This is been three weeks since I got off from social media. Thought I’d write something about this.

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, once we enter the Symbolic (language, structure, society), we are no longer whole. We become split between what we are and what we can express. There is a lack, an emptiness formed in us the moment we try to put ourselves into words. Our inner experience, thoughts, feelings, motives, are partly in the Real, that escapes language, that can’t be fully symbolised. Still, we want to be seen, named, understood. We want someone to look at us and get it. But that’s the trap… language always fails, and misunderstanding is inevitable. The more we try to explain ourselves, the more we feel misread.

Social media feeds directly into that anxiety. It offers endless chances to be seen, but never to be truly understood. It pushes us to curate ourselves, images, captions, stories, all in the hope that someone, somewhere, will see us the right way. But what it really offers is the gaze of the Other: constant exposure, judgment, numbers, feedback. It traps us in the Symbolic, where meaning is reduced to likes, metrics, and fleeting validation. We don’t just post; we perform. And yet, behind every post, there’s the same quiet fear: what if they misunderstood me? what if I’m invisible anyway? The more we participate, the more alienated we become, from others, and from ourselves.

Essentially it is a freak show of neurotics and perverts. Posting curated pictures, carefully crafted captions that seem cool