i don't like social media 2025/05/29
what the title says, really.
i guess i am introverted. or more like, i lack in social graces and am a shut in who grew increasingly paranoid, so the bulk of my socialization happens on "the internet". though over the years it seems it has become harder to feel belonging or even comfortable with being myself in online spaces. i think it's fair to say it's my problem to some degree, but also i'd be lying if i said there was no problem with the environment itself
i think it sucks that modern web has increasingly grown towards a great deal of Happenings being on basically 5 of the same websites. it sucks being conscious of the numbers, it sucks how parasocial it all feels, it sucks how much those spaces encourage being extremely histrionic. this is not really new; there's one quote i thought a lot over the years.
Many of my friends have told me I'm "good at Twitter", in the sense that I know how to craft a tweet that will do numbers. I wish this meant I was funny, but that's not really what doing numbers is about. For one, there are a lot of situations where trying to be funny would be tasteless, or at least tacky. How do you "do numbers" in the wake of governmental neglect? How about in the midst of police brutality? Hey, what is the most like-worthy take when someone you know is accused of a crime?
emphasis mine. :)
oomfs are getting cancelled
real question, what will you do when your friend gets called out as a rapist? when everyone turns their back on them and there's an increasing social pressure to do the same, despite there being no proof at all?
will you stick around? will you defend them, risking getting thrown under the bus by mere association?
or will you cave in? will you backstab them and disassociate? maybe add fuel to the fire, throw in some petty complaint that shows how bad of a person they are?
phrases like "cancel culture" feel very much like dogwhistles. but the criticism is not exactly uncalled for. as a measure of enacting justice and Accountability(TM), it disproportionately hurts minorities while people in actual positions of power remain largely unaffected. you're a white guy? you get benefit of the doubt and ability to defend yourself. you're a trans woman and someone is spreading made up shit about you? good luck lol.
porpentine's "hot allostatic load" speaks about this phenomenon at length. you read it and it seems almost exaggerated, blown out of proportion, but then it happens to your friend. and then it happens to another friend. and then it happens again. and again
i am perhaps lucky enough to not had to experience this directly, but it is already harrowing and demoralizing enough to see this repeatedly happen to people around me.
The End of Twitter
due to horrible decisions and tantrums of a certain manchild (amongst other things), twitter has degenerated from a powerhouse to a rather unpleasant place to be on. many stuck around regardless, often for valid reasons, while others have migrated to alternatives. in my imo, the alternatives are all horrible in more or less subtle ways.
bluesky is broken by design: there's zero control over audience of your posts, every bit of your activity is public and there's very little control over what you see (content warnings and so). i don't enjoy having domains as handles on an otherwise very centralized platform, handles that are ephemeral and redundant anyway, how many people have you seen rocking the Invalid Handle? the protocol doesn't care. why should you? wanted to have your posts associated with an url anyway for a laugh? we had a tool for that: it was called PERSONAL WEB PAGE
mastodon/fediverse has its own share of weird technical hurdles, plus unique cultural problems (fediblock lol). picked a wrong instance to register on? you can't talk with your friend now, too bad! abundance of content warnings esp on the queer side of fedi is nice, on the other hand being conscious of the expectance of CWs/alt text made me much less eager to post and sanitize myself too much. the idea of adding a CW for eye contact on a selfie is absurd, i can't believe i actually did it at one point.
the real problem for me though is Fragmentation. one friend went over to fedi, the other went on bluesky, another stayed on twitter, now i need to have accounts and post on 3 different places to stay in touch. so cool.
how much horrible shit are you willing to put up with?
without going into detail, a friend of a friend has posted what appeared to be a suicide note. alas, the post has reached escape velocity and got picked up by the algorithm; hell ensues. qrts and replies are full of blue checkmarks farming engagement, split between blatant transphobia and virtue signalling, latter of which does nothing but harm by spreading the post further. some went as far to impersonate her to get a kick out of her friends' suffering.
ive been told, "suicide is devastating for everyone around". a young life has been lost, her final moments desecrated and aired for hundreds of thousands of people to see.
are you happy now?
because i hate it here.
what now
i don't want to be on any of those websites. deleted my blud sky and mastodon some time ago. unfortunately twitter doesn't have an instant nuke button so i'm always tempted to reactivate. but i think it's about time to let it go.
maybe at some point i'll learn how to make more meaningful connections with people. for now its hermitmaxxing time