stupid elno

[tielan]

Sure, the-app-formerly-known-as-Twitter was a dumpster fire, but there were so many things in that dumpster, and not all of them were on fire!

Anyway, right now it's a mad scramble of people going here, there, and everywhere right now, and I sincerely dislike it all.

Threads isn't navigable by communities - not really. I want to see the people I've followed not what the algorithm thinks I should see.

Mastodon is complicated and maybe it's just on the servers where I've landed but it feels very political real-world. Maybe that's just the accounts/servers I was following at the start. Which is okay, sometimes, but also not necessarily how I want to interact all the time. Also, although several people I know have made accounts on it, nobody I knew from before is actually *using* it.

I kind of miss activity on DW - yes, there's some lovely little community on here, but I don't really feel like I can participate in most of it because I'm not terribly fannish anymore except on my specific topics - which I suspect has gotten me blackballed in several areas. It's just me and the people who post about their RL stuff and comment on my RL stuff. (Thanks, my peeps, I loves youse.)

Also, where else am I going to find the broad range of topics and interests that is so much of my internet existence? A nice broad variety of thingage! (Thinkage? Thingengage?)

Stupid elno.

Comments

[kore]

I forgot to finish my PROFOUND THOUGHT, lol. I'm not as tight with my twitter circle as with DW, but I kept in touch there with a lot of people no longer on DW and who weren't on LJ/DW at all (imagine!!). I used it a LOT during the first year of the pandemic for health news, and during the terrible smoke seasons too. It was great for breaking news -- I followed so many reporters and news stations, and felt like I got a practically blow-by-blow account of January 6th. (Which really upset -- terrified -- me, but oh well....) Now all that information, archived history, is going to be gone, along with groups like Black Twitter where people got a lot of support (disability Twitter, long covid Twitter, &c &c)....and he's just....destroying it. Just because he's rich from VERY ill gotten gains Just because he's filthy rich and white and he can. It's just. So much I hate about capitalism.

I like hearing about friends' IRL stuff (I love your quilts! and chooks!) but often feel like my own life is so dull/unpleasant (do people really want to hear about us medicating th eterminally ill cat like four times a day) and my life is so small and I don't really do anything, blah, blah, I have nothing to offer on that front really.

[tielan]

So much that's hateable about capitalism, though!

Also, losing those old spaces of Twitter? Losing the "groupness" of it, the all-over-the-worldness and spread-outness of it? I'm not even in the specialist spaces (eg. black twitter) and I can imagine the terrible loss it's going to be - of history, of connection, of context. A number of black theologians I follow have gone to a new site that is specifically for black users, which I absolutely understand and support. I'm still going to miss reading their thoughts.

I admit, I like hearing about the cat - at least she's still alive, and I hope that being able to type up what's going on with her is a way of downloading or brain-dumping for you. *hugs*

[kore]

Yes exactly, the far-flung community that also manages to be tightly connected over this social network! And that's huge especially for marginalized communities and alienated/disadvantaged people. I can totally understand if Black twitter wants to silo itself off from journalists looking for hot clickbait and white dudebros and white Nice Ladies. Altho like you point out, that is a loss for the greater community, but if vulnerable populations can't protect themselves from hate speech or super-capitalism why should they stay around? Kind of like the secret "Pantsuit Nation" group on Facebook that grew because women got sick of taking shit about just talking about Hillary. From my memories of the Old West Usenet et al you were just supposed to be able to suck up anything ranging from insults to death threats and if you couldn't, well, bye too bad. (Old Usenet was also fiercely protective of personal privacy, tho, while Modern Twitter seems often to gleefully trash IRL nobodies who had screwed up as the "Character of the Day." But ANYWAY.)

Kitty is still here! Kitty is doing a LOT better after a string of fucking 80F days which probably don't sound like much to people outside the Puget Sound, where it's really humid and there is almost NO A/C, not even in the newer houses! (After the horrible heat wave a couple of years ago, installers got booked out for six months in advance by nouveau riche hastily installing central air.) We have a grumpy window unit which makes this apartment bearable -- otherwise it's regularly 5+F degrees hotter than outside. Today she ate a LOT, demanded pets loudly, bounced around with her tail up, and she otherwise had a good day so we did too. We still have at least a month of summer to go, tho....I just hope it doesn't get above 80F. She absolutely cannot be dipped in cool water in the bathtub.

[tielan]

For the heat: if your a/c fails, damp cloths hung up anywhere it might catch a breeze on the way in. Also, if you have west or south-facing windows, if you can cover them up from the outside with a towel so the sun never gets inside your place, that will keep some of the heat from transferring in. (External blinds are best. We're going to have to reinstall ours - took them down for the windows installation, not sure I want to put these ones back up again. But more money... *grimace*)

So glad to hear kitty is keeping on. I guess for her it's mostly making sure she has water and is drinking it.