Confessions Of A Doomscroller

Hello, my name is David. 

(Hello David.) 

And I’m a doomscroller. 

It started innocently enough, as these things always do. 

It was a little bit before the election and I discovered a site called RawStory. 

Okay, okay, so it was January 21, 2017, but who’s counting? 

Anyway, it was a site filled with stories about Trump’s atrocities (all true, of course) and little celebrations of liberal victories (on the few occasions that we had them). 

There were never any stories about UFOs (well, not until recently, anyway) but there were stories about Trump’s lies, his scandals, his administration’s scandals, Republican party scandals, the Russia investigation, the impeachment, the Russia investigation, the anti-Russia investigation and on and on and on. And it told me everything I wanted to know. 

It wasn’t enough, though. I needed more. Soon, I started adding Politico, Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, Axios and other sites with vaguely Latin sounding names. 

Before I knew it, I would start out every day with a visit to headlines on my phone’s newsfeed, then follow it up with my first stare of the day at RawStory and maybe check out a story or two or five or seven— all before getting out of bed. 

As the election drew nearer, like, when it was, oh, 40 months away, I began checking CNN and RawStory several times a day, but CNN didn’t change stories fast enough. 

I also realized that, even though I work at a place with all kinds of computers, I couldn’t check them or my phone every minute. I mean, I had to show some restraint, after all, didn’t I? 

Then I remembered another sense. Hearing. Air America may have gone off the air years ago, but there was still Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow where I could hear the news of the day often with a liberal spin, well, except for Rachel where I to the news of the day with a heaping dose of historical perspective or Stephanie Miller where I got political commentary with fart jokes early in the morning. 

So, when I was at work I might check the latest news every now and then (defined as two or three times per hour when work was slow) where when I was at home, my rate of checking might be, say, five or ten times an hour. 

Once, when our internet service went out, I was surprised to discover that we had taken guests into our home who were downright rude. I know I’d been distracted, but I don’t remember my wife telling me she had listed our house on AirB&B, but there they were, these guests who, as it turned out, were loud, abusive and argued a lot. And then I realized they were our children. 

It was at that moment when I realized that things had gotten out of hand and that I really needed to spend more time with them. And I finally stopped the madness and put my phone down….until I realized that they didn’t refresh every time I swiped their foreheads. 

Same darn kids, same darn arguments, nothing ever changed. Not even an investigation to break up the monotony. 

Not unlike doom scrolling, really, but at least the story lines were more interesting. Exhortations to drink bleach, voter repression, lies about the election, an insurrection. How could “You’re in my bubble,” “No, you’re in my bubble,” “So what, you’re fat!” possibly compare? 

And then, one day in late January. it all came crashing down in the most undramatic way. One minute we were headed by a twitter-fueled adrenaline junky, the next we were headed by . . . my elderly Uncle Walter, a really nice guy who everybody liked or couldn’t find a real reason to hate so they made up shit until people saw him in action and realized that he might have been a bit of a goofball, but he wasn’t the boogie man they were making him out to be.

And then I realized maybe everything was going to be okay. Yeah, sure, there was Covid-19 and not enough vaccines or tests and up until that point there had been no plan to distribute them. At least there wasn’t some crazed lunatic who one minute was telling us it wasn’t real and the next was telling us it was a plot against him all while doing nothing about it.

Yeah, I knew a recession was imminent, but at least I knew there was someone trying to do something about it, not telling me how good the economy was when I could see it wasn’t true.

Sure, there were some anti-semite white supremacists active within our borders who wanted to start a race war or a civil war or just a good old fashioned, plain not-so-civil war, but at least the head of the country wasn’t actively encouraging them, but instead was going after them.

And the Democrats had good ideas again and the Republicans were back to their deficit hawking ways after running up a deficit and giving more tax breaks to the rich and Moscow Mitch and Chuck Schumer were …..ZZZZZ — ZZZZZ — ZZZZZZZ.=

And it was all so terribly boring again. And government started doing stuff. Not too much, if Moscow Mitch had his way, but something.

And suddenly, things just started working again. Not well, mind you. Moscow Mitch is still out there gumming up the works and Republicans are still spineless bastards who so crave power and money that they can’t stand up to Qanon, but the election is finally over.

And I don’t know what to do with myself now that I find all this free time on my hands. Somehow it’s just not the same going to my newsfeed to see if things are changing every 5 minutes because adults are in charge and even RawStory’s landing page remains the same.

I reach for RawStories and realize that I just don’t care, but I don’t know where to go or what to do.

Should I go to CNN? Nah.

Should I go to Facebook to debunk the latest conspiracy? Nah.

Should I play with my kids? No, they’re adolescents and they’re just going to yell at me.

Oh wait, look! I just got an e-mail from RawStory. I know I shouldn’t open it, but I. JUST. CAN’T. HELP. IT….

No, I will not. I’m just going to have to find something to do with my hands and my time.

Just don’t make me give up Rachel Maddow and my fart jokes in the morning.

Yes, I’m aware it’s not healthy, but I don’t know what else to do with all that free time. I know, maybe I’ll take up smoking.