As I’ve mentioned before, the only social media I really use anymore is Mastodon, but even there I’ve retreated mainly into the role of lurker, occasionally liking or boosting posts, and sometimes replying. I rarely create a post, and it’s mainly because I don’t really know anyone on Mastodon. On Facebook or Instagram, there are people I know–family or friends. I originally used FB like many people, to keep in touch with these people.
Facebook is a massive dumpster fire now, so while there are still lots of people there who I know IRL1I dislike the term “In Real Life” but can’t come up with anything better., I don’t care to keep in touch with them because I tend to keep my distance from dumpster fires.
Instagram was mainly where I posted bird photos, but I’ve pretty much stopped doing that and IG is a dumpster fire, too, it’s just a slightly smaller bin.
But as I pick and choose who or what to follow on Mastodon, I find myself asking more and more, what is it I’m looking for? Have I turned into a U2 song? Have I still not found it? Am I looking for something I will never find?
I think it’s possible, and the broader implication is that maybe social media is just not for me. Maybe it never was, and it only became obvious once I’d retreated from most, but not all, of it.
On Mastodon, I follow a few people ‘n things:
- The hashtag #sketch
- A few tech people (skewing to Apple, just because there’s so many of them)
- The hashtag #linuxmint
- A few political people or people who post about technology/politics
- A few others I’ve discovered along the way, due to their photography, or just their writing on assorted topics
Generally, this gives me a decent mix of stuff that doesn’t get too bogged down in any one area. #sketch is lightly used, so there’s never too many posts to go through. Half of the ones for #linuxmint (and ther aren’t many) are in languages other than English, so I could probably drop that tag (I tried following #linux for a time, but it gets too much traffic, as one might expect on a nerd-centric platform like Mastodon). The others are a mixed bag.
Mastodon itself is fine. Some people are Very Serious or get easily offended. Some seem to easily offend others. It’s probably picked up some of the worst parts of Twitter, but has fewer tools for people to manage who can interact with them and their posts. Improvements are allegedly coming, but it’s been almost two years since the exodus from Twitter and now Bluesky, which is effectively a Twitter clone, but more “fun” is picking up users while Mastodon treads water. There seems to be a level of crankiness on Mastodon that I’m noticing more, probably related to the above-mentioned lack of tools, or related issues.
I don’t care about which site is more popular. Mastodon is big enough for me, but more often now, I find myself just scrolling through and feeling unsatisfied. There are jokes and cogent observations and talk about the Fediverse, and it’s all fine, but…unnecessary? I think the only thing I’d really miss are Chris Silverman’s bizarre and utterly fantastic Apple Notes sketches, and I can always check the notes.art site for those.
Then I think about the last time I lost myself in a sketch. It’s been a while. And I wonder if I’m just passing time scrolling and scrolling, and getting very little out of it. So maybe it’s not even Mastodon, it’s just me falling into a lazy habit and unwilling (so far) to escape out of it.
More on this later as I continue pondering.
