*taps mic* is this thing on?
Jul. 31st, 2023 02:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaSo, social media seems to be in a state of collapse. It's strange, because this blog is a port of my old LiveJournal, and I'm old enough to remember when Facebook took the wind out of LJ's sails back at the dawn of the millennium.
Facebook is now Your Dad's Internet; no one who's on it wants to be there. They're just there because it's their single point of contact with certain people who aren't online anywhere else.
Twitter (X, whatever) under the Muskmelon is even more of a cesspit than it was under Jack Dorsey-- and let's not forget how utterly crap he was. That's why I won't be joining Bluesky. And I don't trust Zuckerberg further than I can throw him, so Threads can go fuck itself.
None of the other sites (Spoutible, Hive, Post, etc.) have gathered enough traction to be viable. Mastodon isn't user friendly enough to attain Twitter's former reach, and probably isn't aiming for that in any case.
In any case, I've increasingly had the feeling that putting effort into writing on a site like Facebook or Twitter is pouring wine into a jug with no bottom. Both sites give you no meaningful access to your own archive. If I'm writing-- however trivially-- I'm creating a body of work. I want to be able (ideally easily) to search it, reread it, cross-reference it. To be able to refer back, and refer one's readers back, in a way that's impossible on Facebook and troublesome on Twitter.
...All of which brings me back here. Here fewer people are likely to see what I write, but in a way that feels rather freeing. I noticed on LJ that the bigger my Friends list grew, the less I felt I could say. Now that nobody's listening, perhaps I can allow myself to talk.
And my past is there, for better or worse (often worse). Searchable and taggable. I'm tempted to go back and delete some entries, or leave notes on them saying look, here is some evidence that my past self was trash in many ways. If I haven't done that, it's because there's a lot of trash here, and only one pair of weak arms to shovel it.
Blogging, forsooth. Everything old is new again. We'll see if it sticks.
Postscript: A bit later, I ate my words and joined Bluesky. It's been okay so far. Still keeping an eye on it.
Facebook is now Your Dad's Internet; no one who's on it wants to be there. They're just there because it's their single point of contact with certain people who aren't online anywhere else.
Twitter (X, whatever) under the Muskmelon is even more of a cesspit than it was under Jack Dorsey-- and let's not forget how utterly crap he was. That's why I won't be joining Bluesky. And I don't trust Zuckerberg further than I can throw him, so Threads can go fuck itself.
None of the other sites (Spoutible, Hive, Post, etc.) have gathered enough traction to be viable. Mastodon isn't user friendly enough to attain Twitter's former reach, and probably isn't aiming for that in any case.
In any case, I've increasingly had the feeling that putting effort into writing on a site like Facebook or Twitter is pouring wine into a jug with no bottom. Both sites give you no meaningful access to your own archive. If I'm writing-- however trivially-- I'm creating a body of work. I want to be able (ideally easily) to search it, reread it, cross-reference it. To be able to refer back, and refer one's readers back, in a way that's impossible on Facebook and troublesome on Twitter.
...All of which brings me back here. Here fewer people are likely to see what I write, but in a way that feels rather freeing. I noticed on LJ that the bigger my Friends list grew, the less I felt I could say. Now that nobody's listening, perhaps I can allow myself to talk.
And my past is there, for better or worse (often worse). Searchable and taggable. I'm tempted to go back and delete some entries, or leave notes on them saying look, here is some evidence that my past self was trash in many ways. If I haven't done that, it's because there's a lot of trash here, and only one pair of weak arms to shovel it.
Blogging, forsooth. Everything old is new again. We'll see if it sticks.
Postscript: A bit later, I ate my words and joined Bluesky. It's been okay so far. Still keeping an eye on it.
no subject
on 2023-07-31 09:48 am (UTC)Then - why the heck selling Twitter to Musk?? To get rid of a powder keg and manure pit and start anew? Or just to get rich through some big baby's short-lived airs and graces?
Now that appears completely illogical...