A Year Without Social Media

Hi, I’m Val. I am a former internet thot and recovering social media personality. I took the entirety of 2024 (an election year!) off of social media and this is my story. (Hiiiii Val) Before I divulge all the ways this fast affected me, I feel it’s important for the sake of transparency to make note of the few times I did log on. If you’d like to skip the disclaimer, feel free to move past the italicized section below, and continue with the next paragraph. 

I posted on Instagram once. A single story to promote the PMA podcast I appeared on in June. I scanned a close friend’s new romantic interest's account (upon her request), and I responded to a few DM’s from people I know in real life. Oh! and I searched for, and found, my new hair person. All on IG. 

My partner texted me a few reels pertinent to recent conversations we had had. Weird how reels relating to the exact topic we were discussing would appear in his Facebook feed within 12-36 hours of our chats. I watched them on a browser (versus the app), and then immediately closed the page when the reels ended. My nervous system is still recouping from all the times I’ve been bamboozled by content I did not consent to consume, but immediately started playing, all because what I had watched ended. I didn’t want to risk it.

The only scrolling I participated in was on Pinterest. Mostly to create boards for diy furniture makeovers, inspiration for transitioning fully back to my natural hair color, and gardening tips. If I haven’t mentioned it, I now garden, hard. 

I also watched long form discussions pertaining to the election, took notes on training Catahoula Leopard Dogs, and did my daily workouts on YouTube. I liked videos to support channels I subscribe to, because it is my understanding that likes translate to dollars for Youtube content creators. 

And finally, I left a couple of reviews on Google for the folks who helped us buy our house. As a former small business owner, I understand the power a well written, personalized, detailed review can have on a small business. 

But that was it. No scrolling, double tapping, commenting, or consuming information outside of what was mentioned. Not on Instagram or Facebook… And I don’t have an active X or TikTok account. For the record, I am currently still inactive on social media. 

Now let’s get started…

I began advertising to my Instagram audience that I would be taking an indefinite hiatus from all of my social media accounts in mid 2023. The goal was to encourage any of the 33K followers I had at the time who hadn’t been affected by the shadow ban placed on my account, and who were interested in reading more than the allotted 2200 characters a post caps users at, to receive my blog direct to their inbox. It was a premeditated exit I instinctually knew would be beneficial. The thing is I had no way of anticipating all the ways in which it would, until now, nearly thirteen months later. Below is a list of what I feel have been the most consequential benefits and challenges of making this decision. 

Benefits:

• I’m less anxious. Like WAY less. There was a time in my life where I would never admit to experiencing anxiety. I arrogantly considered anxiety a scapegoat term that people hid behind to avoid taking accountability in their lives. Not me, no I wasn’t “anxious”, but I did have a mind like a hummingbird on amphetamines, and often buried myself in distractions to avoid being alone with my racing thoughts. Distractions like chronically working, partying, and curating, posting, or consuming social media content. 

The Result: By completely removing the impulse to escape into an app, I was forced to confront my bullshit. I may not have been claiming anxiety, but I also wasn’t taking accountability in my life to make better decisions. Quitting social media gave me back hours of my life every day which allowed me to commit to practicing healthier habits and coping skills.   

• I’m less emotionally reactive. Like WAY less. Especially about things that do not directly affect me. By now it’s no secret, creating a free social media profile comes at a cost. Countless studies and reports issued by people more accredited than me have confirmed this: Algorithms are integral to free platforms because it is how the app learns our behaviors. By learning our behaviors (what we linger on and interact with) algorithms tailor our feed to specified content in efforts to keep us engaged longer. No matter how stoic, or critically thinking we believe ourselves to be, us humans are emotional creatures, and we compulsively interact with content that triggers an emotional response. The longer we engage, the more opportunity the platform has to earn advertising dollars. Cha Ching. Price of admission earned. 

The Result: About three months in to my social media fast, I began to feel the daily cortisol spikes that had become my new normal begin to even out. Now, if someone states something I don’t like or agree with, I’m not nearly as quick to internalize it as a personal attack, or lash out. Instead I find myself weighing the merit of what they’re saying with their capacity to deliver it in a way that isn’t hyper emotional, and I respond accordingly. 

• I escaped the election season relatively unscathed. By being off of social media I was able to be intentional about how and when I allocated energy to the election. I set designated times of day to read deep dives or listen to long format discussions regarding candidates, their voting records, policy history, and what they intended to accomplish in office. 

The Result: I felt like I completed my due diligence and carefully weighed voting decisions on my own terms. I dodged 90% of the biased propaganda posing as journalism. And, my election season hangover lasted about 36hrs post election. Then I moved on.

• I'm back to creating based on what I’m inspired by vs. what I think will get the most engagement. It makes me cringe to admit there have been times I’ve posted content, not because I felt inspired but because I felt I had to. I can now theorize ad nauseam about why I believe being a social media personality incites delusion, brain washes content creators to join their own cult, and how this is harmful and inevitably leads to soulless art. And believe me, I will, but not today. 

The Result: For now what I can attest to is by logging off of social media, I have pulverized the dangling carrot of relevance, detached myself from the notion that the number of followers one’s account has is any indicator of a creators validity or success, and took an actionable stance against censorship. Most importantly, I have liberated myself as a creative. 

• I’m more present and retain a lot more information. Like WAY more. To be fair, being present and retaining information are skills I’ve fastidiously honed over the last twenty four years while working in the service industry. Whether sex work or restaurant work, my ability to earn my living has always correlated with my ability to relate and connect. In order to effectively do this, I have to pay attention. But my ability to do so is markedly different now. As in, I have reached a new level! Developed a seventh sense! Am basically a promising recruit for X-Men!

The Result: By choosing to radically engage in my three dimensional life and disengage in my one dimensional social media life, I have significantly reduced the automated demands on my attention and my brain’s ability to process. That and, I now scare people with the level of accuracy to which I can recall. 

Challenges: 

• I have been dismissed by people I considered friends (in real life) for no longer representing the social media version of me. Over these last thirteen months I have became less anxious, less emotionally reactive, and in general more moderate in my opinions and beliefs. I know that retiring from a high stress career and being a month shy from turning forty also contributes to this, but getting off of social media has definitely helped create the space necessary in my life to calm the hell down. 

The Result: People who still live and die by how they represent, and what they consume on social media may no longer find use for the person I am outside of my curated online profiles. This one hurts because when I invest in people IRL, I really show up for my relationships. While I’m still processing this one, I will say for now that I continue to hold hope that my body of work as a good friend, i.e. all the times I’ve been there, supported, and gave to someone, will outweigh the version of me they want to believe based on how it reflects back to them. But if not, I'll chalk it up to additional evidence for how the cult of social media disorients our sense of reality. 

• I struggled with identity crisis. The dopamine hits are real and I had no idea how addicted to them I’d become until I went cold turkey. Again, countless studies and reports issued by people more accredited than me have confirmed: Social media is addictive. When I was my most caught up I couldn’t tell you if I was posting about the life I happened to be living, or, if I was living my life specifically so that I could showcase it online. As a person who (pre-social media) had prided herself on being a late adopter as to assess a situation beyond the hysteria of group think, I sure as hell triple back flipped off that bridge. I guess we all have blind spots.

The Result: After making the decision to scrub the skid mark clean that Meta had etched in my brain, I began to reflect on my behavior during my reign as a social media personality. The revelations were sobering and at times led to feelings of deep shame and embarrassment about what I prioritized, sacrificed, and convinced myself of- all for the sake of “building my brand.” Eventually with time, and the wise words of a few trusted confidants, I began to consider the ten years and two social media brands I built as yet another rock of experience I overturned and thoroughly looked under. The entire thing start to finish, for better or worse, is information. I suspect the more distance I get from it, the more perspective I'll gain. Till then.

Photo: Valerie Stunning

We Are What We Think (Part 2.)

If you haven't read Part 1. I strongly encourage doing so before continuing

It is true that of the 37 strip clubs I worked throughout my career all of them employed at least one somewhat capable guy as security. It is also true that I have never trusted leaving 100% of my safety solely in the hands of a person who was almost always overworked, under-slept, and underpaid. Because of this, my standard operating procedure before performing any kind of table dance, lap dance, private dance, VIP room, Champagne Room, or Fantasy Room was to conduct a TSA style search. 

Albeit, a fun silly one that didn’t read as a search. I’d tell customers a partial truth, that my bare ass was sensitive and if they wanted me to get close they’d have to empty their pockets because rubbing up on hard lumpy things while dancing did not feel good. Wink. It worked every time. 

If eyes are the window to people’s souls then seeing what’s in their pockets is the basement door. A few things I’ve witnessed customers toss on to the cocktail table, or floor, include: knives of all sizes, patient ID wristbands, wedding rings, vibrators, butt plugs, vials of coke, vials of poppers, pipes (for drugs other than weed), and a sandwich baggie full of meth. 

The only two things the cop had in his pocket were car keys and a crisp white envelope full of cash. On the front of the envelope read the words “college fund” with college crossed out and the word “stripper” written above it. It was a first, and made me chuckle. 

By the time our fifteen minutes had come to an end I was struck by how withdrawn the cop had been throughout the dance. He couldn’t have cared less about being teased, aroused, or engaged in anyway. Hell, he hardly even marveled at my award winning ass. It wasn't that he  was rude, or indifferent, he just wasn’t present. Truth be told, he seemed to only show sign of life when I gave him a final hug before we exited the VIP room.

I ended up seeing the cop two more times before I stopped working at that particular club. Though it wasn’t until his last visit where I learned more. Once again, he showed up sporting a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt, this one with rifles patterned across it. And like the first time, he paid me cash from the “stripper fund” envelope, which by that point had seen better days. 

Despite the fact we had established a bit of report, he was still cagey. And I was still on guard about what his deal was. But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So to speak. 

About a third of the way through the dance, he told me it was the last time I’d see him. I hesitated, and tried to decipher if him saying so was intended to provoke a specific reaction. Was he fishing for attention? Did he want me to ask him why, to gush and tell him he was going to be missed? Or was I reading too much into it, and he was just being polite?

It's not abnormal for a repeat client to tell me when they won’t be returning. After all the connection I’ve formed with many of my customers walks a line of intimacy, so I always considered them saying goodbye a small gesture of respect. I suppose because I believed all cops were dismissive of sex workers humanity, it hadn’t occurred to me that this cop, now a repeat client, had humanized me enough to let me know it was his final visit. 

While this consideration rattled around in the back of mind, I decided it was time to dig a little deeper. If it were to be the last time we saw each other, I had to know, why the big Eeyore vibes? So I flipped my hair and casually responded: “Are you not coming back to the club because you’re going back to work?” To which he gave an abrupt, “No.” Then mumbled something about the reason he’d been on leave being more complicated, and fell silent.

I held the cop’s silence and waited. When confronted face to face with a naked stranger, wafting of knock-off Gucci perfume, who has suddenly gone from shaking her glittery ass to Two Chains to sitting perfectly still, it is proven that 99.9% of people will talk first. After two more verses the cop continued. He stated in a hushed voice the reason he was forced to take a leave of absence was because he was struggling with PTSD. Ahhhhhh.

Now, you might be thinking this is the part of the story that leads me to some kind of come to Jesus moment. That after catching a glimpse of one cop’s vulnerability, I was suddenly inspired to change my cop hating ways. I immediately stopped referring to them as pigs… and no longer yelled ACAB! every time a squad car drove by. Maybe I put a Blue Lives Matter sticker on my water bottle… Or hung one of those Thin Blue Line flags in front of my house? In which case I’d caution, don’t get ahead of yourself. 

While I did do my best to show outward sensitivity for this man’s obvious hurt, I also caught myself wondering: What awful thing did he do to get PTSD?

If this had been an ER Nurse, firefighter, or search and rescue worker expressing the same vulnerability, chances are I would have immediately empathized. After all, I know PTSD. When left unaddressed, I know how isolating and terrifying and unpredictable PTSD symptoms can be. How much it sucks to go from running errands on a regular Tuesday afternoon to having a full blown flashback of a traumatic incident. Which seemingly comes out of nowhere and proceeds to hijack your mental stability for the next week. 

In that moment the fact that I could relate to the terror of experiencing PTSD did not matter. Instead, my initial reaction was to dismiss the hauntedness in the cop’s eyes and how dissociated he was from his body in favor of abiding by a familiar narrative. A narrative that had become somewhat of a commandment for me. In that moment what mattered was that I had already judged this man based on his choice to work for an often corrupt and dysfunctional organization. One who’s representatives regularly abuse its power and degrade the very citizens it vows to protect and serve. And this rendered him underserving of my empathy. 

It could be said I was justified in my reaction. If I tally the combination of my own experiences plus years of organizing with fellow sex workers who’ve shared stories of being violated by police when they needed protection (or were just going about their business), and add in the endless historical and modern day examples of police racism and brutality, it’s really a no brainer. I like piña coladas, getting caught in the rain, long walks on the beach, and, I hate cops. 

But what has kept me revisiting my exchange with this cop isn’t deciphering whether or not I was right or wrong in feeling justified. It is realizing that feeling justified made it possible for me to do to him the very thing so many people have done to me. I victim blamed him. 

Of course at the time I didn’t see it as victim blaming. And again, for the record, I didn’t say it aloud. I am a god damn professional. But just because I kept it to myself, unlike the people who have flat out told me that because it was my choice to do sex work I get whatever (enter: violence/assault/predatory action) I sign up for, it still felt gross. 

What I felt gross about was that by victim blaming the cop instead of empathizing with him I dismissed his humanity. This is an act of dehumanization. And one of the biggest things I’ve advocated for as a community organizer is the humanization of sex workers. Regardless of people’s moral stance about the work. 

It’s a gale of hypocrisy that has knocked me off my crusading horse and forced me to examine: What does being right or wrong in feeling justified have to do with anything?

Do my thoughts and actions reinforce a belief that some humans matter more than others? Where do I draw the line in weighing the actions of the collective versus the individual? How does feeling justified in victim blaming the cop contribute to the actual change I wish to see in policing? Furthermore, has there ever been a time in history when the way forward for a person or group of people who have been dehumanized, was forged by them in turn dehumanizing others? 

Photo: Valerie Stunning by Rachel Lena Esterline, Sex Witch Tour 2017

We Are What We Think (Part 1.)

There are countless first responders, firefighters, search and rescue workers, EMT’s, law enforcement officers, ER nurses and doctors, military members, and even a Homeland Security guy, or two, who have paid to see me naked. Because of this I have often joked that I too have been a public servant. Especially because my experience of performing as a stripper for the last 13 years was that nudity was the amuse-bouche but rarely the meat and potatoes of what these folks sought at the club. 

First responders, like 98% of people I’ve entertained often came for the titties and stayed for the connection. It’s a group of people I was regularly stoked to engage, as no one appreciates a smiling professional party girl more than a person who regularly bares witness to the worst day of peoples’ lives. Actually, I was regularly stoked to engage most of them. Ok, all of them, except cops. 

I have a long history of not trusting cops. It’s a seed that was first planted as a kid witnessing domestic violence, later reenforced as a troubled teen, and proven again and again as an adult. Particularly during my tenure as a sex worker and community organizer. In fact, “not trusting” cops is putting it mildly. Having a vehement distain for is probably more apt, to the point that if I met someone at work who admitted to being a cop (typically from another city or state), I would get up and walk away. 

Heralding an ACAB ethos (all cops are bastards) has been a fixture in both my personal and professional belief systems. Because of what I’ve personally experienced and witnessed, heard first hand from sex workers I’ve organized with, and learned from documented historical and modern day policing practices, I have felt justified in never questioning myself about this. 

That is, until a series of encounters at a ramshackle nudie bar in Colorado Springs. 

The second to last club I worked at before retiring was a proper relic. The kind of place with un-ironic wood paneling, its original carpet and staff. The drinks were stiff, the sound system was weak, and there was a lopsided pool table spotted with unidentifiable gunk in the corner. As emphasized in this love letter I wrote to a jiggle joint in Vegas when it closed, I have a soft spot for strip clubs like this, and had a blast working there. 

One night, as we were getting dangerously close to power hour (the hour before last call when all strippers go into overdrive pushing sales) I sauntered over to a big square man at the bar. He was clean cut, sported a bushy mustache, and wore a bright colored Hawaiian shirt. He appeared uncomfortable. In that way people do when they’re highly anxious but are attempting to assert confidence. I appreciated his effort. It signaled he was dealing with some shit (who isn’t) but was making the effort to have fun. The first rule of strip clubs is, you have to want to participate. 

He bought me a drink and we took a seat behind the stage. Then I did what I always do when getting to know a prospective client. I sat in a way that flaunted my assets and asked innocuous questions. As a rule of thumb I never asked what people did for work. One, I really didn’t care (unless they were cops). Two, strip clubs should provide respite from work and real life problems (unless you’re a cop). Three, 90% of people ended up volunteering that information anyway. Which always reinforced to me that work is where a lot of us source our identity and sense of value. 

As we talked I noticed this guy was prickly. His mouth was saying all the right things, but the way he said them and his physical rigidity told me he was hiding. It made me not trust him. Unfortunately my purse was a lot lighter than I had wanted it to be for the time of night it was, so I decided to sit a few minutes longer and continue to feel him out. I needed to know, was he a bad person? Someone capable of violence or at the very least being a disrespectful customer and more hassle than he was worth. In which case, I’d cut my losses and move on to someone else. Or was he, as I'd initially picked up on, fronting as a way to not think about or expose whatever he was dealing with outside the club? 

I flirted a little more and as he talked, I realized his Hawaiian shirt had grenades on it. Then it dawned on me. The mustache, the prickliness, the douchie shirt, this guy was a cop. As if he had heard me think it, he suddenly stated that he was on leave from his job as a police officer.

He kept talking, but whatever he said after his reveal faded away. I was too busy slowly reapplying my lipgloss and taking note of the number of songs that had played since we sat down. Then I looked at the waining crowd in room, mentally recounted my night's earnings, and made the calculated decision to try and close the sale. I lowered my voice, touched his arm, and went in for the kill. With a hefty dose of fuck it, he slammed his drink and stood up. We were off to the VIP room. 

Read Part 2: December 18. 

Photo: Valerie Stunning by Rachel Lena Esterline, Sex Witch Tour 2017