How did I get here?
Monday, January 13, 2025
I’ve never been “good” at social media. I’ve tried to fit in with everyone around me, going from platform to platform as they moved. I never did end up fitting in, but I have learned about myself through it all and as I get a little older I am more at peace with the things not done and myself.
Bebo
My first go at fitting in was with Bebo, back in 2009(ish?). I was there because everyone else from school was there. I remember picking out a red/black theme, pinning a YouTube video of The Killers' Don’t Shoot Me Santa and generally trying to be quirky. I remember quoting Pink Floyd lyrics on a post from someone I was friends with in primary school. I hadn’t spoken to them since moving to secondary school, I cringe thinking about it now. I wanted to stand out, I thought, but I don’t think I ever wanted that really.
I don’t know when, but Bebo, which was the social network for people my age at the time, faded and Facebook came along. Again, I signed up there because everyone around me was on it. I don’t remember much about this time in my life, let alone Facebook — except being an annoying grammar guy one night.
When I left school I also left Facebook and everyone I had known behind. I have an incredible talent for letting friendships wither away through fear, anxiety, and inaction.
Then I joined Twitter. No one knew me there, which was great! I posted about things I liked; Apple and Apple bloggers, design, movies, and music. But, no one knew me there. I felt an incredible loneliness firing off these tweets for no one to read. So I stopped and went “read-only”.
Eventually someone from secondary school found me on Twitter. They must have searched my username from PSN and found my account full of retweets and favourites, but nothing else. We tweeted back and forth and went to the cinema every so often (I ghosted them on more than one occasion, see my line about friendships withering above…).
Some years pass, Trump is elected and Twitter goes to shit. It’s wall-to-wall misery and news about things that don’t affect me. The negativity took its toll. Coming to the realisation (A year or two too late I would say) that it didn’t have any bearing on my life and letting the anger go really helped.
Mastodon
I leave Twitter and go to Mastodon. It’s nicer, sometimes a little too nice. The content warnings I see make me roll my eyes, and there was a lack of anyone posting in my humour.
Content warning: content warnings
As an aside, I am all for content warnings. I don’t want it to sound like I am dismissive or “anti-woke" or anything like that. I do think that you should use your block lists and muted words often and with gusto.
I don’t think everyone else should be expected to create content warnings for anything that may, possibly, perhaps, theoretically cause someone else discomfort. Coming from Twitter and at the time it felt like an over correction.
Back to it
Enough of my thoughts on content warnings I type, as more content warning content is to follow.
Content warning: trump Content warning: eye contact Content warning: food
The above content warnings were from an account that would go on to post dozens of joking toots (They’re still toots to me!) about the death of a politician. It isn’t relevant to this who died, just that the supposedly nicer, safer, more welcoming Mastodon had the same problem as Twitter. People. This was when I left Mastodon.
With Mastodon behind me I started visiting Reddit more. I had had an account there for years and was a light user but now it was the go to time killer. I would read, never post, using the awesome Apollo app by Christian Selig.
Then that was killed by Reddit and their API fees. I spent too much time on Reddit anyway, I’m going to get productive. I’m going to learn a new skill, create new things, go places, see people!
TikTok
Yeah TikTok ate time. Every moment I spent before scrolling on Reddit or checking in on Twitter was now spent, fivefold, on TikTok. It was and still is the perfect content consumption app. Completely mindless and with the comforting “these are only short, like 30 seconds long at most I can’t spend too much time here” thought as you somehow sink three+ hours of your day into it. I put TikTok in the bin too.
What’s old is new again
Here we are. Blogs and RSS feeds never went away but I feel like they’re as strong as they have been in a long time. Google Reader’s death and Twitter’s rise meant someones idea for a blog became a feed on a locked down service. Thanks to events Twitter is going (gone?), the open web and the Fediverse is growing and people are starting to make silly little blogs again.
All my scrolling is now done in Reeder Classic on my phone and the Feedbin site on desktop, with a little bit of the micro.blog app sprinkled in for some Mastodon accounts I love. I still shout into the void like I did on Bebo, on Facebook and on Twitter. Same as it ever was. Except now it’s done on micro.one, from micro.blog.
For a dollar a month I have a corner of the web I can make my own with no likes or pressure. Why wouldn’t you?