new beginnings and bluer skies...
When it comes to short form social media, will find me here, building something new...
Having been on the internets since my early 20s, I have seen a lot. I remember the exciting rush of discussion boards and using online databases for the first time in grad school research in lieu of those dusty and heavy bound indexes found in the library basement. Of early e-mails, which gave me a chance to keep touch with friends who had moved away (and in those days, everyone seemed to be moving away--high school friends, college friends who transferred to other states.) While not web-based, I remember fondly my first forays in using WordPerfect to excitedly design simple newsletters and brochures in a desktop publishing class I took to (of all things) satisfy a remaining science/tech credit I needed. Then later, after the dawn of the new millennia, the first online journal publications, and crude website constructions on Angelfire, and blogs (first Xanga, then here.) Then Myspace, which was cool, but clunky, but felt like the first tendrils of what social media became, far more so than long form content. In those years, I met many people I still consider friends and core literary acquaintances, though things like Xanga and MySpace and just by publishing in the same journals.
Then there was Facebook, which felt like the first widespread social media, meaning not just writers or artists or academics but regular people too. And this may be why it felt so sticky and permanent for all this time. Here, I have access to family, to friends collected in childhood and high school and college. through past jobs and literary events and random people I met through others at parties that seemed cool. While I was initially more open in my friend request policy, I eventually learned, especially in the past decade, to keep a tighter reign for a more enjoyable experience. Somewhere in between there was also Tumblr, which I enjoyed and actually used as my writing/art website for awhile, until their anti-porn bots kept flagging collaged s with even the slightest bit of nudity (even anatomical diagrams and statues) for removal.
While I continued to live in this space, I lived very much in FB-land as a way to connect with other people. As the shift started toward Twitter, I used it for a few endeavors-- like creating joke account with friends where I once pretended to be the much maligned liver of a co-worker after many Friday night drinking shenanigans. In 2017, I had a fake account where I and a friend pretended to be Mothman amid a slew of local sightings. The account I set up for the press in the early 2010s continued to proliferate in numbers , though mostly it was auto-posts from other places like FB and app connections to shop platforms. I started my own Twitter in 2018, which I had a hard time figuring out what to do with, but amid the looming shadow of all that ownership nonsense, deleted all accounts there in 2022. It was easy, though, since it was a space I never warmed to or spent much time.
I am the kind of person who loves social media, having once lived in a world without it. Unlike much of the criticism leveled at it in general, I am curious about what you're reading, what you're doing, what you had for lunch. I learned to sidestep drama and virtue signaling and bad behavior on the internet over time, which made it more enjoyable overall. I stopped fighting with people on the internet more than a decade ago and it felt really good. I like to share and think things out and sometimes, especially being someone who works from home and during very anti-social times like the pandemic, these spaces felt much more important for social interaction. I get excited to tell you about projects I am working on, movies I've seen, funny memes I've stumbled on.
Of course, over the last year or so there has been growing ick over the Meta monopoly. While Facebook has been dying in attention and relevance in creative communities for years, it was still where all my cousins were. Where my mother's account still sat and appeared in my side column of contacts (and harbored my dad logged in there until he died as well.) A place with history and roots that would make it hard to throw out overall. And, of course, Instagram, which I personally love its tight little grid and losing occasional hours scrolling reels..I always called it a visual notebook, that felt like part promotion for projects and art sharing, but also part microblogging...much swifter to post there than write a whole entry here. I created an account in 2017 and have been posting ever since. As I leave, that perhaps, is the things I will miss most.
Part of me, of course, is angry that the behavior and pandering of any platforms owners has peed in the pool of our fun. Has in fact, done much worse over the past decade (watch the The Social Dilemma if you're in doubt of this). That it may be at least partially responsible for where we find ourselves in this minute. That it will continue to be so, in light of recent developments. I've also seen a lot of competitors come and go, everyone rushing to and fro and ultimately returning. I have no claim that moving my postings to a new platform will make a difference. I like to think many people doing this will help in not supporting things that very much don't align with our values. While it feels tempting, it also feels slightly gross for me to keep using them (I have similar contentious feelings about Amazon and have been trying to move away from relying so much there as the new year dawns). Even if I feel protected in my little bubble and have weeded most of the trolls out, I still feel bad feeding the money and content machine. So I kind really need to step away.
In the past couple of weeks, I set up Bluesky and started backing up the other sites, which I don't plan to delete, but just not actively or spend time there and instead spend it elsewhere, my eyes and attention being far more valuable than anything like my small, small corner of content. They will exist as graveyards I suppose, where I can occasionally go if I need to find something. You can still, of course, find me here, or on YouTube if you're looking for other ways to connect, and of course my newsletter, The Paper Boat which is monthly. I did hear that Bluesky is soon releasing a photo sharing app that they want to rival IG, so there's that as well on the horizon perhaps...
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