I loved Twitter back in the day, but post-2016 it got pretty ugly, and then of course after the Musk takeover it became unbearable.
I found Bluesky to be utterly miserable, just a bunch of lefties in the circular firing squad, hyperventilating about NYT headlines and every perceived slight. (Just all the worst excesses of "allyship" and associated idiocy.) It certainly wasn't funny. But what made me put it down for good is that the conventional wisdom on Bluesky was so often totally wrong.
After the second time where the crowds on Bluesky were predicting one thing, and the complete opposite happened, I realized that they had totally lost touch with reality, and it was another one of those "memetic discourse" things, people just gassing each other up and aping each other's discourse patterns. These people were making me upset, and convincing me of things that just weren't true. Enough is enough.
I also have made it a point to read more, and I was very pleased that it only took a couple of days to get back into my normal reading habits and speed. (A nice vacation where I plowed through a handful of books helped immensely.)
Glad to hear you are doing well. I miss the excitement of the old twtter.
For the record, I did not really see you as mean, but I suppose that is because I was pleased to see a viewpoint I could relate to expressed clearly and defiantly.
I like bluesky but accept that it is an echo chamber mostly for left liberal people in the english world. I go for memes and music, and am generally uninterested in the political aspect
It's good to read something about detoxing from microblogging that doesn't come with a hefty side of moralism. Thanks for this!
I'm about three months away from Bluesky, and I hope I won't take the steps required to unblock the various domains that point to it when some major breaking news event happens. The addiction is tough to break because of that false belief you mentioned that mainlining a current events feed the Correct Thing to do. I think there was perhaps a very small window when posting on Twitter was an influential act, because it caused media and politicians to change their behavior. That day is long in the past now. We used to have conversations online unmediated by metrics that tickle our brains and color our interactions. I miss those times. Maybe they weren't so much better, though.
This reminds me of the time I quit biting my fingernails as a Valentine’s Day gift to my grandmother. I was approximately 7, and she had done everything to get me to stop. I had an epiphany that my quitting could be a gift to her, and I have found the act disgusting ever since. Truly one of the great miracles of my life. Godspeed, my friend.
I miss reading you on bsky, but recognized at the time this was a healthy thing to do. I'm thinking of following suit tbh. Glad it's working out for you!
Should I leave a comment here? There's either no character limit, or a very large limit, so this isn't the same as leaving a reply tweet, but I can't shake the feeling that if I __did__ reply here, it would smack of the Twitter rando reply . . . how do the kids phrase it these days, not "smack of X", that's not the construction . . . giving X . . . that's it. If I replied here I would be giving rando reply boi. If I dropped the cursor into this comment box and typed this paragraph and clicked "Post", wouldn't I be contributing to the problem? But what would I write? Perhaps a "Jesus, I had no idea slash forgot that you got namedropped by Limbaugh, how terrible" or a "We can always count on Adam for a deep Wire cut" but what would that accomplish? I mean, I genuinely reacted to both of those things. Is there value in reflecting my reading experience back to the author? That I felt some things about some words they wrote? Anxiety, empathy, humor, recognition? Or would I allude to my own personal shitty experiences and addictions with social media, how they nearly ruined my marriage, sundered real-world friendships that withered and vanished. This kind of thing would be better, though dismayingly creepy, as a post-card, or a letter on college-ruled paper folded six times and wadded into a small envelope of the kind I can't remember purchasing in this century. Literally "post". But no one would do that. But is a digital reply any better? Any less creepy? Maybe less weird because the reader is exhorted to reply with rounded-corner text boxes and threaded interfaces and cheerful orange buttons. But I would be contributing to the engagement metrics and key performance indicators within milliseconds of clicking that "Post" button. Icky. So no I shouldn't reply. I should do what I do all those other days, which is—ignoring the long stretches of social media free days where I just quietly work and read and cook and play silly games with the kids—drop in on Substack Dot Com to see what fresh writing my friend Adam has dropped, read it, enjoy it, contemplate replying, then deny that impulse because it's how we (he, I, you, everyone we know of) got here. Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel, "Now here's another fine mess you've gotten us into."
Your friends know that you still jones for the dopamine hits, though.
I'm lucky I've been getting more meanignful dopamine hits from "real" publications, suitably spaced out.
I loved Twitter back in the day, but post-2016 it got pretty ugly, and then of course after the Musk takeover it became unbearable.
I found Bluesky to be utterly miserable, just a bunch of lefties in the circular firing squad, hyperventilating about NYT headlines and every perceived slight. (Just all the worst excesses of "allyship" and associated idiocy.) It certainly wasn't funny. But what made me put it down for good is that the conventional wisdom on Bluesky was so often totally wrong.
After the second time where the crowds on Bluesky were predicting one thing, and the complete opposite happened, I realized that they had totally lost touch with reality, and it was another one of those "memetic discourse" things, people just gassing each other up and aping each other's discourse patterns. These people were making me upset, and convincing me of things that just weren't true. Enough is enough.
I also have made it a point to read more, and I was very pleased that it only took a couple of days to get back into my normal reading habits and speed. (A nice vacation where I plowed through a handful of books helped immensely.)
Cheers.
Glad to hear you are doing well. I miss the excitement of the old twtter.
For the record, I did not really see you as mean, but I suppose that is because I was pleased to see a viewpoint I could relate to expressed clearly and defiantly.
I like bluesky but accept that it is an echo chamber mostly for left liberal people in the english world. I go for memes and music, and am generally uninterested in the political aspect
It's good to read something about detoxing from microblogging that doesn't come with a hefty side of moralism. Thanks for this!
I'm about three months away from Bluesky, and I hope I won't take the steps required to unblock the various domains that point to it when some major breaking news event happens. The addiction is tough to break because of that false belief you mentioned that mainlining a current events feed the Correct Thing to do. I think there was perhaps a very small window when posting on Twitter was an influential act, because it caused media and politicians to change their behavior. That day is long in the past now. We used to have conversations online unmediated by metrics that tickle our brains and color our interactions. I miss those times. Maybe they weren't so much better, though.
Really glad I still get to read your thoughts on here. Troublingly familiar set of experiences.
This reminds me of the time I quit biting my fingernails as a Valentine’s Day gift to my grandmother. I was approximately 7, and she had done everything to get me to stop. I had an epiphany that my quitting could be a gift to her, and I have found the act disgusting ever since. Truly one of the great miracles of my life. Godspeed, my friend.
I miss you over at Bluesky, but happy to hear you broke the addiction, and glad to be able to read you here!
Thanks! Hopefully my contributions here are more valuable than my every dashed-off insta-thought!
I miss reading you on bsky, but recognized at the time this was a healthy thing to do. I'm thinking of following suit tbh. Glad it's working out for you!
Should I leave a comment here? There's either no character limit, or a very large limit, so this isn't the same as leaving a reply tweet, but I can't shake the feeling that if I __did__ reply here, it would smack of the Twitter rando reply . . . how do the kids phrase it these days, not "smack of X", that's not the construction . . . giving X . . . that's it. If I replied here I would be giving rando reply boi. If I dropped the cursor into this comment box and typed this paragraph and clicked "Post", wouldn't I be contributing to the problem? But what would I write? Perhaps a "Jesus, I had no idea slash forgot that you got namedropped by Limbaugh, how terrible" or a "We can always count on Adam for a deep Wire cut" but what would that accomplish? I mean, I genuinely reacted to both of those things. Is there value in reflecting my reading experience back to the author? That I felt some things about some words they wrote? Anxiety, empathy, humor, recognition? Or would I allude to my own personal shitty experiences and addictions with social media, how they nearly ruined my marriage, sundered real-world friendships that withered and vanished. This kind of thing would be better, though dismayingly creepy, as a post-card, or a letter on college-ruled paper folded six times and wadded into a small envelope of the kind I can't remember purchasing in this century. Literally "post". But no one would do that. But is a digital reply any better? Any less creepy? Maybe less weird because the reader is exhorted to reply with rounded-corner text boxes and threaded interfaces and cheerful orange buttons. But I would be contributing to the engagement metrics and key performance indicators within milliseconds of clicking that "Post" button. Icky. So no I shouldn't reply. I should do what I do all those other days, which is—ignoring the long stretches of social media free days where I just quietly work and read and cook and play silly games with the kids—drop in on Substack Dot Com to see what fresh writing my friend Adam has dropped, read it, enjoy it, contemplate replying, then deny that impulse because it's how we (he, I, you, everyone we know of) got here. Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel, "Now here's another fine mess you've gotten us into."