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Title: My dwindling use of the web
Date: March 18, 2024

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  So, I recently dumped all of my social media[0]. I deleted all four Fediverse
accounts[^0], my old Tumblr account, my Wordpress account, my YouTube channel,
my BlueSky account, and anything else I wasn't using anymore. Only a lone
Twitter account remains, and that's solely for the name so I'm not impersonated
on there[^1]. I've just found myself incompatible with "modern" social media
communities, and while I have no desire to go back after a legit panic attack
hit me one day, I won't deny there have been withdrawal symptoms from what was
very clearly an addiction for me.

  Social media, for me, became the source of a lot of my fears, as well as the
constant creeping doom & gloom that sat in my brain. Seeing people constantly
"cancelled" over the dumbest things, and all of the drama from the various
"commentary" communities, put so many bad things into my head that I always
felt like I was walking on eggshells just existing anywhere. It's not healthy,
and no, the Fediverse doesn't help that with filtering and the like. It's like
putting a bandaid on a mortal wound, and that's not what's needed.

  The thing is, I've also reduced my time on the web even further since all of
this went down. I moved my YouTube subscriptions to my RSS reader, I've been
paying /even less/ attention to Discord, I started checking sites without RSS
only once or twice a day, and the few streams I watch, I do so through
`streamlink` on my MacBook Pro (via `mplayer`). In fact, the only thing I keep
open constantly in my browser is a locally-hosted wiki on this MBP, since I use
it for keeping notes for my various writing and IF projects[^2].

  Instead, I've started reading more, relying on my music collection instead of
streams for background ambiance, playing more IF and emulated retro games, and
just trying to get my mental health back together.

  Being offline, as if back in the days of dial-up, has done more for me than
anything else in the last three years of trying to manage my stress in other
ways. I'm starting to enjoy things I was losing my love of, such as anime and
tokusatsu, gaming, and...reading. Yeah, thanks to the constant drama on social
media, I was starting to hate /reading/, because of how much people judged
others over their TBR and DNF lists[^3]. That's since changed.

  Getting away from all that has helped immensely, even with just the 12 days
since I cratered my social accounts. As my partner Sildrae put it, it's
liberating. He's the one who suggested I step away, as he did the same thing
when Twitter killed TweetDeck. One of my other partners is still something of
a socialite on the Fediverse, though they've started seeing how bad things can
be as well.

  In the end, gopher and the like might be the perfect /community/ for me.
You're not expected to be terminally online and constantly knowledgeable about
everything going on. You can write as much or as little as you want. And you
can "disappear" for days or weeks at a time without people freaking out that
you've not said anything in the last few hours.

  That last part actually happened to me on more than a couple of occasions on
Twitter. I once went offline for about 20 hours while I was sick, and it caused
at least /five/ of my followers to freak out that I hadn't said anything there
for so long. I wasn't a constant stream of Twitter thoughts even back in those
days, but expectations weren't met, and it made those people worried over
nothing. It's something that stuck with me for a long time.

  And yeah, I know about `twtxt` as well. Sadly, the general community has been
kinda merging more toward the Fediverse there, and it still has issues with
drama-fueled discussions and people being very /pushy/ about their opinions. I
used to host my own twtxt file, but that's gone as well.

  Maybe one day, I'll write up just how bad things were for me. I'm skipping
over a *lot* right now, simply because just thinking about it stresses me out.
Once I've calmed down more, the idea of a full essay might actually become more
palatable as a writing project. Until then, I'll keep things brief when they're
brought up.

  For now, I sign off for the night...day...time? It's 03:07 as I reach this
point, and I'm slightly wired after some southern sweet tea with a /bit/ too
much sweetener. Maybe some gaming is in order to burn off that energy, and DOOM
sounds like a good idea. I still need to play through the RAMP 2023 maps[1], and
I also have the Headless Chicken maps[2] to go through as well.

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[^0]: This included my sdf.mastodon.org account.

[^1]: Sadly, this has been happening a bit too much to some of my peers, so I'm
      having to make sure it doesn't happen to me. Otherwise, it'd be gone too.

[^2]: "IF" being Interactive Fiction. I rather enjoy making things in Twine and
      Inform7, even when I don't release them, since it helps me visualize
      ideas and stories.

[^3]: TBR is "To Be Read", and DNF is "Did Not Finish". Shows I was part of
      BookTube and AuthorTube for a bit too long.

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[0]: https://gallowsgryph.dreamwidth.org/9930.html

[1]: https://ramp2023.teamouse.net/

[2]: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/hdlschkn