(READ: The Military Is Utilizing Twitch for Recruitment Purposes and the Left Is Really Upset About It)

Sometimes, it seems that AOC is the only thing any news outlet wants to talk about. Right-leaning websites, including this one, report whenever she says or does something unbelievably stupid or hypocritical. To be fair, you love clicking on it. Likewise, leftist media sources will fawn over her whenever she so much as sneezes.

You’d think that due to all the internet activity that AOC is one of the most influential people in America.

Here’s a fun fact: The internet’s a liar.

To give you an idea of influential she actually is, let’s take a look at this latest report from Fox News about how her influence over the Democratic mayoral primary race happening in her state right now:

In the first round of voting in the primary, Ocasio-Cortez endorsed progressive candidate Maya Wiley and ranked Scott Stringer as her second choice. Neither candidate even advanced to the final round, where Adams faced off against Kathryn Garcia in a close contest.

While Ocasio-Cortez remains wildly popular in her district, the mayoral race indicates that her influence may not extend far beyond that. Her congressional district is located in areas of the Bronx and Queens. According to a map of unofficial results from the first round of voting published by Gothamist, the Bronx overwhelmingly supported Adams, and while Wiley fared better in Queens her support was largely limited to the western part of the borough while the rest was mainly split among Adams, Garcia and Andrew Yang.

I want to leave AOC behind here as she’s served her purpose of making my point and that point is that the internet isn’t real life.

Since people first figured out that they could anonymously say whatever they wanted from the safety of their keyboard placed well behind locked doors, the internet has been filled to the brim with lies, over-dramatics, and sensationalism. Every social media app is host to a plethora of avarice, lust, desperation, rage, and extremism.

Viewing the world through this lens of experience would make you feel like the world is constantly on fire and that we’re headed toward certain doom at a pace so fast that the world is bound to implode at any moment.

It’s not. While we do have problems we need to fight against like Critical Race Theory and the ever-present authoritarianism attempting to get us to fall in line through one means or another, the likelihood that you’re going to be okay is incredibly high.

What’s more, the problems that we do face aren’t undefeatable. The monsters that present themselves to us online, backed with all their trained seals clapping along, cancel mobs, and useful idiots aren’t as many as they make themselves appear to be.

The issues discussed on this site are real issues. Trials and tribulations of our time that we must overcome, but don’t allow the internet to tell you the world is on fire when it isn’t. Don’t allow it to make you believe you can’t rest, because you can, and should. Don’t make it think you have to fight every single battle or engage in every argument, because you don’t, and you shouldn’t.

In the middle of writing this article, I took a step outside my back door. I heard absolute silence. There were no opinions, people screaming at me. My dog was busy sniffing the grass and my uncle contacted me to see how things were going. Very simple things but very real things. The fact that I found a weed growing in my mulch is far more concern to me than the fact that some random internet users were mean to me earlier because, in the end, they’re of no consequence. Their existence begins and ends when I pick up and put down my phone.

I felt the need to write this because the general stress that I’ve seen people exhibit over the past year seems to have grown by leaps and bounds and I’m pretty sure a lot of it has to do with the internet. People are being silenced there, dragged through the mud, canceled, becoming addicted to one vice or another, and what’s more, feel like they have to be there.

But you don’t. The internet is there to serve you, not the other way around, and no matter where you go on it, you’ll probably find conflict, either because someone wants to sell it to you or because they want to have it with you, but that’s a choice you can make.

I’m not saying you need to boycott the internet. Hell, it’s where I make my living, but I am saying that it doesn’t have to rule you. It’s not as important as it makes itself seem, and the people on it aren’t as big-time and influential as they or others believe they are.

Metaphorically speaking, the internet is the wizard behind the curtain. Don’t pay him any more mind than you need to and don’t take him so seriously either. Go play with your dog.