Take Back The Internet: Things You’re Allowed To Do Online That Nobody Tells You

I remember being a late bloomer to mainstream social media, but how it all started still stings a little bit. The idea of adding every person and every thing you knew to every platform that existed felt shitty at the time, but it’s how it was. We accepted it.

Many of us don’t know where we’d be without the Internet, but it’s time to look back at what we’ve created for ourselves and realize that we hold on to a lot of crap.

Like, that-sweater-from-10th-grade-that-you-think-is-still-sorta-cool-but-you’ll-never-wear-it-even-though-you-think-you-will-EVEN-THOUGH-you’ve-put-on-like-forty-pounds-since-10th-grade-JON type of crap-hoarding.

At first glance, this list will seem extremely dirty. But surprise: these are a bunch of things that you are actually allowed to do.

You are allowed to unfollow your now-racist high school friends on Facebook because their statuses make you want to want to set fire to your computer.

You are also allowed to say no to their request to like their page for their new wedding photography company.

You are allowed to be honest and hit Not Interested to some of the events people invite you to.

You are also allowed to permanently refuse an invite from that weird guy you barely know who is trying to make it as a DJ.

You are allowed to block your ex-partner because shit didn’t work out and it makes you upset to be reminded of that.

You are also allowed to delete all evidence of that relationship from every single corner of the digital world.

You are allowed to decline that LinkedIn request from that recruiter from that obnoxious startup that thinks it’s going to be a unicorn when it quite clearly won’t.

You are also allowed to outright tell them you’re definitely not interested ever, and you very likely won’t ever be, because you’ve got bigger fish to fry.

The unfollow button is your best friend online.

You are allowed to unfollow accounts on Instagram that misguide and upset you because they portray a lifestyle that you don’t have.

You are also allowed to say no to your friend requesting that you like all of their shitty pictures for their new wedding photography company.

You are allowed to unfollow that blog or publication that hashes out hollow motivation and lifestyle porn.

You are also allowed to disagree with their advice, in favour of your own.

You are allowed to unsubscribe from that email digest because you hate marking it as read twice a day.

You are also allowed to just nuke your inbox and start over. (Okay, maybe not your work inbox. Save that for another day.)

You are allowed to unfollow people on Twitter because they make you have to trudge through an endless feed of uninformative garbage.

You are also allowed to say no to your friend requesting that you follow their new wedding photography business on Twitter.

How about you just tell your shitty acquaintances to stop starting shitty wedding photography businesses. Sound good?

But most importantly,

You are allowed to take control of your Internet, and surround yourself with people and content that inspire and inform you about the things that matter to you.

You don’t owe your Likes, Favs, follows, connections, shares, reblogs, back links, or recommendations to anyone.

Thank you for reading this little rant, and feel free to recommend or share it if it rung true. What things are you doing to take back your sliver of the digital world?

I’m trying to figure shit out, and you’re more than welcome to figure shit out with me over on Twitter and Instagram. 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

It’s hard to say when and how people become friends.

Sometimes it starts when you play with the same toys in preschool, or when you hate the same people in elementary school, or when you have the same smoking spot behind the portable in high school.

As I stumble through some of the most trying months of my life, I continue to look inwards at the things and people that define and help shape who I am.

One of the common threads between the amazing people that continue to support me is that they are all older than me — about 3–7 years older, to be precise.

The thing about older friends is that they’re pretty easy to look up to. You get a deeper look inside the things that they do that you don’t get to see with a boss or a mentor.

Mentors are great, but friends that inspire you are even better.

You Can Learn From Their Successes

Your Facebook Messenger notification goes off, and it’s the 52nd of a chain of messages in your group chat.

Your friend just got promoted.

Or they just bought their first house with their partner.

Or they started their own business and they landed their first client.

All of the things! Of course these are all cause for celebration.

It’s easy to see ourselves paling in comparison to the accomplishments of others. But when it’s our friends, we get an opportunity to learn everything about how they got there.

You also learn that time isn’t a barrier to doing great things.

Your friends are living proof that good things can happen when you’re 26, or 27, or 31, even if good things aren’t happening to you when you’re 23.

You Can Avoid Their Mistakes

Part of having a friend is hearing the nitty-gritty of their daily lives.

They tell you about their bad dates and their horrible Tinder experiences.

They tell you about the lousy work days, and the days they just curl up in bed and watch Netflix instead of doing something productive.

They tell you when they’re exhausted, or angry, or upset, and sometimes that’s with you.

You learn that the friends you look up to are human too, and that they aren’t perfect — which is a good thing.

Through their mistakes you can get a heads-up about what to avoid or what’s coming your way, like bouts of unemployment and bad breakups, or even worse: actually caring about your expenses (thanks, Des.)

But most importantly, you learn that everything ends up alright anyways.

As I stew each night in some new fresh hell of an existential crisis, I keep centering on how fortunate I am to have a handful of outstanding friends who have helped and continue to help me not only set a high bar for myself, but discover what that bar even is in the first place.

Time travel is theoretically possible, but it’s pretty damn unlikely we’ll see it in practice any time soon.

Having older friends is a way of cheating the system just a little bit by letting you get glimpses of the future, and that’s why I love having so many of them around.

If you haven’t already, make a friend who is older than you. Or someone younger, whatever. None of these are really age-sensitive.

Just don’t be afraid to look up to them, learn about all the great and shitty things in life, and apply those to your life.

And then become that older friend yourself.

Thank you for reading! 📖 ☕

Don’t forget to recommend and share, then follow me on Twitter and Instagram. I’m often talking about my friends’ awesome projects, which you should definitely be checking out.

Here’s a few of my previous pieces that you can read, if you’d like:

• Binge-Watchers Think They’re Better Than Us
• No: there ARE enough hours in the day. You’re just doing too much shit.
• Everyone Should Work a Shitty Job (At Least For A Bit)

Why You Should Make Older Friends was originally published in The Creator’s Path on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Binge-watching can’t even be considered a guilty pleasure because we know for damn sure that everyone does it.

Over 9 out of 10 people, in fact.

There is an infinite supply of articles that talk about the societal phenomena surrounding television and watching a helluva lot of it. We could probably make a generator that would spit out these suggested topics to make all of our lives easier — but that’s beside the point.

If you’re looking to understand why we spend an entire weekend watching Master of None, most of what you’ll find boils down to something to do with technology. The reason is usually at some cross-section between an increase in quality content meeting an increase in quantity of content meeting the accessibility of said content. Supply pushing demand!

However, technology can only facilitate change to a point. Somewhere along the line the things technology allows us to do become routine, becoming reinforced by behaviour rather than the technology that started it.

Binge-watching didn’t start with Netflix.

Does anyone remember DVDs? No? Well, streaming sites weren’t the first option for having a lot of similar content in one accessible place, believe it or not.

I am proud to say that I, like many others that for some reason didn’t grow up on cartoons, have the complete DVD box-set of Friends. All 90-something hours of it. And I definitely watched entire seasons over the course of a day or two back when DVDs were still a thing.

Even though it already existed, nobody really gave a shit about “binge-watching” until the Netflix-era.

Whatever the history, the fact is that the concept is widespread now, to the point of people taking pride to the point of romanticizing the fact that we lounge around and rot for several hours at a time.

And it’s not just television. You can binge anything, really, most notably binge-drink, with it’s (understandably) negative connotations, with the connotations around the word “binge” being flipped.

Take binge-reading, which has an interesting connection to binge-watching because of the historical belief that readers are more sophisticated than watchers — especially when it comes to shows based off of a book.

So why do we binge content?

People are self-centered assholes (or: you are what you watch.)

Sometimes. We all are! Don’t even try to deny it.

Like everything else we consume, we choose our products (in this case, television shows) to identify with and define ourselves as unique individuals. This concept of our “extended self” has been around for a while, and continues to apply with television consumption in the current era.

With the mass amount of basically free television content available, people suddenly have the ability to define themselves through which shows they watch and how quickly they do so.

Think of two people who respectively like two opposing sports teams, and they’re arguing about which team is better. Try that, but with Breaking Bad vs Orange is the New Black.

People define themselves as not only enjoying television, but enjoying it to the point of masochism.

We binge-watch to be better than others.

Because television is a strong part of our society and daily interactions, you have to be in-the-know of popular shows or you’re an outsider.

“You don’t watch Game of Thrones?!” — something that every person who has watched Game of Thrones has said at some point or another.

Admittedly, this is why I watched Season 3 of Orange is the New Black, Season 1 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Season 1 of Master of None each over the span of a couple days.

I felt left out not watching them, as I currently do with Narcos, Sense8, and an easy dozen more.

The more we watch a show, the more information we have about it, and the more we can contribute to or control conversations about said television show. Binge-watchers gain Expert Power in a field where streaming sites have given everybody Information Power.

Simply put: it feels good to know more about shows that people are watching.

Go back to our previous comparison. We have two people who “like” Breaking Bad, but one person is so much of a fan that they watched all 5 seasons back-to-back, making themselves the “bigger fan”, and they can inform the other person about all of the Easter eggs that they “probably missed”.

You’ve definitely met someone like this.

I’m not saying this is a conscious thing we are doing. I truly believe that we are spending our time watching shows because we enjoy them.

But this isn’t completely the case, given the ideas of purge-watching and hate-watching — respectively, watching shows because we feel obligated to complete them or because they’re so bad that they’re good.

If anything, these concepts prove that we use our watching habits to shape and portray who we are.

Binge-watching is an incredible phenomenon as so few things can so strongly unite people to both their products and to others. It impacts our lives for good and for bad, from how it’s linked to loneliness and depression, to how it impacts our productivity, to how it helps our marriages.

So the next time you painfully reach for the remote to press “Continue Watching” as you question your life choices in a sea of blankets and take-out containers, try to also think about why you’re binge-watching in the first place.

Like what you just read? Please hit the ‘recommend’ button, and follow my ramblings over on Twitter. Thanks!

Part of the university experience is to prepare you for the real-world (whatever that means.) Part of this indoctrination is preparing you to be able to handle things like teamwork, learning, stress, and stupid amounts of work.

Being in my fourth and final year of my undergraduate studies, I feel this. I don’t exercise, but I imagine the pain I’m feeling is like that of a triathlete completing a major race after years of training. Same thing, right?

I’m currently juggling a lot of shit and I’d like to believe it’s impressive. I’m juggling a full course-load, with a capstone, and still maintaining a rock-solid GPA. I’m an executive on three student associations (of which, I’m president for one.) I am a teaching assistant, and I teach an hour-and-a-half lecture weekly. On top of all of that, I attempt to live a (somewhat) social life.

A common expression of mine this year has been,

“There are not enough hours in the day.”

This repeats in my head as I drone in my shared office-space for a dozen hours daily. I don’t know many other students who spend that much time on campus — and I’m including people who live here.

So as I reach closer to graduation, I reflect on the success of my program, starting with this year. Let’s rhyme off my accomplishments so I can get on with the point of this post:

Two of my student associations completely bombed (including the one I’m president for.)

I have not been preparing for my classes as effectively, resulting in a poorer learning environment.

I haven’t been studying as effectively, forgetting and postponing assignments, and as a result my marks have been slipping.

My personal projects suffered severely. My blogging, personal art and writing, and YouTube channel have all halted.

Since I’m so “busy” I don’t have time to work, and I am too mentally-spent to effectively maintain social relationships.

Gotta go out with a bang, right?

I used to think that being productive meant that you did a lot of shit. I wouldn’t be far off: the definition of productivity is generally how much output you’re getting for your inputs.

Now, I don’t know much about productivity (there are many others who do, like this guy.) But what I can tell you is what I've learned through failing.

Be passionate about what you do.

No fucking brainer, right? Well it’s easy to say — but much harder to do when you’re a student grasping at every opportunity you can.

One of the biggest barriers I've hit is simply not caring about the work I've been doing. I was at a cross-roads between my marketing and management studies, and through developing the community of the management concentration, I learned that I’m actually a marketer.

Rad for me now, but not rad for the community that I absolutely failed.

It’s not like I’m killing babies here. But what happens when you get a job? You’ll be new, grasping at every opportunity you can to prove yourself. You’ll take on something you’re not passionate about, and then it’ll fail, and then you’ll lose your company millions of dollars. Boom.

Less is sometimes more.

You know the expression “jack of all trades, master of none”?

That’s what happens when you do too much shit.

You’re only human. You can’t do it all. I spread myself way too thin this year, and ended up doing everything at a mediocre level (and sometimes failing.)

You’re much better off doing fewer projects that you’re passionate about and put substantial effort into it. This is kind of like people who work 10 different jobs for a few months each. Much less impressive than someone who has had one or two long-term positions, right? Right.

Update: This applies to people too, as I’ve learned. It’s tough to go to an event and try and mingle with everyone — and when you do, you’ll be disappointed that you never gave any of them enough of your time. Bring everyone in to arms length, but bring closer only the best of the best and give them everything you’ve got.

It’s okay to say no.

This is kind of your action plan for the above. Just shut your mouth and say no! Again, easier said than done. It’s hard to turn down opportunity when we need everything we can get to stand out. But again, is it always worth it?

Do you have to make an appearance at every event or gathering? Do you need to help with every campaign? Do you need to create every design? Do you need to lead every meeting? Not always.

Work with cool people.

This one got me. Try your best to only work with people you can actually work with. Awesome people do either one of two things:

1. Awesome people get shit done without you hawking over them (see previous point)
2. Awesome people inspire you to do good shit (see first point)

If you’re lucky, get people who can do both. That way, there is no excuse.

So if I could do this final year again, what would I do? I’d do less shit — plain and simple. I would’ve focused on the things that I actually enjoyed doing, and I would’ve done them well. Now I have empty line-items on my resume that will always haunt me with the guilt of incompetence. That’s no fun.

So take a productivity lesson from me: a guy who has been extremely unproductive at the worst possible time.

Disclaimer: Make sure it’s the job that’s shit, and not just you.

I firmly believe if you haven’t worked a shitty job that you’re missing out on something big. Like, major learning opportunities. If you haven’t worked with a team with at least one asshole on it, odds are you were that asshole. And so forth.

I’ve been working with McDonald’s Canada for several years now. I started off as a lowly prep guy, who only put in a few hours the odd morning doing repetitive and mundane tasks nobody else wanted to do. I slowly progressed through lobby and bathroom cleaning, right through customer interactions and eventually landing my way to shift management. Here I’ve seen it all (sometimes more than I’d prefer).

I used to love my job. Absolutely. I used to consider this place my second family, in part because my father is head honcho. As I enter my last year of my university studies (business, mind you), I feel fortunate that this place is just a stepping stone. I’m seeing management with bullshit philosophies engaging in malicious practices and politicking — a bunch of crap my textbooks (and common sense and human decency) would contrast. This week is my final week here, and I wanted to share my (somewhat nostalgic) reflections of why I am blessed to have had such a shitty experience.

Shit Times Make You Appreciate The Good Times

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” — Andy Bernard

Sometimes old crew member that left long ago will come in and get coffee or dessert and I catch them for a quick chat. They ask if certain parts of the gang are still kickin’, which managers have left and which ones are (usually unfortunately) remaining. We shoot the shit, plain and simple. And we miss it. I remember the days that my best friends were also my co-workers; my sister and father worked with me and it actually made us closer; and that one girl I asked to prom nearly every year in high school who was one of the Drive-Thru girls.

You Can Find Out What You Love (Or At Least Hate)

It’s important to not dwell on the past, although there is some guilty pleasure in doing so. That being said, understanding what actually made the good ol’ days good in the first place is critical for ensuring that they happen again.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius

Was it a person that made everything great? What about them? I remember having the best staff; recognizing the qualities that they exhibited provided me the opportunity to seek those qualities in myself (as well as new hires).

And now I know what I want out of a job. I sure as hell know that I don’t wanna be doing this for the rest of my life. Muddling through shit makes me never want to do it again; I’ve raised the standards on my future job search, as well as narrowed what I’m actually looking for.

People say they want a job they love, with good pay, and with a good boss. Well how the hell do you know what a good boss is if you’ve never had a shit one? Exactly.

It’s Easy To Sail On Smooth Waters

Aside working at my hometown store, I also get shipped out to what is considered one of the worst stores in the province (maybe even country). It was crap — especially at the beginning — but I have never had an opportunity better than that to learn about my leadership abilities (and I’ve taken courses on that shit).

When shit hits the fan — that’s when you and your best people shine. A buffoon can manage any team when nothing is going wrong. That’s just glorified babysitting, really.

I see this in the shitty managers that work alongside me. A bus or two roll in, they panic, thus panicking the crew. How the hell do you expect to lead if you can’t keep your shit together? That is arguably one of the most important leadership qualities right there; keep your cool when shit hits the fan (or at least fake it).

At Least You Can Get Some Good Stories

When I shoot the shit with crew of old, or even some of our veteran staff that aren’t caught up in the bullshit politics, we often exchange stories of valor (from the strangest of places, such as an overflowing bathroom), comradery (when we team up on said overflowing bathroom), and achievement (gettin’ the damn toilet fixed).

It’s in this type of story telling that you can identify the good and the bad. With the bad shit, you’re often caught up with it in the moment. During a shift in a restaurant with upwards of 400 tourists and 2-dozen employees, I’m not stopping to analyze the leadership styles of my senior management. I’m gunnin’ it on coffee, or fries, or some other fire to put out. Again, there’s a difference between dwelling on the past and reflecting on a situation.

Shitty Jobs Usually Have Shitty Staff (Don’t Become One)

As I said above, I miss the good crew. Restaurants have an unnatural level of teamwork, and when it’s a well oiled machine (such as in the quick service industry) it becomes almost militaristic. You’ll get the guys that will go to the end of the world and jump off of it with you. I love that, absolutely love it. This place was like family, and I want that again.

Looking at this place now, I have the maturity and experience to pinpoint the sources of political bullshit and malicious management. They are what make this place shit.

“Any organization is like a septic tank. The really big chunks rise to the top.” — John Imhoff

Fortunately humans are not bound to the rule of “monkey see, monkey do”. I’ve learned a strong majority of my leadership and management abilities from seeing fuck-ups do exactly that: fuck up.

Disclaimer: Make Sure It’s The Job That’s Shit, And Not Just You

Just make sure you’re not an asshole. I think that’s the golden rule of life. You can be slow to learn and not be the best at things but if you’re not an asshole about it then things will (probably) work out. That’s what I’ve learned at least.

That being said, don’t bitch about something until you know for sure it’s not you. Because the job could be great, the people could be great, it could just be you that is incompatible. How do you tell if you’re an asshole?

Ask people. That’s usually a pretty good indication. Or maybe get your head out of your ass a tick and self-assess a bit. Reflect. There is a time and a place to be an asshole and knowing when to flex that “skill” is a powerful ability to possess. That’s a completely other post, however.

At Least For A Bit

Don’t bleed yourself dry. I’ve done that this summer; I’m so exhausted. Life is too short and too hectic to put up with a shitty job. But if you don’t experience it for a little bit, well, you’ll become a spoiled arse.

It’s kind of like love. You can’t experience love and compassion and expect a long-time thing if you haven’t experienced a horrible break-up.

“Son, there’s nothing else; before you love someone you gotta learn to love yourself.” — Joel Plaskett

So get out there and muddle some shit. And if you already have a great job and no shitty experiences, figure out why that’s the case. Maybe you’re goddamn lucky, or at least goddamn good at this whole lovin’ life thing.

I sure as hell haven’t been (for the most part).

Thank you for reading this! This post is one of many steps towards self-improvement — in particular my writing abilities. If you’ve got input, please send it my way.

I am in the works of a semi-follow-up post to this one on the topic of shitty staff members, why they’re important, and how you might be one. Stick around!

Don’t be afraid to connect with me via Twitter, LinkedIn, or my personal blog. I post random ramblings there (sometimes more professional, more-often less).