I’ve learned the hard way that having social media is like living and building a curated house you don’t own. I will decorate it, invite people in, build entire communities inside it but the second the landlord decides, they can change the locks. And it doesn’t matter how many followers you had or how much time you invested.
When I built a following on TikTok, the numbers grew: hundreds of thousands of followers, millions of likes, and a surprising amount of adoration from people I honestly don’t think I deserved. But the truth is, with the good came some ugly. While there were hundreds of engaging people, there would be a few constant trolls and one or two idiots with malicious intent. Some people reported my content just to stir trouble. Sending me hate messages. Mailing garbage to my PO Box. one or some took it further: hacking into my Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. One by one, those accounts got banned or locked down.
I would spend so much time appealing to retrieve these accounts because somehow these trolls figured out how to game the automation lock. Eventually, I couldn’t even be bothered to fight for the accounts back. Because that was the wake-up call. These platforms aren’t mine. I spent years building, nurturing, and grinding for growth and all it took was one or a few bad actors, malicious reports, or one algorithmic hiccup, and it’s gone. Just gone. I was wasting so much time bringing them back just to go down again.
So I decided to flip the situation on its head. Instead of chasing appeals or trying to resurrect my accounts, I took it as an opportunity to step away. I’d spent so much time on those platforms, but the lesson is simple: never confuse rented land for ownership. My energy is better spent on things I can control like my own work, my own business, my own website, and the people in my life who exist beyond an app.
This is a reminder to myself in the future: social media can be a useful tool, but it should never be my foundation. Build things I own even if it’s digital. Build relationships that last outside of a DM. And never let my sense of identity or security depend on the whims of an algorithm or the malice of strangers.