{"id":338,"date":"2023-08-09T03:29:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T03:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drivingnowhere.com\/?p=338"},"modified":"2024-11-21T23:03:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T23:03:06","slug":"threading-the-needle-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drivingnowhere.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/09\/threading-the-needle-of-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Threading the Needle of Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2026So\u2026 I figured\u2026 I have opinions. I have this space. I could put my opinions on this space. So instead of cluttering whatever social media platform I use or worse<\/em>: Ranting about some obscure subject to some poor uninterested soul in person\u2026 I can drag my soapbox over here and vomit whatever comes to mind into the cold dark void of the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes I know, I\u2019m starting off my rambling here a tad<\/em> bit controversial, but I\u2019m just as likely to drone on about the history of the spork. I\u2019m treating this space as a sort of \u2018junk drawer\u2019 of whatever thoughts come to mind. Feel free to ignore and look at the pretty pictures. I\u2019m also rethinking how I illustrate my comic. As crazy pathetic as it appears from the outside: Driving Nowhere is my focus and it\u2019s important to me that I keep chipping away at this thing\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway back to my soapbox:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threading the Needle of Social Media<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n

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I\u2019m social media neutral, so I generally just ignore whatever drama is going on and go wherever the people are. Me whining about whatever dumb shit some billionaire says solves nothing. I\u2019ll leave when the platform starts to suck. And believe me, I never wanted Twitter to fail. I joined super early (thanks Diggnation for the tip in early 2008 lol) and landed the handle @kevinmoulton. I actually had a few people offer me money for it. \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twitter or \u201cX\u201d has seemingly been infested by bots recently (which is hilariously ironic considering the claims before\u2026) and half the feed basically shoves certain individuals down your throat through an incompetent algorithm that makes hiding\/muting irrelevant. I\u2019m not a conspiracy theorist, it\u2019s just obvious that half of the feed Twitter\/X spits out is actively pushing controversial figures to rage bait users. And it works. Well. Worked. Until a competitor showed up that appears to do everything better for advertisers and the casual user.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Instagram, for all its faults, has a good algorithm. Your feed eventually settles into just the sorta things you want to see. And yes, that includes products you may be interested in. Now don\u2019t get me wrong.. I\u2019m sure I gave permission to Zuck\u2019s AI to track my sleep and listen to my inner thoughts through 5G microchips snuck into my McNuggets by the deep state collaborator Ronald McDonald already, but if that means I don\u2019t have to see some douchebag rant about qanon despite repeatedly muting\/hiding them\u2026 okay. Have you tried the Oreo McFlurry\u2122<\/strong>, it\u2019s pretty good-\u2026 wait what was I talking about\u2026? oh right social media.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Same energy towards Threads as me not wanting to know how hot dogs are made. I\u2019m okay pretending everything is great. I don\u2019t need to know the details about acceptable amounts of rat content per hoagie. Keep it pleasant and I\u2019ll happily play along. Similar to there being other food than just hot dogs, there are other websites than Threads\/Twitter\/X. I can post whatever the hell I want on my website here\u2026 if it\u2019s legal in my country. If you truly are afraid of being \u2018silenced\u2019, then you\u2019re either overly paranoid or using social media in a dumbass stockholm syndrome way.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet\u2026 at this point, I feel like I\u2019m in social media limbo. I have zero confidence in \u201cX\u201d and only spend about thirty seconds a day to see what\u2019s \u201ctrending\u201d before the nausea of what that platform has become sets in. \u201cThreads\u201d is taking a bizarre amount of time to implement essential features like hashtags\/trending\/search, and the longer they take to do so the less likely they are to take the easiest W in history. If I was an investor at Meta I\u2019d be SCREAMING at them to be faster. All the other alternatives are either crap or too niche for me to bother. Meh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a weird way, I\u2019m kind of enjoying the lack of certainty. It\u2019s almost a return to how the internet was before social media. Back when the expectations of a single general platform weren\u2019t really a thing\u2026 Suddenly it\u2019s cool to have your own website again! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you\u2019re a millennial you already have experience with social media platforms coming and going. I understand this is a new concept to generations before and after us\u2026 but I assure you that everything will be okay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you simply cannot part with that tinfoil hat\u2026 get a VPN. Don\u2019t put any one platform\/publisher\/journalist\/pundit\/celebrity on a pedestal\u2014even people you like.

Hell, don\u2019t put ME<\/strong> on a pedestal\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013\u2026what am I doing<\/em>. I can probably make money grifting frightened people desperate for answers from a confident asshole\u2026 uhhh. Send me cash and I\u2019ll tell you what to think. You like that? Bitch<\/em>. The voices in your head are real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-K<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026So\u2026 I figured\u2026 I have opinions. I have this space. I could put my opinions on this space. So instead of cluttering whatever social media platform I use or worse: Ranting about some obscure subject to some poor uninterested soul
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