In May 2018, Lorde made the conscious decision to step away from social media, wiping her Instagram and Twitter accounts and opting to communicate with fans with letters shared to her newsletter subscribers.
Ahead of the release of her third album Solar Power, set to arrive on August 20th, Lorde sat down with Sydney Morning Herald, in an interview that saw her shed light on her decision to leave social media.
“It is a weird thing,” says Lorde. “It’s a lot to ask of your fans and your community, that they be okay with not seeing your face for years at a time. But for me, all I have is the work that I make and the songs that I write and the state of mind that I have to be in to do that.”
Lorde acknowledged that her time spent on social media was poisoning her sense of self. ” I was starting to feel like I was losing touch with the part of myself that could think at its own pace: even, to an extent, the part of myself that had free will,” she explains.
“I was really, really addicted,” she adds. “And I would feel very tired at the end of the day; a kind of deep exhaustion.”
Lorde admits that freeing herself from the shackles of social media has been “incredible.” “It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself,” she says.
The New Zealand musician previously touched on leaving social media during a conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe,
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“I realised I was trying to come up with a funny Instagram caption and do a photo of me that looked cool that I would hope would get a certain amount of likes,” she said. “It sounds obvious, but that’s cooked.
“For me, I’m not a girl that gets a bunch of likes. I am who I am, and I’ve got to lean into that. I think for the last one I was 21 and still like the kids, and then the culture started to change and I didn’t know that I wanted to change with it. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a TikTok girl, an Instagram Stories girl, and it was a real crossroads.
Let Lorde be a guiding light in this time. Speaking from experience, taking time away from social media is essential for preserving your psychological immune system. With most of the country in lockdown, there’s obviously that desire to stay connected. Though I’ve found that over the past few weeks the general vibe on social media has become more… paranoid? unwell? generally unpleasant.
At the risk of sounding like a hippy-dippy “touch grass” bullshit artist, I do urge you to take a little social media vacation when things start to feel a little dire and overwhelming. It’s good for the soul, etc. Personally, the only thing getting me through this bleak and weird time is the knowledge that in one week we will have a new Lorde album to aimlessly amble around to.
Listen to ‘Solar Power’ by Lorde
