Wednesday 21 August 2024

Where are We?

Chatting with people at GenCon, we occasionally drifted onto talking about Google+, the rosy past where we rejoiced in social media paradise [citation needed].

It's getting on for six years since I wrote about its upcoming closure, and where are we now?

No, I mean where are we?

I've bounced around a few places since then.

Blog: The staple. I'll keep it going as long as I have the urge to write stuff. I post weekly and check my comments daily. I mostly stay up to date with what other people are doing through blogs. If you aren't blogging, I'm likely to be unaware of your new thing.

Newsletter: Substack may not be the perfect platform, but I'm enjoying this as a parallel version of the blog. I know others write bespoke newsletters, separate to their blog, but really I just treat this as an alternative way to get the same stuff. In essence the archive acts like a blog of sorts, but I prefer reading on a proper blog page. Something about having that tantalising blogroll right there beside the post.

Patreon: This really sits on top of the two previous places. If you're creating anything, even if you don't want to offer anything extra, I'd recommend giving this a try. You might be surprised how many people just want to offer support for what you do.

Discord: My preferred way to just talk with people. I guess I like the old IRC-vibe, but I appreciate it's not for everyone. For reasons explained further down this is now my primary place for DMs.

Broadcasts and Podcasts: I have a lot of fun doing these but they're an occasional side-line for me.

Reddit: I really enjoyed doing an AMA on there a while back, but I'm more lurker than a poster. It's a great place to browse now and then to find cool stuff, but I don't feel like I get any real personal connections from there.

Twitter: Oof. I'll try to keep this succinct. This place was designed to reward the sort of behaviour I didn't want to engage with and has steadily gotten worse. I saw how it changed the way people interacted with each other. I saw the way it stoked unwelcome fires. I kept active there mostly as a point of contact to invite people onto the podcast or to collaborate on a project. Essentially, I went there because I liked some of the people there, even if it made them act differently.

I decided the feed was too much. I unfollowed everybody and just stuck around to respond to mentions and DMs, only posting to link to my other places.

Then they changed things so that I'd be fed recommended content instead. I could block these on my browser but it was trickier on my phone.

All the while the content of those posts got worse and worse, to say nothing of the company ownership.

Right now I'm ashamed to even have a presence there. I don't want to be associated with it. It's embarrassing that I was there at all.

I've complained for a long time, but never really walked the walk.

As of now I've left my account open mainly to keep the name, but I'm not going to go there anymore and I've removed the link from my other sites.

If you're able to do the same then let's just do it. We're better off elsewhere.

Bsky: Yeah this is a nicer twitter, so I don't feel as dirty for maintaining a presence there, but it's still probably something I'm better off without. I'm likely soft-quitting this too, but might dip into my incredibly restricted feed now and then.

What if I'm wrong?

A few potential problems come to mind.

What if I need to contact somebody I don't already have contact details for?
Twitter was normally a good place to do this, but I figure I can probably get hold of anybody I need to by asking around on other platforms.

Is this terrible advice if you don't already have a well-established network and platform for your own content?
Yeah, I guess I can only talk from my own perspective, so if you're hustling to make contacts and build your audience from scratch then maybe this is all a bit isolationist. 

In short:

Quit Twitter.
Newsletter Up.
Hit the Blog.
 

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This post was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site the week after its original publication.

If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.

5 comments:

  1. I should have started a newsletter and Patreon long before I did! I'm sure glad I have them now.

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  2. Hello, how would I get to your Discord server?

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  3. Twitter is geared towards the end of creativity, encouraging short useless paragraphs, but that will get you the dopamine (likes, comments, retweets) that a big and careful blog work wont do. It takes your time and energy and trashes it for quick rewards, tainting your mind in the process with some political corsets tailored to your views. I think that a good way to fight that decadence is trying to help people who still blogs, useful feedback when I can, or just a comment to say "we are there, we read you brother" from time to time. Blogspots and the like is where you can find Los Reales

    ReplyDelete