On Laocoön
In Greek myth, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo. She accepted the gift, but rejected Apollo’s romantic advances. Apollo put a curse on her: her prophecies would always be true, but no one would ever believe her.
She told everyone that the city of Troy would be destroyed. She told everyone that the Trojan Horse was a trap. But there is another, lesser-known character in this story who was not cursed—who warned of the truth, but was simply not believed: Laocoön.
Laocoön threw his spear at the Trojan Horse. The Trojans heard a hollow sound—evidence of the Greeks’ deception. Still, his warning was ignored. Two giant sea serpents then violently crushed Laocoön and his sons to death, which the Trojans saw as a sign from the gods. They accepted the Trojan Horse. You know the rest of the story.
I view Bo Burnham as a modern-day Laocoön. My friends know I’m a believer in the Bo Burnham “gospel”. He foresaw the demise of “social” media years ago. He has been mostly offline for a while.
I have followed him in this behavior. I deleted Facebook in 2020 and Twitter in 2021. A brief stint with TikTok in 2022. I deactivated Instagram in 2024 (on December 31st). A few days after I deactivated Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg announced the end of fact-checking on Meta’s platforms. A few days after that, Meta announced an end to DEI at the company.
Traditional “social” media platforms have been on the decline for a while. The enshittification slow drip; the shift away from the chronological timeline; the sale of Twitter; the-square-peg-round-hole-ification of generative AI. Even Reddit—the one remaining bastion of unadulterated opinions and honesty—has been infiltrated by ambush marketing and AI slop.
In the infancy of these platforms, the premise was simple: add a friend, post a thought, like a photo. But it is not possible to communicate effectively with your friends or family on these platforms anymore. The mediums no longer allow for this; that is not what they are for.
These spaces are not for you. They are nothing more than revenue-generation machines, built at the cost of your privacy, your self-esteem, and your sanity. The medium is the message, and the message is this: sell.
But you know this already. You’ve known this for a long time. You are a Trojan, hoping for the gift of communication, or self-betterment, or something you don’t know you need yet. And sometimes you are rewarded: some friends still do post photos—there are still some funny tweets. The trade-off is not worth it.
I only have these opinions because I am an addict. I was addicted to “social” media for 15 years. I am only 28 years old (almost 29).
These platforms—for high-anxiety people like Bo and me—are dangerous. Because we are obsessive addicts, we are able to see the reality. A lot of the time, I feel like Cassandra, or Laocoön, or both, or paranoid. I have returned to email. I think we will continue to see a greater desire for analog. In-person events, physical books, records, CDs, photo albums, personal libraries.
You should talk to your neighbors. Learn their names. Wave to people on the street—even if you’re a grouchy New Yorker. Text your friends and write love letters. These are the real social media.
Laocoön and His Sons
