A brief & honest statement about why we decided to quit social media.
To make a long story short: whenever we use social media, we don´t feel good! Even with great intentions, such as sharing an inspiring video on Instagram, we increasingly felt stuck in a vicious cycle, longing for likes, while wasting ours and your time: the most precious thing, we all have!
Like so many other people, we have tried to come off social media before. But despite our best efforts, we failed and have come back to it over and over again. The main reasons are:
Fear of missing out (FOMO);
Fear of not being able to earn enough money;
Fear of not being seen and recognised;
Fear of not managing to promote our project and realise our dream.
So here we are again, still afraid, but dedicated to finally stand for our values and - against all logics of mainstream marketing - decided to get out of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
This time, our decision is strengthened by the latest information from courageous whistleblowers, eye-opening documentaries and research studies, which clearly show how harmful social media is to all of us - and especially to the younger generations.
“There’s really troubling research that shows - this is among teenagers - the grey matter in the animal part of the brain is proportionally shrinking the more social media you use. It actually changes the shape of the brain when you overuse it." - Tim Kendall, Facebook's first Director of Monetisation and President of Pinterest.
Due to manipulative algorithms and loose regulations, billions of people get sucked into a stream of endless scrolling. A stream of fake news, bullying, censorship, objectification of bodies, polarisation, extremist viewpoints, and FOMOs of all kinds. This is leading, so we are told, to massively increasing rates of youth suicides, depression and anxiety.
As Piratas do Amor, we dedicate our lives to creating experiences at sea, where humans feel the awe of being alive. We want to support people to create intimate connections with themselves, with each other and with mother nature. Social Media became the antithesis of that. That´s why it seems absolutely incoherent to us, to make usage of platforms that are desgined to disconnect, addict and numb us.
"Like the ancient navigators, who mastered navigation without instruments, we went to the sea to learn the art of being present. When you set sails, you need to let go of any distractions. Do you know a bigger distraction than social media? I don`t!" - Raíssa Teles, Co-Founder of Piratas do Amor
As sailors, we are rather anti social by nature: isolating ourselves on a little nutshell in the middle of the ocean far away from any civilisation and access to the internet. Getting out of social media seems to be another step into this direction, slowly disappearing from your horizon all together.
But this is not the case! We will continue to do all we can to find new ways to connect with you, to build better channels of communication elsewhere, as well as focusing on the older tried and tested tools such as word of mouth.
"After all, pirates are known to have been an impressively strong and courageous tribe of rule breakers, that challenged the establishment and freed themselves from oppressive political, social and economic systems of their time. We want to build on this legacy and together with fellow modern-day pirates, depart from the status quo and explore new ways to create meaningful connections." - Christof Brockhoff, Co-Founder of Piratas do Amor
As a first step, we invite you to join our Telegram Group, where we will continue to offer frequent updates and wish to connect with you in a more intimate way. Over 160 pirates have already followed our call and we count on you to help us spread the word and invite other like-minded pirates from your network to step aboard.
In addition, we commit to dedicating more time to our blog and monthly newsletter and share more quality content with you.
