Being and Nothingness: Social Media and Me

“A tree doesn’t post its blossoms. A river doesn’t explain its course. Nature teaches us that presence is enough.” ―Lawrence Nault

I am very, very conflicted about social media. The irony of writing this on a social media platform is not lost on me any more than that disgusting fuck saying he totally understands all sports and then admitting he has no idea what a red card is. I liked Facebook. I wrote stuff, funny or moving stuff, and people said they liked what I wrote. I never noticed who liked anything, and if no one liked it, I didn’t care. Occasionally I attended a party, and someone would tell me something they had no business knowing, and when I asked them how, they would say, Facebook. That was a little weird, but hey, it saved time because people didn’t need to be filled in on details about my cat or son or parents or constant whining about day-to-day stuff. My husband posting unflattering pictures of me with a cheese hat or coming out of the water in a bathing suit or making weird faces was annoying but nothing I couldn’t handle by looking at some old headshots and remembering I was once quite the looker.

Molly Moynahan, 1990

Anyway, I reconnected with a few old boyfriends and had secret fits of envy over the seemingly perfect lives of people I knew. Since my last novel was published in 2004, no one asked me to do anything digital. I spoke at book clubs, large literary events, and was on a Delaware cable television morning show between a goat and a chef. I was so nervous I kept batting my eyelashes at the person who interviewed me, a youngish man. My students back in my “real” life, to whom I showed the video, demanded to know if he was my boyfriend. He was not. I also spoke on a few radio programs and did a round of bookstores, including a book tour of the Midwest with one event featuring the bookstore manager, my then-ex-boyfriend’s parents, his shrink, and the shrink’s current patient. Also, some guy who just wandered in. That was fine. I had been dissed on a daily basis by the teenagers I forced to read Shakespeare, so it really didn’t phase me.

But this idea of going “Live” and waiting for people to come and talk to you, this idea of storming the digital gates of Instagram and Substack, terrifies me. What if no one comes? What if people come and it’s stupid or technically awful or boring or…you get the gist. Confession-I managed to say something truly horrible over Zoom during my mother’s memorial service because the mute button was not on. I sent an email in which I described a close relative as “bonkers” to that close relative.

If you are reading this, you might be a subscriber to this weekly thing I write, and for that I’m deeply grateful. Or maybe not. Maybe you are a follower, or maybe you just ended up reading this online at the DMV. If you are a subscriber, I am, unless I join a Luddite cult, on Substack and Instagram Live on Tuesday, July 14 at 10AM Eastern. Writing this, I realized I don’t even know what that means, except that I have a social media person who will try to help me understand before the event. She has very high standards and ignores most of my whinging about the reasons I can’t do TikTok. Once I was paid to pose nude, back when that was something someone might have wanted to see. It was for someone’s portfolio, and I was broke, and it was the thing that made me understand why naked people get paid so much. I tried to give one of the pictures to my then-boyfriend, and he said, “Why do you look terrified?”

MotherPerson is the first novel I will have published in twenty-two years. I never stopped writing, but no one bought any of those books. I will do almost anything to sell copies, no nudity, so I can write another one (well, I’m writing it already) but also so I can repay the trust and investment made by Empress Editions and the love and support of Alisa Kennedy Jones, who had the incredible bravery to start this imprint. Please consider dropping in on Tuesday, July 14th at 10AM Eastern. Also, preordering MotherPerson. Or just pray for me with the understanding that I don’t believe in God.

Molly Moynahan