Aaron Paul is taking a break from Social Media… *internal scream of dispair*
It’s been one of those weeks, where the mood of the people is so affected by events in the world around them, even when those events are not taking place in your own country. But it’s still loud enough that you can’t ignore it, especially if events take a surprising turn.
As non-Americans, neither myself or Carol can truly appreciate the sheer amount of noise coming out of America this week. We can’t possibly even pretend to relate to the general mood of its people. What we can react to is the announcement Aaron Paul made to his official account today that appears to convey a sense of needing to step back, take stock, appreciate those around you.
“I’ve chosen to just keep my phone down and my head up and and just surround myself with what really matters. So yeah, I’m taking a break, but lots of love to each and every one of you.”
Aaron Paul – November 2024
Does this mean Aaron Paul is just human like the rest of us?
Taking a break from social media is never a bad idea, I think both Carol and myself can appreciate the need sometimes to step back, evaluate and just take time for yourself. Today’s announcement clearly has been a cause for concern however, the messages we have recieved in reaction – confusion, disbelief and uncertainty.
So we decided to do this post to offer our own reaction. It’s fair to say when I get a message during the day and carol uses far too many L’s in my name I know something has happened that I need to respond to. I myself have been trying to manage my online time better, including not checking social media the minute I wake up, so I was completely unaware of the post from Aaron Paul until Carol contacted me.
We were both shocked, initially, it’s been so quiet recently on the Aaron Paul front that for it to be further silenced was a prospect we were not expecting, and naturally we were sad to learn about it. Listening to the words Aaron spoke with such clarity a couple more times it became clear that he just sounded drained, the modern age presents an overwhelming amount of noise, information, some fake, some truths and a LOT of personal opinions – especially in recent weeks.
I can only guess at how many notifications, messages and noise that comes Paul’s way on a daily basis from his social media accounts. So often I see him tagged in posts totally unrelated to him, people have opinions they copy him in on, refer to things that happened years ago but still tag him in – the internet never forgets.
I can only imagine how much noise all that generates in a day. The platform Paul has on instagram is huge, a following earned through his talent and popularity but the flipside of that is that is a lot of people knowing who you are, having opinions and not always positive ones, and it being so incredibly easy to just tag his name.
Obviously we can only speculate if this side of social media is the side that’s caused Paul to ‘Digitally Detox’ – maybe the issue is closer to home, we all probably know how hard it is sometimes to put that phone down when you dive into various rabbit holes online, then realise three hours have passed in what only seemed to be 5 minutes (I need to limit my You Tube time for this exact reason, lost days of my life to just watching one more video!).
So Aaron Paul’s message of ‘Phone down, head up’ really does seem a good one in these noisy times, but what does this mean to us, the fans?
In a year where for the first time we’ve had no new content to watch, where any information or updates have been scarce (thankfully Dos Hombres continues to feed us!) it’s sad to discover we’re losing another outlet to follow our idol. Purely as fans, and being totally selfish, knowing how active Paul used to be on social media, it simply depresses us the further away he moves from our little worlds! We can’t help being so incedibly invested in a man we named our website after (lol).
BUT… hold up..
How aware are we now of ‘The Light Phone’? Let’s not ignore the fact this presented a great way to spread the word of a phone that takes away the tempation of social media, that goes back to basics – to make calls, use maps and listen to music – all activities that shuts out the loud, loud noisy modern world – it really does sound nice, as Paul himself suggested.
Seriously, it’s a phone I’m going to be looking into, I hope its available in the UK!
In conclusion…
Seeing the reactions we’ve seen, its clear this announcement has upset a fair amount of fans – a natural reaction when it feels something is being taken away. There was also concern for the loss of all those images and posts Paul has made on the platform over a number of years, it reminded me of the time I realised how much fun content was lost when his Twitter/X account was purged of all posts, some dating back to BrBa days!
As a fan who was late to the party, it meant I rely on those lovely people who took screen shots at the time to see some of the fun from years gone by, but I know it’s only a fraction of what previously existed.
So yes, it’s sad to lose that tiny bit of history that we all relate to, seeing any content being deleted (or maybe hidden) is never an easy thing to see (as a previous archivist it goes against all my training) BUT, in light of everything else that’s gone down this week let’s just put it down to it being a bad week in general, and hope that balance returns soon enough, and respect everyone’s need to do whats right for them.
One thing we can confidently say and confirm is Aaron Paul Fans is going nowhere, we wil continue to post news, views and nonsense for as long as it is wanted. Hooray!
Paul’s statement in full
Hi, everybody.
OK, quick, quick, quick PSA. A lot has happened over the past 12 hours. Look, no matter what side of the fence you’re on, you got to just protect each other. You know, we got to hold each other up and March forward. We’re in this together. Let’s not lose sight of that.
It is what it is, you know? So let’s just be brothers and sisters and friends and protect one another.
Anyways, I’m now taking this opportunity to do a digital detox and also go light. I don’t know if you know what this is, but this is called the light phone. It’s considered a dumb phone because there’s no social media, there’s no web browsing, there’s no emails.
How nice does that sound?
You can call anybody, you can text anybody. There’s maps and there’s music. It’s really all you need and so I’m going light. If you don’t want to go fully light, and if you maybe want to just go light for the weekend or light for the night, if you want to go out on a nice dinner date with your partner or your loved one, your friends, and you want to be distracted by the noise, go light. You can have all of your calls forwarded to this beautiful, sleek phone.
I’ve been a major supporter of theirs for years, since they launched years ago, and I just love everything that they represent. They’re giving a bunch of schools across the nation, free phones so kids can just be connected to their friends, to their family, but not be distracted by all the noise out there, from the good to the bad.
Anyways, I’ve chosen to just keep my phone down and my head up and and just surround myself with what really matters. So yeah, I’m taking a break, but lots of love to each and every one of you.
Stay safe out there and again, we’re in this together.
Let’s let’s just protect each other. All right.
Lots of love, everybody.
Bye.
