If you’re the sensitive, empathic type, look away, because this story is such a downer you might never recover from it: This man uses social media to connect with others.
Oof. No. This poor guy.
Harry Renner of San Francisco, CA may seem like a regular 31-year-old man, but his life is much darker than it may seem: Every day, Harry attempts to use his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts to make genuine, person-to-person connections with friends, family, and even strangers. It would be one thing if Harry posted on Instagram to advertise for his business or promote some sort of show he was in—or even to just showcase a skill like photography or painting—but instead, the poor man simply puts up images of things like his building’s laundry room, with captions like “guess it’s laundry day again,” and then replies personally to every single comment, even if it’s just an emoji. The same goes for the other social platforms, too. Harry will send tweet after tweet about movies he’s seen to his favorite Vox critic despite never receiving a response, all the while remaining totally unaware that Twitter is supposed to be for posting strident, under-researched political opinions, cancelling coworkers or minor celebrities, or posting absurd jokes from an anonymous account with a weird, distorted profile picture.
God, this is sad. If you want to stop reading here, we totally understand.
It’s unclear whether Harry is lonely, confused, or just socially inept, but regardless, he remains an active Facebook user well past the site’s prime, posting full photo albums of his pretty bare-bones shelf-installation project with long descriptions of his process, which usually only garner comments from his most elderly relatives—comments that he, of course, replies to at length. It sure seems like Harry could pick up the phone and call or text some of the people he’s having these extended, public conversations with online, but for whatever reason, he chooses to be as active as a person could possibly be on social media, offering up post after post about inane daily activities that would be better saved for a journal. Whatever is going wrong on Harry’s end, it is definitely sad to watch him try to forge healthy, positive relationships with others on the various social media platforms.
This is such a bummer. We wish someone would tell Harry that what he’s doing is at best weird, and at worst very, very hard to watch. Let’s hope he quits it soon and makes his long-awaited transition into being a normal dude!
