I don’t understand social media.

It’s not an age thing, I don’t think.

I’m no Spring Chicken, of course.

I don’t even really know what a Spring Chicken is.

Is it a newly born chicken? Because chickens are born in spring, aren’t they?

Does that mean a Winter Chicken is old?

But don’t chickens live longer than a year?

And which came first, the chicken or the egg?

And how on earth have I managed to digress this early on in a post?

It’s probably because of my newly reduced attention span.

Because of all the social media I’ve been doing.

Because I don’t understand social media.

Possibly because I’m no Spring Chicken.

But I don’t think being a chicken of any description makes one particularly adept at social media.

Also, I have been on social media a lot lately.

Or ‘The Socials’, as I believe the cool kids are calling it.

There are a lot of these so-called ‘Socials’.

I used to go to a pub called The Social back in my twenties, when I was, metaphorically at least, a Spring Chicken.

But I’m not one any more.

I don’t think I’m quite a Winter Chicken yet.

I think even Autumn Chicken might be a bit harsh.

I think I’m a Late-Summer Chicken.

Anyway, back to The Socials. None of which are The Social, more’s the pity, because I could really do with a drink about now.

There are a lot of Socials. And you don’t refer to any of them using the definite article. Unless you are a Winter Chicken. Or, like me, you find it funny to get things deliberately wrong on purpose. So I use the definite article with all of The Socials. All of the time.

I’m a secondary school teacher. Annoying teenagers is quite possibly in my DNA.

There’s been a lot of change with regard to The Socials since I started this blog. Back then it was mainly The Facebook and The Twitter.

These days, The Twitter seems to be having some sort of identity crisis. Much like when Prince became a symbol and we all had to call him The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince, we now have to call The Twitter, The-Social-Formerly-Known-As-Twitter. Or something. It doesn’t matter. The Spring Chickens don’t care about The Twitter, whatever name it goes by.

The Spring Chickens also don’t care about The Facebook, but the Autumn and Winter Chickens do still like The Facebook.

The Spring Chickens are more into The Instagram, which they all call The Insta, but they really, really like The TikTok.

And really I don’t know what any of these things are. I used to hang around on The Facebook back when The Facebook was cool, but I stopped doing that more or less when I started this blog. I think I wrote a post about it, but I don’t know when that was. It shouldn’t be too hard to find. Frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t check before I started writing this.

But I didn’t, so if you want to find out what I used to think about social media back in the early days of this blog, you’ll have to do your own research. Good luck. Let me know if I said anything interesting.

Right, so, back to the point. If there is a point. Which there is. Which is that even though I don’t understand The Socials, I’ve been spending a lot of time on The Insta and on The TikTok, because I’ve been making little videos to promote my podcasts.

Both of them, actually. The one I do with my friend Ben, which a small amount of people listen to, and the one I do on my own, which is notionally linked to my blog, but which no one listens to at all. Or watches, because for some reason I film it as well.

Both of the podcasts I do are available on The YouTube and The Spotify, and I often link to them through this blog. And yet still none of you listen.

So I started making shorter videos. In the business of podcasting, we call these short videos ‘shorts’. And I post some of them on here too. But when I post them on here they link back to The YouTube.

But I also post them on The TikTok, and the ones I do with Ben I also post on The Insta. And so even though they are exactly the same videos as the ones I post here, you can follow me on The TikTok and see them on different platforms. But they are the same videos, so there’s really no point in doing that. Although apparently there’s something called The Algorithm that I need to keep happy, so if you could follow me on all The Socials, even though it’s a waste of your time, it would keep The Algorithm happy. One day The Algorithm will be our supreme overlord, so it’s worth keeping it happy.

But the main point of all of this is that in order to get people to watch what I make on The TikTok, I have to engage with The TikTok and watch other people’s videos. Even though they are mostly terrible, because that’s what The Algorithm wants me to do.

And I try and stay detached, I really do, because I’ve spent much of my adult life pretending that I’m better than everyone else by not engaging with The Socials.

But I’m not better than everyone else.

I’m the same.

Which is very disappointing.

Because when I go on The TikTok it sucks me in.

I can’t put it down.

Although, in fairness, I am learning a lot.

Like I keep learning that there are specific exercises designed for a man of exactly my age that won’t even work on the Spring Chickens.

They’ll only work for me.

I can’t find out what these exercises are without subscribing to a programme, which I haven’t got around to doing, but I’m definitely going to do, because the results speak for themselves.

I also need to start drinking coffee with added creatine and collagen and something called lion’s mane, which hopefully isn’t an actual lion’s mane, because that would be cruel, but then again, for the obvious benefits to my physique and wellbeing, I don’t care that much about the lion really.

And the best videos of all are the ones that tell me how to get more followers on The TikTok and The Insta. There’s a lot of those.

It’s brilliant, really, and I’ve been a fool for missing out all this time.

So, follow me on The TikTok and follow me and Ben on The Insta and you’ll not only see our great shorts, which are exactly the same as the shorts you’re currently ignoring on The YouTube, but you’ll also see all this other great stuff.

And the best thing is, you don’t need to be a Spring Chicken because there’s loads of Autumn and Winter Chickens already on there.

What a time to be alive.

All hail The Algorithm.