In Michel Houellebecq’s insufferably French novel, Atomised, two very French lovers lie in a darkened studio, sometimes being sad but mostly being serious. They both know that “this would be their last human relationship,” and knowing that bleeds into every moment they spend together.
Miss your birdsong JB. Hardly been there since the battery powered interstellar vibrating phallus builder took over. It's a better thing less social media for sure. Fuck Nazis. Wishing them all cancer of the balls.
Mastodon reminded me of the old Forum days. Seemed fine, plenty of people I knew, but then the Rule Enforcers moved in. This must be accompanied by that, this is the wrong group for this topic, you can't say this because I am the Gatekeeper and I say so. So I'm still on the Bird, about 60% banter with friends and 40% doomscrolling and screaming into the void.
love the share JB, and cool to hear that someone with something to lose (you, thousands or more of followers) feels a similar satisfaction to me (noone, no followers) in leaving the bird site and its problems.
I'm still hanging on in Twitter. Just. A friend posted there the other day saying "it just isn't fun anymore", but nor are the alternatives. I tried Mastodon, my timeline there was mostly filled with one or two dull posts repeated over and over. We can live in hope that social media's time has gone and hope for something better. Not sure how much longer I can bear seeing the Britney Higgins pile ons anyway.
Over at the elephant, all my tech folk I followed early in the days of the bird are there, just without Dr Yobbos sweariness. It is eerily familiar. I can’t quit NBA twitter though, like a crack addict on the street.
I'm on Facebook these days largely to see my Fb Memories of trips and my occasional past political rant. Handy when the grey cells start to refuse to always cooperate in the regurgitation of experiences. Was getting interested in the bluebird for some social happiness, until it became musky.
But I have found that my financially influenced casual return to the classroom has simultaneously taken the edge off loneliness while sharpening political outrage. The hammering of public education for ideological reasons on both the former federal and NSW state levels has created a dire circumstance I wouldn't have imagined possible even as Howard began the demolition work. Must read Savva's book to see if she references the on-going debacle.
But on happier news - the delicious irony of Matthias Cormann-led OECD pointing to extraordinary and low-taxed profits to be the driver of inflation, not higher wages. I wonder what the twitterati have to say about that.
I think Twitter is just so binary now, maybe it always was. It is a demotivating site. Still pop in once in a while, but I always regret it. I am not on any other similar platforms and have no urge to join them. I think my patron connections are more interesting and stimulating.
Been loitering on Mastodon which I suspect remains mostly Nazi free and the domain of Tech nerds. My current baseless theory as to why it remains Nazi free is that the Nazis can't get their head around having to choose an instance to join and that in the end it doesn't matter too much which instance your on as long as it stays federated. Coming that with any server full of Nazis has been de-federated anyway.
I had a hard time with Mastodon until I got my setup done and now from the user experience point of view it’s pretty much identical to Twitter. The only downside of it is that it’s taking me a long time to build up the mass of interesting weirdos I follow via the Bird.
If it's the @jb@aus.social one, you've got about 500 followers (me included) awaiting your pearls of wisdom in short-form.
As for aus.social itself, yeah a bit too loony-lefty even for me in terms of content moderation and other policies. Luckily the nature of the elephant protocol makes it easy to move between one site and another, dragging your follows and followers with you. I'm pretty happy with theblower.au fwiw.
I have been drifting between different am platforms. Really not interested in Blue Sky as Jack seems to be another Elon but with better social skills.
Mastodon can be ok, but getting very left wing moderation on Aus.social was a huge wake up call (given u have a USSR flag on my wall means if I am complaining about left wing shit it has to be bad. The moderators seem to demand that I have experienced things before I comment on them only if I experienced and since I am a hetro white man I can not have. The problem is as a Catholic I caught the tail end of the sectarian divide and both parents lived as second class citizens. At least they where not pommy bastards or other undesirables.) Gate keeping is rather distressing
when the other side are wrapped in certainty and are empowered by it.
Oh, rant over.
Sproutible looks good and it has a non tech bro founder so they may try to discourage Nazi influx, but the lack of a phone app means it is not as stickable even compared to Mastodon.
The temptation to quit Twitter is growing but that would leave blathering idiots like Malcolm Robert’s, Mathew Canavan & just about every Murdoch scribbler on Twitter to spread their lunacy.
I suspect I’m shouting into the storm but these morons are a serious threat to this Nation.
I'm still on the bluebird but the stan pile on, the Higgins pile on and the unflagging ability for the ignorant, stupid and just fucked up RWNJ's to declare whatever foul brainfart erupts from their shriveled brain matter is the absolute truth, is beginning to sap my ability to get any enjoyment out of my infrequent trips to bluebird land. I've signed on to sprout but no phone app. mastodon makes me go meh. and I have realised I don't need that social media that much...strange but true*. TBH I get more out of this forum.
* I shouldn't be surprised I play a certain MMO game regularly simply because its the only one that allows me to play solo and not have to interact with others unless its a quick and temp mass pile on a big nasty monster.
Miss you in blue bird land but don't go back the house is crumbling in and sometimes I just like to watch.
I think you will like Niki Savva's Bulldozed, and the two related, but dated, books as well.
Although my Twitter tag says I am giving up on the bird site, I am still hanging in, mostly to shitpost. I'm actually not all that concerned by the Nazi infiltration, and the likely killing of blocking. If I use my own "Following" stuff, and make Lists of interesting people, I can ignore the crap stuff. I always followed a few right wing nut jobs, just to keep my disgust fresh, and my knowledge of their idiocy up to date.
Of late my (remote) social interactions are via amateur press, now moved from paper to PDF. Every two months I get a collation of newsletters from 30 of my old friends, and contribute my own shit, plus comments on theirs. That runs to a 500-600 page "magazine" each time. Works for me.
However I can see the death of bulk social media. I already regard newspapers and TV as dead creatures. I am looking tribal.
I think that what social media has shown us is that while it is possible to connect everyone directly to everyone else, that isn't a great idea. People like their tribes. The rest are better off keeping to themselves.
You're deliberately ignoring directly referencing the corrupt, homicidal maniacs in Russia anymore aren't you? I'm trying to as well. As the Buddhists say, and I'm paraphrasing here, if you can't do anything about it then why worry? I'm sure though that any malaise or impatience I've felt in the last year has had at it's root the terrible feeling that Vlad the butcher is setting up for another Chechnya.
“You would think that Comrade Number 1 of the techbroletariat would understand that people who aren’t Nazis prefer to hang out in places that are relatively Nazi-free.”
I can’t help thinking it’s the opposite. The default techbro mentality (and many other mentalities one can apply the -bro suffix to) seems to consider anyone who doesn’t fancy living in a pit of Nazis to be a weak beta unfit for the robust arena of debate who *needs* some time in the Nazi Pit to toughen them up.
Miss your birdsong JB. Hardly been there since the battery powered interstellar vibrating phallus builder took over. It's a better thing less social media for sure. Fuck Nazis. Wishing them all cancer of the balls.
Mastodon reminded me of the old Forum days. Seemed fine, plenty of people I knew, but then the Rule Enforcers moved in. This must be accompanied by that, this is the wrong group for this topic, you can't say this because I am the Gatekeeper and I say so. So I'm still on the Bird, about 60% banter with friends and 40% doomscrolling and screaming into the void.
love the share JB, and cool to hear that someone with something to lose (you, thousands or more of followers) feels a similar satisfaction to me (noone, no followers) in leaving the bird site and its problems.
Yeah, there's a lot of people I miss chatting to over there. But I dont miss the massive garbage fire
I'm still hanging on in Twitter. Just. A friend posted there the other day saying "it just isn't fun anymore", but nor are the alternatives. I tried Mastodon, my timeline there was mostly filled with one or two dull posts repeated over and over. We can live in hope that social media's time has gone and hope for something better. Not sure how much longer I can bear seeing the Britney Higgins pile ons anyway.
Bulldozed is a good read..enjoy JB
Over at the elephant, all my tech folk I followed early in the days of the bird are there, just without Dr Yobbos sweariness. It is eerily familiar. I can’t quit NBA twitter though, like a crack addict on the street.
I loved Atomised! Must be my French heritage.
I'm on Facebook these days largely to see my Fb Memories of trips and my occasional past political rant. Handy when the grey cells start to refuse to always cooperate in the regurgitation of experiences. Was getting interested in the bluebird for some social happiness, until it became musky.
But I have found that my financially influenced casual return to the classroom has simultaneously taken the edge off loneliness while sharpening political outrage. The hammering of public education for ideological reasons on both the former federal and NSW state levels has created a dire circumstance I wouldn't have imagined possible even as Howard began the demolition work. Must read Savva's book to see if she references the on-going debacle.
But on happier news - the delicious irony of Matthias Cormann-led OECD pointing to extraordinary and low-taxed profits to be the driver of inflation, not higher wages. I wonder what the twitterati have to say about that.
I think Twitter is just so binary now, maybe it always was. It is a demotivating site. Still pop in once in a while, but I always regret it. I am not on any other similar platforms and have no urge to join them. I think my patron connections are more interesting and stimulating.
Been loitering on Mastodon which I suspect remains mostly Nazi free and the domain of Tech nerds. My current baseless theory as to why it remains Nazi free is that the Nazis can't get their head around having to choose an instance to join and that in the end it doesn't matter too much which instance your on as long as it stays federated. Coming that with any server full of Nazis has been de-federated anyway.
I've got a Mastadon account but it never really gelled for me. There's some new apps coming to access it. I'll give them a go when they drop.
I jumped to Mastedon as soon as the twit bought the tweet but it didn’t appeal. Waiting for BlueSky to let us plebs in to see what that's like.
I had a hard time with Mastodon until I got my setup done and now from the user experience point of view it’s pretty much identical to Twitter. The only downside of it is that it’s taking me a long time to build up the mass of interesting weirdos I follow via the Bird.
If it's the @jb@aus.social one, you've got about 500 followers (me included) awaiting your pearls of wisdom in short-form.
As for aus.social itself, yeah a bit too loony-lefty even for me in terms of content moderation and other policies. Luckily the nature of the elephant protocol makes it easy to move between one site and another, dragging your follows and followers with you. I'm pretty happy with theblower.au fwiw.
I have been drifting between different am platforms. Really not interested in Blue Sky as Jack seems to be another Elon but with better social skills.
Mastodon can be ok, but getting very left wing moderation on Aus.social was a huge wake up call (given u have a USSR flag on my wall means if I am complaining about left wing shit it has to be bad. The moderators seem to demand that I have experienced things before I comment on them only if I experienced and since I am a hetro white man I can not have. The problem is as a Catholic I caught the tail end of the sectarian divide and both parents lived as second class citizens. At least they where not pommy bastards or other undesirables.) Gate keeping is rather distressing
when the other side are wrapped in certainty and are empowered by it.
Oh, rant over.
Sproutible looks good and it has a non tech bro founder so they may try to discourage Nazi influx, but the lack of a phone app means it is not as stickable even compared to Mastodon.
Oh well, the cookers are going to win anyway.
"Jack seems to be another Elon but with better social skills." Honestly, his social skills aren't that great.
Spoutible has a phone app in development which might be a game changer when it lands.
The temptation to quit Twitter is growing but that would leave blathering idiots like Malcolm Robert’s, Mathew Canavan & just about every Murdoch scribbler on Twitter to spread their lunacy.
I suspect I’m shouting into the storm but these morons are a serious threat to this Nation.
I'm still on the bluebird but the stan pile on, the Higgins pile on and the unflagging ability for the ignorant, stupid and just fucked up RWNJ's to declare whatever foul brainfart erupts from their shriveled brain matter is the absolute truth, is beginning to sap my ability to get any enjoyment out of my infrequent trips to bluebird land. I've signed on to sprout but no phone app. mastodon makes me go meh. and I have realised I don't need that social media that much...strange but true*. TBH I get more out of this forum.
* I shouldn't be surprised I play a certain MMO game regularly simply because its the only one that allows me to play solo and not have to interact with others unless its a quick and temp mass pile on a big nasty monster.
Miss you in blue bird land but don't go back the house is crumbling in and sometimes I just like to watch.
I think you will like Niki Savva's Bulldozed, and the two related, but dated, books as well.
Although my Twitter tag says I am giving up on the bird site, I am still hanging in, mostly to shitpost. I'm actually not all that concerned by the Nazi infiltration, and the likely killing of blocking. If I use my own "Following" stuff, and make Lists of interesting people, I can ignore the crap stuff. I always followed a few right wing nut jobs, just to keep my disgust fresh, and my knowledge of their idiocy up to date.
Of late my (remote) social interactions are via amateur press, now moved from paper to PDF. Every two months I get a collation of newsletters from 30 of my old friends, and contribute my own shit, plus comments on theirs. That runs to a 500-600 page "magazine" each time. Works for me.
However I can see the death of bulk social media. I already regard newspapers and TV as dead creatures. I am looking tribal.
I think that what social media has shown us is that while it is possible to connect everyone directly to everyone else, that isn't a great idea. People like their tribes. The rest are better off keeping to themselves.
You're deliberately ignoring directly referencing the corrupt, homicidal maniacs in Russia anymore aren't you? I'm trying to as well. As the Buddhists say, and I'm paraphrasing here, if you can't do anything about it then why worry? I'm sure though that any malaise or impatience I've felt in the last year has had at it's root the terrible feeling that Vlad the butcher is setting up for another Chechnya.
“You would think that Comrade Number 1 of the techbroletariat would understand that people who aren’t Nazis prefer to hang out in places that are relatively Nazi-free.”
I can’t help thinking it’s the opposite. The default techbro mentality (and many other mentalities one can apply the -bro suffix to) seems to consider anyone who doesn’t fancy living in a pit of Nazis to be a weak beta unfit for the robust arena of debate who *needs* some time in the Nazi Pit to toughen them up.
This made me laugh because it might well be true.