Re: Social Media, gallowsgryph                                03/19/24
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User  gallowsgryph recently  wrote  about  "dumping social  media"[1].
Though I still have  a facebook account for work pages,  it has been a
few years since  I deleted all of  my person content (not  easy to do,
and some of  it kept showing up randomly years  later; in other words,
it  isn't really  deleted). I  remember the  feeling of  freedom after
finally exiting that world.

I took  quite a  while to  join facebook.  It was  2009, and  my older
brother told me it was a great way to connect with family and friends.
What wasn't  made clear (and  I'm not blaming him)  was how much  of a
dumpster  fire it  was and  would become.  The fact  that manipulative
idiots  would  be controlling  what  I  and  other  saw was  also  not
explained.  But all  of that  is fine  now, because  I'm not  longer a
victim.

The part of gallowsgryph's post that I wanted to respond to was this:

"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."

Amen to  that! People come  and go in  gopher/gemini/pubnix/etc space,
and we  accept it. That's  the culture. There  are people I  miss when
they're gone, and who I'm glad to  see return. There are some who have
left and  may never return.  It's more natural,  I think; this  is how
relationships in meatspace work, at least for me.

So, contracts to you, gallowsgryph. You made the right choice.

[1] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/gallowsgryph/phlog/2024-03-18_social_media.txt