the culture.  And our new unwillingness to focus for very long (myself included now).

So. I still have not figured out which foreign language I want to study this year (see yesterday’s post re: my unexpected auto-renew of the mondly language app). I do kind of like thinking about it, though — pondering the various languages that are out there. You can study basically any language at all on the mondly app.  And — yes!!– it takes 5 minutes a day!!

Too funny.

Well, okay.

So, yesterday, none of the phone calls I was expecting came through. Yet again. But I am now getting accustomed to this new coronavirus approach to work, where everyone’s schedules are just up in the air, and everyone’s lives are suddenly so different.  Now I never know any more if I will be working with anyone from one day to the next, so I’ve stopped waiting around for phone calls. And I got a ton of editing done on The Guitar Hero Goes Home, so I was really happy about that.

I still have more to do on that, and plan on doing that today (so today will probably be the day when all the phone calls come in and everyone wants to work!!).

And tomorrow, my lawn care guy — who is having some lawn mower issues — is planning to come by and at least help me get rid of a ton of weeds, and poison ivy, and Virginia creeper, out back by the barn!! So that will make me feel at least a little better about my crazy yard.

I now have signs up everywhere saying that I need someone to mow my grass. So we’ll see what happens with that. You have no idea how bad my yard has gotten. It’s a total disaster.

All righty. Well. Much of Ohio starts opening up today, even though more and more people keep getting the virus — I guess because now there are more than enough quick tests available, so more people are finding out that they actually have it. Nothing is allowed to open to full capacity, but at least places are opening back up. So we’ll see.

Maybe that new normal we’ve been hearing so much about will finally begin happening around here!! Me — I’m just waiting for summer.

Okay. I hope you enjoy your Friday, wherever it leads you and wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang.  I leave you today with a great song for rejoicing, for driving really fast out on the highway and watching all the birds soaring through the sky. A great song for thinking about life — past and present. And even a great song for wondering what the afterlife is like and what we might have to learn about (all over again) when we get there: “Learning to Fly” — from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ 1991 multi-platinum album Into the Great Wide Open. (Lyrics are in the video.) Listen, dream, wonder and enjoy! It’s all over in a heartbeat anyway, right?? Okay. I love you guys. See ya!!