The State of My Social Media

[picosgemeos]

It's been 8 months since I left Twitter, 1 month since I started posting on Substack, and I was about to add "1 month since I've been unemployed" but I just got an email from my recruitment agency with a temp job for April. *Relief*I can’t shake off the feeling that social media is now pointless, a vast void where you throw your thoughts and images

Comments

[emo_snal]

Thanks for this social media review round up.

I never got on threads but that makes it sound worth a check out. I think my reason for not getting on it was not wanting to contribute further to Zuckerberg's social media empire.

Twitter I only just got on a few months before Elon took over so I had a glimpse of the good ole days before it became what it is now. I definitely hate Elon's effect on it but I haven't found an alternative that is as active with newsworthy posts.

Bluesky I had made an account when Elon was turning Twitter into a hellscape and we were all talking about leaving. Like probably a lot of people I didn't end up leaving really. I like to think I would have if bluesky had become vibrant enough but I never found a critical mass of interesting accounts to follow there / wasn't served up enough random interesting stuff.

Substack I still don't really understand what it is.

Facebook is funny because they were the preeminint social media site, and Zuck has let that slip but its not dead. The way I and I think many people use facebook is for keeping up with relatives and like former coworkers you don't actively keep in touch with any more and such. It doesn't serve up random posts except as ads and I don't think we'd want it to. I do think if Zuck had really been smart he could have either made facebook the original twitter or the replacement twitter -- he obviously tried that with Threads but I think what he should have done was adapted the existing facebook wall to seamlessly integrate it as a twitter-replacement, giving functionality to make posts go out to all and sundry, and the option to see posts from more than just your friends (also disable-able for those that don't want that).

One other social media for me that I've recently gotten into was Medium -- for me specifically, that writing is my big interest, once I wrapped my brain around how to get people to read my posts there I think it's been a rewarding place to post writing.

[picosgemeos]

I think you might like Threads! It does show you random posts, based on your likes, and it has really good functionality for banning, blocking content you don't want. You can also add, via Instagram, words you want excluded. I have a feeling it's a bit like TikTok, where it just gets better in its recommendations the more you use it.

Substack is another one I think you might like. Very similar to Medium except it's turning more into a social media site, with loads of chatter and Twitter-like posts ("Notes").

[emo_snal]

Thanks I think I'll check them both out!