The Rabbit Hole - 3rd Edition

Welcome back to The Rabbit Hole! I’m a new man. Let’s talk.

I was planning on saving this discussion fully for this installment, but by some wild coincidence, it came up in Slack so we’ve there’s no more suspense. As of Monday, June 17th, I’ve deleted all social media apps from my phone (not including Snapchat as that is where our primary group chat is housed). This has been a long time coming, I wish I had done it earlier but I came across a video that had me falling to my knees with existential dread. Here is that video. The first 3ish minutes are the gist of what I’m talking about.

I’ve always known that I spend way too much time on my phone, but I always just chalked it up to something along the lines of “that’s what everyone else does.” Gen Z is the first generation who grew up on today’s technology. Our parents played outside and met people in real life while we scrolled social media and met people there. I always made the excuse that this is just the way the world is heading, there’s no sense in trying to go against the grain.

I’m in no way trying to be all meditative and deep on this because there are people far more well-versed on this topic than me, but I just want to share my experience. Seeing that video was my last straw. I knew I needed to make a change, so I made the most drastic one I could think of. Going full cold turkey on social media (for at least 30 days) is the best way I can think of to experiment with life without it. After less than 48 hours I can already say that it has made all the difference. Procrastination is no new phenomenon, but mine was getting to severe levels. I even started procrastinating watching movies. My favorite hobby. And when I went to watch a movie, I’d find myself immediately picking up my phone when it got a little slow. That’s probably not the craziest thing to the average person, but I used to persecute people for pulling out their phone during a movie, I had become everything I hated. I started having to put my phone in a different room just to watch something.

In the last 2 days, I’ve never felt more productive in my life. I’m shocked with myself at times by just how much you can get done when you aren’t distracted by your phone every 30 seconds. My apartment is cleaner, I feel better, and my tasks are done at a reasonable hour. This is gonna sound extremely corny but I feel like I just had an awakening. Like I was on auto-pilot for the longest time and I took the wheel. My screentime is way down, which had been ghastly in recent weeks. I started going to the gym again, and it’s a completely different experience without TikTok to scroll. I’m in and out at record speed. I just feel like every aspect of my life is better. That may sound dramatic after just this short time, but it’s true.

That was my biggest ramble yet, but if you’ve been in a funk lately and you find yourself scrolling endlessly, this is your sign to take a break. I guarantee you’ll immediately feel 100x better.

For a more general life update, I had a great week! I reunited with Guntaaz, which was very nice. She gave me a bunch of cool gifts for my birthday which are greatly appreciated. The headliner is a new water bottle…

I’m sure you’ll all be thrilled by this development. We all know my previous one has needed replacing for years.

I also got my first paycheck from work which was equally needed. I had an overall great weekend. Saturday, I went to the Creature Conservancy with my mom, which was good fun. Straight from there, I headed to Sam’s to accompany him on his voyage to Dearborn to pick Bam up. I honestly didn’t remember much about him, but he instantly recognized me, mentioning I didn’t have a beard the last time we met. Awesome dude, we were riffing the rest of the night, and he kept gassing me up saying “you funny” or “yo Sam, your friend is funny.” Which made me feel good. I have no idea if he was being genuine but it seemed like he was and regardless it was a nice boost of the ego. He’s coming to the Birthday Bash so that’ll be a nice Bashagami character at this year's event.

Creative Corner: This sort of connects to what I just talked about above, but now that I have limited distractions, I want to begin brainstorming content stuff for the rest of the summer. Definitely need to get back in the writer’s room, but I’m as motivated as ever to get stuff out there. The biggest announcement is that The Christian Show will be making its summer return next Monday which is very exciting. I’ve missed having my movie outlet since school ended. Can’t wait to dive back in.

Content I’ve Consumed this Week Cave: You know it, you love it, itttt’sssssssss baaaaackkkkkk. Aside from the basics, I feel like I haven’t gotten into much newer content this week. I watched Inside Out 2 over the weekend, you can read my full review here. My next big movie consumption undertaking will be watching/re-watching the entirety of Pixar’s filmography. There are still a ton of entries that I’ve never seen such as The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Next week’s pod will probably be a Pixar mega-episode-special so be on the lookout for that.

Rabbit Spotlight: This week’s lucky Rabbit to be selected for a spotlight issssss……. The Kid himself, Samuel Alabre. I’m sure we can all agree that the mind of Sam is a strange one and one that needs studying. In the meantime, let’s dive into it, through extremely well-thought-out questions that aren’t surface-level at all.

Q: What is your favorite color?
A: I like them all.

Q: What is your favorite food?
A: Idk tbh, I like it all.sugar cereal, pizza, falafel, burritos, yummmmm

Q: What is your favorite Rabbit bit? (past or present)
A: A few that come to mind are Chris putting his thumb in his butt, JadedDonut/Pandemonium/Guff as a whole, my accents make me laugh, Doc x LA girl.

Q: What is your fondest memory involving the Rabbits?
A: Hitting Necto and everyone of the guys that was there getting play was pretty boss.

Q: What is your favorite trip you’ve been on with the Rabbits?
A: Both Miami and LA pt1 were pretty peak to me, honestly even Farwell too just getting fucking sent with everyone in the middle of nowhere was awesome.

Q: What are your hopes for the Rabbits in the future?
A: Success and longevity. I also hope Jmart ends up with a sick house that I can crash his favorite car into.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add about our awesome friend group?
A: Shoutout Atz for still never telling anyone about the reason I cried that one night in January of 2020. My biggest secret.

Sam definitely had some interesting responses. A few unexpected pulls, but I have to respect what he has to say. As always, thank you Sam for participating. I think this segment has gone well so far, and I look forward to seeing who I pull next for a spotlight.

Lastly, between today and the next edition we’ll have had 2 Rabbit birthdays. Big ones as tomorrow, Keegan turns 21 years of age. Big shoutout to the boy. Cake and candles, brother. It’s also my birthday on Sunday but literally, who cares.

This has been The Rabbit Hole. Thanks for reading. See ya next week!