peering into the underworld
It was hard to let go of Mother Jones since I was an almost continuous reader of it since the 70’s. I let it go in the lead-up to the 2016 election. To me, it had become a dishonest clickbait machine.
I let Democracy Now! go earlier this year due to my perception that there is significant agenda to it.
Both can still have a decent moment, but neither gets my serious attention anymore. Gathering information these days is mighty tricky, but there is still some quality out there.
I like this. To me, this is what it’s about. Documenting my mundane life and reading the same about others. Vain, stupid, glorious, whatever. I appreciate when people take the time to write a little something about themselves. Whether it’s Facebook or a personal website, as long as people are creating original content, I am interested. The downside is that Facebook and Twitter encourage frenetic retweeting (reposting) that is low value to me, though it’s part of the cost of using those platforms that many of us are willing to pay to hang with friends. For all its faults, WordPress has a great number of users that are documenting their thinking and lives, and they are often alone with it. It’s one of the places I like to dive deep.
I mostly don’t care if anybody reads my things, and some of the places I post, probably nobody does. Just the process of writing up something on a regular basis is often stabilizing and therapeutic to me.
Story link: We Should Replace Facebook With Personal Websites – Motherboard
I have sometimes hoped that someone would criticize my fluff posting with something like, “Don’t you ever work on the issues?” Then I could counter with, “The fluff posting might be a cover.”
Yes, the fluff is a cover, or this post might be a cover of cover.
For the second time in two months I have scrubbed my Facebook wall. It’s in case I lose my GD mind over world gone mad. I’m ok on other networks, but FB feed triggers me. Twitter, WordPress, MeWe, VK don’t bother me. Who knows.
Disappointing what is happening to Tumblr and flickr this year. It reminds me of the events leading to the fate of My Opera and WBS (Webchat Broadcasting System). 🔥
A fond memory from about 1985. My danged stories.
I sometimes visited a friend in Mexico City. One day he took my by his grandmother’s place. My friend said he had to run out for a minute, so he left me there with her. He ended up being gone for four hours.
The elderly grandmother spoke little to no English, so it was a big language “workout” for me. She got out boxes of old photos that we looked at together for hours while she talked about them. I love looking at old pictures (even online to this day). She made snacks and tea. I smoked back in them thar days, and she’d come out on the patio to continue chatting while I sucked on my cigs. It was just luxurious: smokes, tea, snacks, and chat on a beautiful patio in Mexico City.
My friend came back and apologized profusely for the long absence which he said was unplanned and unavoidable. I told him that the time was wonderful and that I’d probably remember it forever. My Spanish vocabulary grew a ton because of his grandmother. Recalling that good time today.
I was highly oriented to clubbing in Mexico City back then, but sometimes it was OK to do other things.
Tedious social media thought dump 💩 :
I’ve always been most fond of offbeat social media. I prefer the networks that are NOT fist pick, and I don’t mind being alone on them. I post like I don’t care if any anybody ever reads them, and I really don’t care. While interactions are nice (and desirable), posting with a focus on getting attention goes bad quickly without a big dose of restraint. I just prefer to post what I’m thinking, even if it’s tedious and boring. My quantity of goof posts annoys people sometimes. It’s up to the recipient to control that. Posters can be unfollowed or muted, for example. I’ve had many unfriend me. Excessive, but that’s their business. I’ve done it, too.
The popular social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are where the people are, so I do them. Except for the reward of seeing friends, my happiness level is low. The filtration, coercion, and data mining induce stress.
I started out blogging on the My Opera Community in 2003. It was great for years, then Opera Software shut it down. Most people then migrated to WordPress, as did I, but I’ve never been much of a fan. I still maintain a WordPress archive of My Opera.
I was most fond of Google Plus (Google+, G+). Slick, so easy on mobile, great communities. Now Google is going to shut it down in 2019.
I tried the Mastodon federated social network. It’s the best thing I’ve seen so far, but after getting booted from three hosting instances in three weeks due to owners changing their minds, I’m not doing federated anymore. Riding along on somebody else’s hosting leaves one vulnerable to constant tedious resets.
I also do VK (VKontakte). Russian Facebook-like experience. Quite good, actually. I have no apologies. English is popular and people are from all over the world.
MeWe is supposed to be a rising star. I’m trying it. I don’t know. It might not work out. I like it, but I don’t. 🤨
I’ve never felt so adrift and limited on alternative social media. It’s a bad time to be dependent on big corporate social media. I’d especially like to cast off Facebook, but I don’t see doing it right away.
#facebook #vk #mewe #twitter #mastodon #googleplus #wordpress #myopera #socialmedia
🛶 on 🚚
