PORTLAND, Ore. – Local man Gerald Stephenson delayed his highly publicized departure from social media an extra few minutes to respond to a couple more comments and DMs, unsurprised sources confirmed.
“This is all about mental health and how social media has become a toxic force in my life, which it has. I need a break to get back to nature. Maybe I’ll even do some woodworking,” said Stephenson as he looked down at his phone. “But first, I think it’s important that I reply to some of these comments. I know most of my followers will be pretty upset to learn that they’ll be losing my daily musings, and I need to respect that and provide some comforting words. I swear I’ll be done with this by tomorrow at the latest.”
Stephenson’s long-time friend Maya Bogart was quick to recognize this sort of behavior.
“I know, I know. He’s doing it again. Gerald announced his grand departure at a dinner party this weekend. And yes, he announced that he was planning to post an announcement,” said Bogart while suppressing an eye roll. “Last time he made a proclamation like this, it was just that he was deleting the Twitter app from his phone. Not deleting his account, just the app. And he couldn’t even stick to it through the entire length of the party. Before the end of the night, I saw him hiding in a corner scrolling.”
Leona Ponce, a social media manager for Chipotle, sees this type of empty gesture on a daily basis.
“An unfortunate side effect of this job is that I encounter ‘the departure post’ a lot. I’d call it a classic at this point. And they’re always the same: a wall of text basically scolding the rest of us for not going on more hikes while explaining how awful social media is,” said Ponce. “They are definitely right that social media is terrible for humanity as a whole, but they all seem to think that buying a pair of L.L. Bean boots will solve all of their problems. But sadly, that’s not actually a cure for narcissistic personality disorder. I can guarantee you none of these people last more than 48 hours offline before crawling back to see how many of their friends hollowly congratulated them.”
At press time, Stephenson was working on an op-ed piece about his experience leaving social media and posing for a picture in his new Carhartt jacket for the header image.