Friends, this is the best announcement of my life. I am leaving social media forever, and I will no longer post on Facebook or Twitter because I have found my spiritual path: I must study barnacles.

Each day, I feel poisoned by the garbage in this news feed, from the horrors of your tiny house updates, to your latest “political hot take,” to these nihilistic “silly videos” of dads being injured by inflatable lawn pools. Enough is enough! Fortunately, I discovered my new friends and saviors, the barnacles, on my recent pleasure-diving trip to the Caribbean. My soul soared the moment I laid eyes on those crusty curl-footed Gods of the Deep.

Just gazing upon their quiet crustacean splendor gave me peace and patience unlike any I have experienced while reading baseless opinions on health care reform in the comments of a post about Batman-themed improv. My barnacles teach me to find stillness and beauty all around me, and I was simply astounded when the wise and mysterious barnacles didn’t notify me that you just bought a pug. My barnacles don’t notify me of anything, except how lovely their carapaces look.

So that’s it. I’m out, baby! Next stop: Montego Bay, where I will sit on the ocean floor in a diving suit — no smartphone — while silently contemplating life and surveying and petting my crispy little love angels, the barnacles.

Before I leave, I need to clear up some myths:

  • Myth #1: Studying barnacles is a phase I am going through, and I will soon return to Twitter. False, because Twitter is a hell-site of vacuous “pundits” and self-fellating “writers” who know nothing of the awe-inspiring way barnacles invade, conquer, and reclaim the lumber from docks, river landings, and ship’s hulls.
  • Myth #2: Snapchat has a decent amount of barnacle content. Shark shit lies! Snaps are approximately 0.0001% about Barnacles, which is 1,000,000 times too low.
  • Myth #3: Barnacles are dead like seashells, or like the hearts of people who post their yoga butts on Instagram. Wrong!! Barnacles have organs, souls, dreams, and hard, cone-shaped mouths with little teeth made of feathers called “cirri.” They attach themselves to whales and go on adventures, and their penis-to-body-size ratio is the greatest of any creature — which you can hardly comprehend if you’re wasting my time with your pathetic cats-quoting-Heidegger-memes.

Unlike social media, Barnacles suck on everything except my time. Every moment I spend avoiding your half-baked rants on the electoral college or HIIT-MMA training and instead swim amongst my lovely little crust buckets — running my hands across their impressive maxillary glands — is a moment I am closer to God. Barnacllelujah!!

By the way… Do I blame Mark Zuckerberg’s biased, anti-barnacle Facebook algorithm for putting fear, despair, and keto cupcake recipes in our feeds instead of barnacles? Yes, absolutely.

Do I personally blame Jack Dorsey from Twitter for hiding the truth: that barnacles have not one but four nektonic (active swimming) larval stages? Also yes. Shame on you, Jack! Shame on your ignorance of cirripedology — the study of barnacles!!

Did all you idiots stop for even a minute to close TikTok, put down your jerk phones, and consider that barnacles emit a natural cement with a tensile strength of 5,000 pounds-per-square-inch? You morons should, because it’s the most powerful glue in nature, and I will soon be coating my body in it.

Now I’m out of here!! Time to explore life’s DEEP MYSTERIES with my happy little crust-mongers!! Do they love it when I swim near them? Can they hear me cry out for them? Do they read my thoughts and feel me DREAMING of them? My transformation begins NOW! I will shape my PRECIOUS CRUNCH DEVILS into MIGHTY BARNACLE SUPERCLUSTERS and dress them in TUXEDOS and PROM DRESSES made of SEAWEED. Then I will dance with my ITTY BITTY BARNACLE BABES at a special BARNACLE BALL, and EELS and ORCAS will encircle us and DANCE ALL AROUND US, and my BODY WILL BE FULLY COATED IN BARNACLES and I will be 100% PROTECTED FROM YOUR CEASELESS INNER MONOLOGUE PROJECTED INTO MY SKULL VIA SMARTPHONE because I am now a LITERAL HUMAN-BARNACLE HYBRID conducting an undersea SYMPHONY OF CRISPY, CRUNCHY SPIRIT LOVE! Barnacles! Barnacles!! Barnacles!!! BARNACLES, BITCH. BYYYEEEEE!!

p.s. If you want to find me online I will still be using LinkedIn!!