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No. 605730
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Great thread!
I was never one to post many pictures or personal stuff in social media, thankfully, but I was still addicted to it and had a very strong phase, when I was younger, in which I was simply obsessed with how celebrities and models portrayed their lifes on Instagram.
I grew up and started being very critical about social media as a whole but continued to use it to read stuff and interact with friends.
Now I've been social media free for a month, and I've mixed feelings. Sometimes I feel disconnected to the world and I feel like a ghost because people can't really see or found out about me, but it's been great for my mental health in many senses, I love having no idea about other people's business, but I'm struggling with wanting people to know how good I am doing (social media in a nutshell, basically)
I think that, for me, being overly present and completely absent in social media is alienating, but I won't be coming back, for now.
I'm very interested on how I can protect my personal information as much as possible, and my image as well, it's very scary to think what people could do with your pictures, particularly as a woman, and that always throws me back when I have felt like posting something.
No. 605881
>>605663>Are you anti social media? Why?>Do you hate social media?Not necessarily. I dislike how over-represented social media is in society, such as business and political campaigning catering to the woke crowd. But I'm fine with the concept itself.
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?A lot more. I couldn't stand having a long-term account, knowing someone will try to dig up an embarassing 10 year old forum post. Now, people get their careers ruined over that kind of stuff.
>Do you protect your image and data online? How?>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?I generally sign up for accounts under temporary emails and store my password in a password manager. I still make sure I go back sometimes to delete my accounts if I'm not using it. I sometimes post through a proxy, a friends' connection, or Tor. I absolutely prefer to never put my real life information through the web, but seeing how a lot of job applications and driver's license renewals are now online or phasing out paper, its harder to avoid.
I'm technically not on social media, so I also haven't made myself into a target.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social media and how do you manage that?My career path, no; that mainly asks for a degree and a portfolio.
My side stuff like independent art, apparently so. The path to getting donations or commissions is becoming a mini-celebrity. (And this goes back to filling out real life credentials to sign up for payment processors and reading through a massive TL;DR privacy policy and terms of service. On principle I disagreed with Paypal's and I'm still reading through Stripe's.)
Actually being on social media, it feels like you have to grind for fame or stir up drama. Not being on social media is like having to put your roots down through rock.
No. 605920
>>605911Yeah, well, part of it is that I'm in a very small program, and will need to communicate with all the other students in my program. It'll also allow 1-on-1 talks with instructors, which again is necessary to the program. Still not happy about it, though. I'd managed to avoid Discord up until now.
If I don't need it once the fall semester ends, I'll delete it.
No. 605928
I'm in my mid 20's and I don't have any personal social medias because I've deleted them all. It was mainly because I realized I waste so much time on it and it made me really toxic and critical of people. Like I'd see a friend post and everybody else commenting "omg you are so pretty!! uwu" and it just felt like they were doing it just so the circle jerk will continue when the next person posts a selfie or whatever. Doesn't help that I mainly was in a community of cosplayers/image conscious weebs. This happens in art communities too and I loathe it because I feel like the value of a compliment has been cheapened, in a sense, feels like people just say whatever to get a more popular person to notice them, etc.
I still have an Instagram/Twitter/fb page for my art though, and even on there I tend not to interact much because it's just not a habit for me to open the apps and browse, I just dump my art and go. I don't like hanging out with other artist friends and listening to the conversation delve in how to boost their followers, engagement, the invisible tug of war vs the evil algorithm, etc. It's very tiring to be on social media in general, I think.
Unfortunately, all the time I used to waste on social media sites just translated into time I waste on imageboards, lol.
No. 606122
>>605920I find it really weird that you have to use discord instead of some school-specific site or something.
>>605894lol
I'm an old so I used to be pretty active on myspace and even facebook, back it was still almost all college students. I deactivated my facebook forever several years ago, it had been horrible for a long time even before everyone knew just how bad it really was. There is almost no information and no pictures of me online; the latter was a result of low self esteem and I'm at least now grateful I never put any up (especially since I used to be on a proto-incel forum and linked my social media, which wa incredibly stupid but would be even worse now). At this point I have a tumblr I still use but I just use it as a relaxation tool (I like to scroll through endless pleasant pictures), there's nothing personal there at all.
I remember it used to be an oft repeated lesson to keep your identity and personal information away from the internet as much as possible and I think there's still quite a bit of wisdom to that.
No. 606212
>>605730Holy shit anon are you me lol
I recently deleted my twitter and I had over 14k because I just didn't feel connected to it anymore. I've been having anxiety attacks on and off for a week now about how much I feel like I've basically gotten rid of any 'recognition' I might've had in the world. Despite the fact I haven't been posting consistently for a long ass time - I'm talkin like over a year.
I still feel weird about it but it's just with covid you stated it perfectly - I feel like a ghost now. I know eventually I'll start over but it's still just. Weird, yet also starting to be sorta freeing to just wipe the slate clean.
No. 606481
>>606344Imagine a farmer as a politician or administrator. That's kinda funny to me. Like are you going to call people retarded on their faces? lol
Just kidding, I'm happy for you anon, please become the first farmer president in the world.
No. 606542
I feel like I'm pretty minimal SM, at least compared to how I used to be–does that count?
I used to have all of it. FB, twitter, insta, tumblr, reddit and be on all of it every day.
I've completely deleted FB twitter and reddit, and don't really go on IG and tumblr anymore even though I still have both. IG is my most used. I just find them boring, but I like the pictures, memes, and info sometimes, and they're the least likely to be annoying in random interactions (I find).
No. 606812
>Are you anti social media? Why?
I am not exactly anti social media, but as I'm getting older, it simply feels…kind of childish to use? Not sure how to explain it. I used to be active way more in my late teens and early 20s, then I naturally grew out of it and now posting stories of what I have eaten seems kind of ridiculous.
>Do you hate social media?
Eh, not really. It's just not a thing for me anymore. Most of my friends aren't active on it either and only use messaging apps to keep in touch.
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?
Yeah, I've been using 4chan since I was 14. Got used to this type of discussion and now participating in forums/social media with some sort of identity attached (be it either simple nickname/avatar or full name facebook profile) feels unnatural.
>Do you protect your image and data online? How?
Other than having my social media accounts private (aka only friends can see if I post something), not really I guess. But then, I haven't been posting anything about my real life for years now, so there isn't any recent important info to be misused. Even when I was active, I never posted private stuff.
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?
My main account would be my google one, and the one that I'm mostly worried about as it ties in to my main email etc.
I have accounts on facebook and instagram, but they are mostly inactive. I use facebook messenger mainly to talk and make plan with friends, as it's convenient, but don't really use the "social media" aspect of it.
I have some old throwaway mails that I still sometimes use to today to sign up for free trials but that's about it when it comes to "hidden accounts".
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social media and how do you manage that?
Thank god they don't. I do have a linkedin profile though.
No. 606827
>>606548>I just went to an art installation and the people there weren’t enjoying it, they were just using it as a backdrop for pictures. Full on posing taking up half the room or entire hallways with no shame. It was so fucking bleak and kind of eeryI went to the MET and Guggenheim just before the corona lockdown and this describes 60% of the people visiting there. One group in particular at the MET was so obnoxious. They had a woman working the camera as every member of their group took turns doing their most insta-worthy poses in front of artwork, even as people were trying to view it. This wasn't the normal tourist-y thing. The camera lady was snapping each of them at various angles, as if it were a fucking Vogue cover photoshoot session. They stopped at every piece of art in the section. I was so
triggered.
No. 607663
>>606520ngl I snorted
>>606827This was my experience when visiting the Louvre. It was awful. It was already crowded as fuck and people kept gathering in front of the art pieces to take selfies with them so you could even barely see the paintings.
No. 609889
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Being 18 and not using social media makes me feel so isolated, everytime i talk to someone my age i feel like an old person struggling to comprehend the new generation. I don't get internet humor either, it's just random nonsense and being horny. It's also an struggle to meet people, i don't want to use Tinder but i also don't know where to meet people in real life. I remember that when i used to have friends all they would do is stare at their phone browsing inta/twitter, they wouldn't want to do anything else like watching a movie or discussing something. It's so boring, i can't understand how they can enjoy scrolling through an endless wall of garbage that brings nothing of worth.
No. 610175
>>606827Last winter before rona a friend invited me to a “popup art exhibit” with her. Had never done anything like that but it sounded interesting so I tagged along. Nobody explicitly said anything but it became very obvious as soon as we got past the ticket booth that it was just a set of interactive backdrops and themed objects to take selfies with. I tried to keep a positive attitude and enjoy myself but it just slowly sucked the soul outta me. The whole premise was that you pretend you’re taking a fun impromptu picture, but really you’re being scooted from selfie spot to selfie spot and nothing you see exists for any purpose other than social media attention seeking.
Towards the end of it there was a section filled knee-high with multicolored shredded paper. In the middle was a mom who had plopped her young kids down and wouldn’t let them play freely in the paper because she needed to get more photogenic pictures of them pretending to play in it.
No. 610413
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>>607663Not too long ago I visited the Parthenon with my dad. It was an impromptu decision because we were in the area.
It was summer in Athens, which means it was smelly and hot as balls and there were lots of tourists. Getting to the top it was already difficult enough to take photos of the area without tourists clogging up the path with their photo sessions, but whatever.
At the top it was horrible, crowded as fuck with almost no shade, we got to this very cramped lookout spot to take a quick photo of the city before heading back down since people were literally pushing on a small platform at the edge of a cliff just to take a quick peek.
Suddenly I hear a very annoyed "um EXCUSE me, do you MIND?" from somewhere around me. These 3 German (or Austrian, idk) girls were posing in the middle of the crowd, with the fourth taking their pictures, and my dad and I walked into their shot so they were pissed off. There was no room to breathe on there, let alone take posed selfies, and they were hogging pretty much all of the space just to take photos. My dad can't speak English but he understood what the issue was and started yelling at them to get the fuck off the platform and go home to take pictures, then they got scared and walked away.
People are fucking animals and social media is to blame.
No. 610415
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>>610413What a satisfying ending. Serves them right.
No. 610511
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>>610452If Western tourists did this in my little village where the average salary is 200€/month they'd get their ass kicked by the locals so fast, man or woman. These people are saints to even keep them out there that long without beating them to a pulp. Jesus Christ I want to rough them up so bad.
No. 610734
>>605663I have a crafting hobby that I spend a fair amount of time on. For a while I used IG to post pictures of what I make. I generally only followed people I already knew from IRL or discord or wherever, or after interacting enough to be "friends" with them. I realized early on that the things I liked doing most were not the things that got the most likes, and didn't really care, but I did generally get a few dozen likes on every post and that made me feel good about my work.
I stopped using IG a couple months ago because I hated how much time I spent on it. I couldn't stay away from the explore page and it became an inane mess. I would look at some dumb low effort meme and then the entire page would be flooded with nothing but for the next week.
I don't miss the time I spent on it, but I do miss how I used to make posts to show off my work - setting up little stages and diroramas, choosing the best pictures to share with the world. It made my project feel "complete". Even when they got few likes, I really enjoyed having my profile as a portfolio. But due to my own habits, I don't want to keep IG for only that, since I'll just waste time on it again. What are the non social media ways people share art nowadays? Are blogs still a thing or do people mostly ignore them? I come across a lot for tutorials, but they're often pretty old, and they're never run by younger people. I still want people to be able to see my work, even if I don't care about the number of likes. Is that the desire I need to get rid of? I just don't know where to share anything anymore if it's not on a big searchable site.
No. 611523
This is gonna sound ridiculous, I really wanna delete social media but almost everything I do is tied to it. I don’t have friends in this small town, I never go out due to covid, but I never really went out before. I feel like a lot of my identity is tied to my online persona. I feel ridiculous saying this but I used to get dressed and put on makeup just to take a picture for Instagram, I‘d feel weird not having to do that anymore. I’m a lonely person and being online makes me feel less lonely, short term. But in the long run, I feel like such a fool, like I’m just nothing without it.
I do have some online friends too, more like acquaintances and they’re really sweet, I don’t wanna lose them, I don’t wanna lose all the validation I get from likes and shit.
I have been online since 2012, I will say I miss the internet when it was just memes and bestgore and stupid shit. Now it’s woke and “unproblematic” so I’m honestly at the tipping point
No. 612631
>>612630It's not even just that, since fb owns whatsapp and instagram it's even harder to escape that shit. I could sell my books without fb but it's way easier to use it to contact stores and random people who might be interested there. I hate it so much. I hate that because I didn't have a fb account when I started university I had no idea about some classes I missed taking place on other days than planned because everyone was trading info there, even the teachers. They wouldn't even bother sending emails to our university email addresses with their own, they'd just do this shit and think people not being aware of last minute changes were in the wrong somehow.
I think fb is less used by the younger generation though? When I was in high school it was the new hot thing but my sibling who's in high school right now won't stop saying fb is a website for shitty boomers and not trendy anymore. Hopefully there will be some new competitors soon thanks to that.
No. 612680
>>612638Have a similar story, but nothing related to keeping a job. Wanted to join a local beekeepers club once, but they required facebook. I was going to try joining their in-person events, but lolcorona.
I went like, "fuck it, nah."
No. 621996
I'm not a social media person at all, I barely use Facebook for Messenger and to track events (never found a better alternative), otherwise I never post anything personal on it. I have a Twitter under a random name only to follow japanese artists, and I still use Tumblr but I barely consider it a social media since follower counts don't matter there. It's under another random username, and I only reblog fanarts, animals and architecture posts, I don't interact with anybody and I'm just here to build some sort of aesthetic blog.
Otherwise, nothing else, no Instagram, no Snapchat (how does it even work?), no Tiktok, no Discord… I had to download Zoom during lockdown to communicate with coworkers, and I deleted it as soon as it was over, it gave me anxiety.
I'm some kind of a social autist, but weirdly enough I'm way more comfortable talking to peope IRL that on social medias, there's too much clout chasing and stupid discourse on the internet, and in this day and age, anonymous boards like 4chan, KF and here are a blessing.
Also I've seen some anons in other threads saying that guys without any social medias are a huge red flag, which I don't get, to me not having internet presence is a sign that people are more grounded in reality.
No. 622012
>>621996I’m almost exactly same as you. Now I can only tolerate e-interactions if it’s somewhat anonymous without faces and names and sub counts.
Guys without social media’s come off as trying to hide something, like a coomer private. If they truly don’t use social media, I either think they’re 4chan faggot or just paranoid nuts. Guys with an inactive facebook who only updates once a year with a new picture of his dog are a good sign in my experience.
No. 657359
I don't hate social media, but I also don't love it. I know it serves a purpose, but it really isn't for me? The only ones I had was a Facebook (now deleted), and a Pinterest (does that count as social media?) that I got bored of. Idk, I liked Pinterest because it was less about selfies/yourself, and more about pretty pictures and recipes. But I became obsessed with gaining followers and posting became less fun since I was preoccupied with only posting stuff that would get me more likes/reposts/follows.
Now when it comes to Facebook/Instagram/whatever, I find them hard to enjoy. I have seen people that I know on these platforms, and I can't stand how "fake" everyday people act on them? Like, I know you in real life. You're a regular old boring normie person, yet you try to act special or interesting online. I also find it pretty, idk, a bit narcissistic for a person to think anyone cares about all of the minute details of their life, enough to make a page devoted to it. Like I said, I know social media serves a purpose, but I feel like for many people, it exists solely for asspats and to build egos.
I definitely prefer imageboards. I don't like all of the parts of my life shared on the Internet; I'm a pretty private person, so being anon is a plus. I also find discussion on said sites more interesting, because there is less ego/clout-chasing and people aren't afraid of sharing their opinions (even unpopular ones). It's way better than those social media sites where people conform their opinions to what is popular, because they are afraid of the dreaded downvote or losing followers.
No. 657562
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Do I really have to make an instagram to be a professional artist? please help
No. 657668
>>657562No. It's horribly over-saturated, and most of the artists I know who make money off their art don't use it. It helps, but
need, nah.
No. 657672
>>657562Might depend on how you want to make money. Do you want to be an independent artist and sell directly to people? Then yes. Do contracts for companies or studios? Maybe not. Might get away with saturating Artstation and Twitter.
Not in the industry though so I'm talking out of my ass.
No. 657721
>>657562>>657668 and
>>657672 are right. It helps, but you don't
need it, especially if you plan to work more for companies than individual commissions. Just decide which client you'd prefer to have more of. I have so much more to say about this but I'll just end up sperging about how much I hate social media kek
No. 658480
>>657562Yeah social media is absolutely necessary if you want an audience for your art. I hate it but there’s not much we can do about it.
With that said, does anyone know where one can post nsfw art? Is the cesspool that is Twitter my only option?
No. 659322
I had a very popular presence in the twitter art community for years, but after I deleted all my social medias, I wondered why did I ever stayed online? I was friends with a lot of popular artists and all we would do is talk shit, gossip, or start discourse (mind you, we were college students). Since Ive left, it is as if my entire mood and personality had shifted it. Im no longer combative or confrontation, it's insane lmao. It is super refreshing. Ive never realized how bad my addiction was until I left every platform.
Sometimes, I miss my twitter friends. I wonder what they're up to. But honestly, I would rather die than return to twitter. A lot of them aren't big fans of communicating outside of twitter, so I guess I wont see them anymore.
No. 660059
>>605663I had an older sibling that was over protective. After one week of downloading instagram, they told me to delete it. That was when insta first came out, never went back.
The only elaborate thing I've posted on the net is this diy club penguin blog from when I was 11. I don't have friends so I don't message anyone. Idgaf about what ppl do everyday. I truly don't understand the obsession of seeing what others do/wear daily and uploading a gazillion pics of your face or whatever you value. Has vanity been normalized?
All those corny 2000s internet safety videos/stories rly got to me from an early age so i've never had a typical personal profile with my info/photos. For most of my time on the net, I've only ever used youtube and reddit regularly tbh…and lurked on other sites/forums. But I rly need to wean off of youtube.. Fuck social media.
No. 924601
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>>605663>Are you anti social media? Why?>Do you hate social media?Can I call myself truly anti because I have accounts on multiple platforms and I still check up on them from time to time? But my attitude towards social media is significantly colder and I contribute minimally. The only thing that's got me in any type of 'scrolling hypnosis' is anonymous boards. I personally hate social media but I'm still tied to it because it's my only means of reaching some people. Other general reasons I have for hating it are similar to or same as a lot of the reasons explained in other people's responses here. Social media is just another corporate tool to profit off of the masses perpetual body dysmorphia and dissatisfaction, to pit them against each other and to inflate insignificant people's egos. The bane of authenticity.
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?>Do you protect your image and data online? How?Yes, I prefer any site that lets me be anonymous or at least heavily customize my personal user page or profile. Anything that asks for your full name, phone number, linking to multiple platforms and such makes me want to practice flame thrower use. If I want to take a peek or lurk I put in fake info where I can, use temporary emails and go back to delete the account when it's unnecessary. I should probably do more for data protection, since I still want to use these platforms to keep up with artists I like and so on. Anyway, I prefer my accounts to be unlinkable.
I've made the mistake of posting too much of myself online on my accounts when I was younger, so the last of what I can 'protect' is delete pics I don't want to show anymore. I don't really take photos of my face anymore, and if I do, I don't post them. I've been thinking of removing the last of my selfies from social media, but am afraid that a select few weirdos notice that and start stirring up shit (despite me being relatively irrelevant lmao).
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social mefia and how do you manage that?Currently I have my main, no active secrets. Keeping in contact with my family and making things simply effortless with my student life requires me to keep an all-in-one personal social media account plus a linked account dedicated to what I do. I wish it wasn't that way, or rather I wish I didn't put myself into that situation.
Tldr; I'm still in the range of average social media usage but want to change that. Social media is a societal menace, I'd rather just get to the content and do or look at something I want to see, but sidestep all the negatives.
No. 924767
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Beyond small well-moderated communities, social media is and always will be more harmful than not (though, depending on the structure of the platform and cultural climate, often harmful in unique ways), but it's here to stay so really the only thing you can do is use it responsibly or opt not to use it at all. It irks me that journalists (who are as a profession among the worst offenders wrt unhealthy social media use) shit out clickbait on specific platforms as if issues with social media aren't inherent to the medium itself:
>1. The way humans connect with each other has not evolved for instantaneous mass communication, let alone global-scale communication.
>2. Because human communication hasn't evolved for scale, there's very little that a social media company can do to encourage healthy use of a mass communication platform.
>3. Any sort of extrinsic reward for participation (even imageboard replies) will encourage the people who should have the smallest social influence (cluster Bs and people with poor impulse control) to participate more often than healthy individuals and as such have an outsized effect on culture creation.
>4. Said reward-chasing individuals are motivated to say or do extreme things in pursuit of more reward because people are more likely to engage with extreme things (especially if for some reason they contain content that elicits fear, insecurity, or anger), thus amplifying said extreme content and giving even normal people the impression that it's a dominant opinion/aesthetic/body type/etc if it reaches critical mass.
>5. Politically or socially-charged extreme content can be used as propaganda by opponents, who use this steady stream of outrage porn to radicalize their own ilk, who then create content that radicalizes opponents, and so on.
>6. Even attempts to prevent unhealthy behavior on social media at a severe hit to a company's bottom line will likely fail or only offer partial mitigation because people who are chasing dopamine hits will use any cue available (e.g. (You)s on 4chan) and most of the other factors that make social media unhealthy are extremely complex to address (e.g. how do you even prevent Instagram from spreading BDD in a world where photo-editing is available to everyone and anti-shooped pic measures would open up a huge can of worms?) and even to investigate and understand.
>7. People and communication are incredibly complicated, and any given intervention is likely to at least partially fail or even have harmful ripple effects; for example, Reddit and Twitter's attempts to detect and downrank 'harmful' or 'controversial' comments amplifies the echo-chamber effect because harmful OPs go unchallenged (and not even necessarily harmful politically; for example, glorification of depression and suicidal ideation is widespread on both platforms any is likely an internal blindspot because said glorification happens under the guise of 'mental health support').
>8. The extremists created by social media are motivated to proselytize anywhere they possibly can, and the consolidated nature of social media makes it easy to find new communities to swarm, which means that even small, well-moderated communities are at risk of being overtaken.
>9. Moderation is extremely important for maintaining a healthy community, but right now it's impossible for platforms to do at scale, and interventions that make sense for one locality may be ineffective or even dangerous for another; for example, if Twitter decided to globally boost counterspeech from ethnic minorities because muh equity or w/e, that could end with a Hazara in Pakistan getting a black bag thrown over their head or an escalation of the Biafra conflict or something.
>10. At this point we've all been subject to so much social media brainrot that any effort to create healthy online communication is like pissing into the ocean.
It's literally, LITERALLY impossible to create a healthy communication platform for millions of people to communicate at each other and join new communities at the click of a button. It will never happen. Even Usenet had massive issues with toxicity and trolling. The only form of online communication that can provide a net positive to its users is a small, topic-oriented community with clear community guidelines that are consistently enforced by moderators who were chosen because they are level-headed rather than because they're extremely active or friends with the other mods.
sage for turbosperg
No. 924816
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I deleted my twitter and instagram after realising just how miserable social media was making me. if people aren't gloating about their lives and looks on there, they're posting sanctimonious keyboard activism or getting weirdly competitive about how bad their mental health issues are. people who I generally really liked chatting to in person were insufferable on social media so having access to all their posts was completely killing any positive regard I had for them. I was really attached to my twitter in particular, I loved posting things to make people laugh and one or two of my favourite authors etc followed my account, so letting go of that in particular was quite hard, but it just wasn't worth putting myself in a bad mood every day for the sake of an app
No. 925094
>>924816Because sane people like you leave social media for the reasons you said, it's just getting slowly worse because it's just nutbars feeding off of each other with not enough sane people to call them out on any kind of regular basis.
imo we aren't far off from most people seeing social media as just as awful as supermarket tabloids. it happened to facebook a while ago & everyone sane left, but now the crazy spreads so fasr that the only ok places are actually imageboards where no one's posting for likes and people aren't afraid to call people out. Obviously imageboards have problems, bit I do think chans and traditional forums are actually making a comeback among people who are tired of awful twitter/ig/discord shallowness and contant mutual fluffing.
No. 925998
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deleted facebook 7 months ago permanently after the following series of my incidents:
>partners’ ex gf adds my IRL friends on facebook (she lives abroad)
>she steals a photo i took of my partner reposts it to her own fb and tags him in it, as if though she took the photo
>compares me to a child serial killer
>compares herself to me, stating that she makes more money, is more intelligent and has a more loving partner
>compares herself and my partner to Charles and Camilla, as if i’m the evil Diana and is standing in the way of their ‘destiny’
>sends my friends voice rants about how she and my partner are still ‘in love’ to my friends, and that i’m narcissist
>LARPs as a homewrecker, refers to herself as a ‘temptress’
>posts threats to ‘beat my ass’
>posts that I’M obsessed with HER and loses it when someone tells her it’s the other way round
>declares that i am her ‘enemy’
>sets her profile picture caption to ‘lol anon why you looking at my profile’
>only reason i saw it is because she added my friends and they sent it to me.
>don’t respond to her behaviour, ask my friends to block her
>is mad that i asked MY OWN friends to block her
>throws a tantrum in my partners inbox after one of my friends who she attempted to isolate me from reality checks her
>i also was told that any time someone who isn’t even vaguely related to me criticizes her she starts ranting about how i’m an abusing my partner even when i’m not even the subject of the criticism
also i know that this is none of my business but apparently she still has photos of them together on her facebook publicly even though they broke up 7 years ago.
i pity her for maintaining an obsession with an ex for almost a decade, it’s just tragic. i hope she gets the help she needs
No. 926054
>>925998Oof that’s so bad
nonnie, I’m glad you removed her power. She’s just projecting and clearly does need medical attention
No. 926077
>>926054yeah me too. i felt so much more in control and like a weight had been lifted after i deleted.
i used to make new accounts every 2 months with a different name to get away from her but she had all my friends added so she would find them via mutuals eventually. she then said i was making multiple accounts to stalk her even though i never once used them to interact with her
deleting was really a last resort
No. 926338
>Are you anti social media? Why?
Not entirely, and I do lurk socials, I'm just not fond of people grifting off it when they have no remarkable talent whatsoever. It used to be you had to have some level of charisma and now all you need is a video of your plastic surgerized face under a filter doing a tiktok dance. Pathetic state it's in, some people who started off with internet fame or have maintained it are not without talent or personality and it's a shame they're overshadowed by the vapid cunts who make a living off mostly their looks. Social media has permitted us to let our guard down and completely destroyed and forced a reinvention of the PR system. As an aspiring PR person social media is humanity's own worst enemy with its encouragement of mob mentality, and has pushed division between people rather than allowed them to think critically. It's unfortunate because we've forgotten in the climate of social media, how vulnerable humanity is and how easily they make mistakes, while being wrapped up in our own selfishness and lack of awareness of our own actions. Some cancellations are just retarded and pointless for the reason that time has passed and the culture has changed significantly, not talking things like rape or assault, talking someone who said a "slur" ten years ago.
>Do you hate social media?
From a personal perspective I hate using my real name on social media. It's the fact that accountability has been so heavily embedded into culture now that you cannot separate online personals from real ones and people will hold you to the burning wick of a candle for something you said when you were sixteen. For that reason I've adamantly avoided using my full real name on SNS for years. I do hate the aspect of social media that punishes and demands mandates from those who use it. Like the moment you gain any kind of fame the floodgates to hell open and everything you've done in your life is wrong. Every decision is put under scrutiny when you start, rather than as you progress.
Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?
At times, yes, at other times, no. I prefer to use aliases, and many sites still accommodate them, but a lot are trying to strip away and converge the identities of a real and online persona. While part of my online persona is not exaggerated, some of it is. Playing myself up for show and for edginess points won't land me any real life favors in the industry I want to be in, and unfortunately if my online track record were revealed I'd probably be excommunicated from this life. If it were all revealed id kill myself.
Do you protect your image and data online? How?
I used to not take precautions at all so theres likely crap floating about of me in years past, but in the last few, due to harassments I've dealt with I've gotten more secretive in larger spaces. Much more stingy about posting or sharing my face on alias accounts, especially if I do not know the people I am talking to or the space discusses topics that are of a sensitive or potentially libelous interest (gossip). Much less specific about my personal life than I used to be and hinge more on generalities. Having the problem with oversharing ive had it's been betrayal time and again. Don't really use vpns, but I'm more cautious about what I put out in spaces where my identity could be compromised. I trust LC way too much though and have said admittedly somethings here that would make me want to die if anyone who didn't know I posted here saw them.
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?
I have a multitude of gmails and yahoo accounts, half of this is to be able to hoard more space for files on gdrive, but also to cover the bases for all the types of accounts I need. so each email kind of represents a different facet. yes I'm aware of googles data collection, but the company that terrifies me the most that I refuse to use is Facebook. Absolutely no Facebook. Instagram now owned by Facebook makes me extremely annoyed that I have a burner there now. I've never really been that scared of big data collection from google since I wouldn't consider myself to be doing anything illegally malicious same with yahoo. No point in signing up for proton mail or any of the more anonymous counterparts unless I feel endangered.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social media and how do you manage that?
Since I mentioned I want to work in media, of course it will. I plan to try and be as sparse as possible if I'm dragged into having social media. For a long while the attention whore part of me wanted to be famous and still sometimes craves validation, but I've realized I cannot take the heat that comes with it. For that reason I'd rather be someone else's brand and reputation manager. I'm good at fudging my way out of mistakes and laying lower on social media, or using private accounts and quiet methods of hiding my lesser thoughts. Cant say the same for a lot of others. The psychology behind the changing perspective of reputation is what inspired me to want to do press in the first place. I may hate the current state of culture demanding everyone be cancelled over slights (coming from a bitch who loves gossip) and that one mistake cements you as irreparable, but it fascinates me how we got to this point. As much as I hate social media I have to thank it in some capacity for showing peoples true colors, but in others I want to beat it violently into the ground with a hammer for making us so sensitive.
No. 926431
>>926385I did. After thinking about our future
It’s unlikely but what if this woman came after our potential offspring? It’s not unheard of for women to lash out at children as revenge. The news could push her instability over the threshold into actual violence
No. 926432
>>926390my personal and my online life are semi separate and they should remain that way until such time as I decide what I want to do. the only people posting shitposts under their real names that make sense are celebrities or public figures who are in the spotlight already, but random kids or twenty somes not realizing how bad it is for their professional life. I was once on that train and I quickly hopped off when I saw how it was affecting my peers
unfortunate cuz there's some stuff I've done that I've posted to the internet under aliases and would love to use but I'm scared it'll come back to bite me and I'll be recognized, guess I should never post anything anywhere ever then
No. 926510
>Are you anti social media? Why?
Not really, I think they can be useful and dangerous in the same position but shouldn't be necessary in life.
>Do you hate social media?
While I do not hate their concept, in fact I like having a small space where I can shitpost with friends, I hate the new take on social media: now everyone wants to be famous, no matter their talent or things they have to say and the fact that they're so common now, our whole society depends on them (I've seen baby toys shaped like a vlogging camera and ring light, gross).
Brands trying to be edgy or funny tweeting dead memes, teens doing dangerous or gross things on camera just for the sake of it and I know that thing used to be common in the 90s and 00s too but they didn't have much fans telling them "please more!!" so they weren't encouraged to repeat it, the dramas on youtube, the story times video no one asks for but makes some ones feel important, people believing they're some shit just because the algorithm blesses them with new followers sometimes, literally the For The Clout and FOMO concepts scare me so much, I hate it. I want spaces like the old forum communities and that's it. I also hate how now people can search up your name on social media to review job applications, I don't do anything wrong so I have no real fear for it, but it rubs me in the wrong way knowing that my boss could see me shitposting about eating some fictional character's ass when it is not his goddamn business. It feels like your mom reading your diary and then confronting you about it when you come home from school. Fuck it.
Also fuck people who believe that unfriending them means that you hate them or some shit and take it personally. I just clicked a button, shut your trap.
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?
Yes and no. I like some anon spaces where I can talk to people and no one perceives me but at the same time I would like even some minimalistic profile to make friends…
I loved Tumblr back then since I could customized all of my page code and posts and anything, plus I could have multiple accounts and now I like twitter because it's fast, I can shitpost, I can talk to people easily, engage in small talk but that's it.
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?
I have three main accounts and two spam ones. I am not making a mail with my name and last name ever.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social mefia and how do you manage that?
I'm an artist, so yeah, sadly.
If it wasn't for my clients, I would've already deleted my facebook since it uses my real name and I hate how everything can be linked to me so people associate me-person as me-online presence. People really believe I'm a furry just because I draw furry shit lol
Plus, I hate instagram. It's shit, it has no features aside horribly cropping your pictures so you're left with cut pictures and photos that look like shit but hey, everyone is on there now, at least people looking for art.
I prefer twitter where I can choose my name and even post the more extreme stuff, since that shit gets me more money and people.
Aside from this, I have a distinct portfolio on Artstation where I just upload my best works and its free from commissioned work so I can pretend to be a professional.
Less-personal accounts can let me larp easily.
No. 927219
File: 1633030690002.jpg (32.65 KB, 570x319, 1625767085838.jpg)
>haven't used social media in many years
>decide to make an ''anonymous'' instagram
>follow really embarrassing fetish accounts and interact with them
>my mom who knows i never use social media suddenly starts asking me if i have IG
>tell her ''no, you know i'm against social media, why would you ask that?''
>she gets kinda weird and starts mumbling ''oh i don't know''
>time passes and she keeps asking me if i have ig like once a week
>realize her tone of voice is kinda weird whenever she asks
Realized my mom has been getting my fetish bullshit suggested for her to follow. I had posted one faceless pic, where my hair would be recognizable. I feel like some ancient boomer for not knowing this could happen. Never touching social media again. I kept getting suggestions to follow my mom as well, over and over despite rejecting the suggestion.
No. 1006240
File: 1640588996695.jpeg (8 KB, 247x204, proxy-image.jpeg)
I wish i could go off the grid on social media completely. Being a NEET leaves me with few options for entertainment, so i often make and delete accounts when the schizo kicks in and i start getting paranoid.
If any anons have tips for dealing with that or just weaning off social media from my life forever, i'd be glad to hear.
No. 1006290
>>1006264Do they keep in touch through social media nowadays because of covid?
Social media is designed make you addicted, personally I don't think the risk of lots of time waste and the impact it (potentially) has on the mental health is a risk worth taking. Once you start it's difficult to go back. But I'm saying this from the fortunate position of being able to stay in touch with my friends without social media (despite them having it)
No. 1006302
>>1006275This is what I was thinking. A private IG with no pictures of myself and minimal pics in general. So then I would see what people are up to in real life and be able to comment, and maybe talk through DMs? I’m not really sure how it works.
>>1006274>>1006290COVID has definitely made it hard, but ever since high school I have had a really difficult time keeping in touch with old friends and making new ones. It used to be we all texted each other non-stop and that led to hanging out in real life, but that’s not the case anymore. It seems like the ones with social media keep in touch that way. I recently did an internship and all my cohorts exchanged instagrams and I fear they will keep in touch that way and I won’t be able to. The only people I talk to and see now are my immediate family and my boyfriend, and I’ve been really missing having close female friends.
No. 1006314
File: 1640599697470.png (320.62 KB, 828x1026, image0.png)
I got rid of almost everything in the last 6 months. The only way to contact me is through text, discord, or messenger. I feel fucking realived. I honestly lost my interest ages ago but I can only contact people thru certain apps so too bad I guess. I've deleted all my games off my phone. So the main place I go to is lolcow lol. My biggest downside is that I don't sell my art or showcase it anymore. I suppose I could make an etsy but at the same time I just feel "Eh fuck it"
No. 1006388
Maybe I’m just wearing rose-colored nostalgia glasses, but I feel like LJ and Xanga and MySpace used to be kind of fun. Social media now is just depressing. I felt less connected to people, so I just got rid of it.
I teach, and seeing how social media addiction is warping my students’ brains is harrowing. Some of them don’t have any hobbies at all—just doom-scrolling and oversharing online.
>>1006342I’ve been required to have an active LinkedIn account, and to use it, for two jobs. I know it’s not the same, but some horny moids love to treat it like it’s FB or a dating site all the same kek.
No. 1006415
>>1006388>I’ve been required to have an active LinkedIn account, and to use it, for two jobsAh okay, I freelance for a company and they made their full time employees change their profile picture to a company branded one and repost stuff.
By active you mean you have to post things? Repost their stuff? Just like/comment?
No. 1007752
File: 1640732067402.jpeg (38.86 KB, 540x520, tumblr_765f14ed6c1f05e9b549c49…)
Sage for A-log
Oh god… I really hate social media with a burning passion and if I bring it up with my friends they just say I shouldn't use it then. The initial reason most people hated it were because of things like flex/FOMO culture and influencers, but that's not even the worst of it.
Firstly, the fact our data is being sold to actual gubments and is something no one is concerned about is alarming. My identity is a product you sell. I don't post much anymore but even I have some data left to scrub, doxxing people is really not that hard but thank god I'm boring as hell. Also did you guys know every photo in the Meta socmed app is fed into AI machine learning. So it will try to identify what you are posting. And it does save your facial data. But phones do this too so we're all fucked really.
Secondly, the sheer amount of ads on these damn apps. It's just a new platform for consoomer culture. Content creation is DEAD. Influencers are just corporate shills with no talent or personality but get salty when people bring up the fact they're literally walking billboards and not a real model, kek.
Thirdly, the commodification of sex and sex work. The fact people are thinking this is healthy is concerning. And actual kids are exposed to this and frying they brains from coomer culture and eventually resorting to sex work because it's empowering. No. You're doing it because the economy and society is sick.
I wish I could live off the grid but even someone like me who is averse to social media is pretty reliant on the Internet. It doesn't feel like an addiction but the sheer amount of time we spend online definitely shows a codependent pattern.
No. 1007755
>>1007752Yes it's horrible and how even smart people don't care or aren't aware is alarming.
Any tips on scrubbing all data about yourself from the internet? Probably can't get rid of it all but I'm terrified of shit I've posted even anonymously on other accounts with VPNs coming back to haunt me. Who knows how advanced tech will be in the future and maybe EVERYTHING you've ever posted no matter through how many security layers, will be able to be linked to you.
No. 1007779
>>1007752i feel this a lot. i made an ig account just to seem approachable to people in uni, then had to make a facebook account because my dorm has a facebook group. i used to use twitter and tumblr for years, but eventually stopped. now i found out that if you want to make a twitter account, you have to give them your phone number. it's insane. i also hate influencer shit, all the ads and how it ruins your attention span (tiktok and youtube shorts, i'm looking at you). my degree always makes people say that i should work in marketing or something, but i'm so repulsed by the idea of churning out snazzy lines for some company to look good on the internet.
>It doesn't feel like an addiction but the sheer amount of time we spend online definitely shows a codependent pattern.you and me both, nonna. it sucks because it's convenient and i wouldn't want to live without netflix and shit, also online shopping. during the height of corona i wouldn't even go out to buy shampoo or moisturizer, i just ordered everything in bulk from my local drug store and had it shipped to my house.
No. 1007798
>>1007778I know I should be doing all this but it's just so convenient to have everything on one phone and laptop.
God I get so much anxiety over this. I wish we could just be in stuck in 2004-esque internet/tech world forever.
No. 1007819
>>1007818Tiktok is fucking awful. I THINK about something and get tiktoks about it. How??
At this point I'm only on it to support a friend that does tiktoks.
No. 1186968
File: 1652902899873.jpg (656.81 KB, 828x688, 1636139288031.jpg)
I think I have increasingly paranoia and shame about sharing things with others, but I'm slowly getting over it. So I'm thinking of opening an instagram for my art. I tried discord servers but even if people are nice I don't really like interacting. I feel stupid, no one needs to know what I actually believe in.
No. 1186976
I contemplate committing "social media suicide" a lot but I can't actually bring myself to go into my accounts and wipe everything, kek
>>1186968I feel like there just needs to be a revival of the idea of ethics and etiquette but for the internet. Like, if you're a public facing person don't use an old Twitter account with racial slurs from ten years ago, or delete those posts, this should be common sense.
No. 1187323
File: 1652927487673.jpg (453.37 KB, 1242x1242, 1650469386198.jpg)
Two years ago my Insta was hacked and I never looked back. I'm only active on relatively anonymous social media like Twitter, Reddit, and private FB groups (e.g. fandom shitposting). It works for me just fine.
No. 1192084
blogpost but this was a nice writing prompt
I don't have social media because if I have it long enough, I end up sperging out, writing TMI, and then deleting in a fit of shame. I can't help it. If I have the text input long enough, I'm going to shit it up with something. So it's just less mental overhead to not have it. I was an obsessive SM user for a long time and I've had accounts on all the usual platforms, but I gradually faded out and quit all of them over the last three years.
It sucks currently bc I moved to a new city where I don't know anyone and I want to make a local friend. People here do that via FB events, but I really don't want to invest time in befriending people who use social media. The last thing I want to do is rejoin that hellsite and break my streak just to suffer some mouthbreather hawking an MLM at a meetup. I'm also not a mom which is an entirely other issue.
I'm also super fucking bad at keeping abreast of happenings in my friends lives. I hate appearing nosy or triggering tough conversations, so I avoid asking about big life things in general. Without SM, I usually miss the important life events they passively share with the world, and since I'm not like immediate family or whatever, I'm not important enough to inform personally. My not having SM is a chore to my peers. Any time I'm in a group of mutual friends, I need things that I missed explained to me. I'm inconvenient to know, despite being ridiculously easy to get in touch with.
No. 1192684
>>1192671I think posting appropriate photos of your kids online is fine on your (private) social media. Pedophiles have much easier methods of collecting and gathering photos of children and unfortunately I don’t think it’s a solvable issue. In general, the average parents best defense is just teaching your children good social media etiquette and having a transparent (albeit tough) convo about predators and grooming, creating a healthy environment for your child to share things with you, and making sure your child is appropriately dressed in public. Also not dumping every bit of your child’s info on fb. There’s an entire Russian forum just full of millions of photos of kids based upon age/looks/basically any weirdly specific category you can find and that makes me feel pretty sick in itself, but the odds of us being able to change that are just improbable.
I have a family member who is a junkie and has nauseated us with the photos she used to post of her kids on facebook—totally public and just full of half naked and bathtub pics of them. While as family and friends we know she didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just her blatant ignorance and disregard for her own childrens safety that pissed us off. She got her kids taken away several times if that says anything. I think some women are a level of paranoid that is crazy though, like women who think anyone looking at their child in target is pedo and/ or human trafficker etc. We can be vigilant for our kids without being Soren Hayes level of “oh my god he took the babies diaper off he’s going to fuck it” sort of thing.
No. 1198074
>>924767>>1187848Agreed. This is an excellent post.
I quit social media at the beginning of 2017. The anxiety it provoked wasn't worth it. It wasn't just the overstimulation of too much information and opinions, it was this weird feeling that I was constantly being judged or watched by followers. I felt irritated when I wasn't getting attention, but at the same time I would feel irritated when I did receive attention. The situation was irrational, unreasonable, and clouded by distorted thinking on my part. Like
>>924767 said, I don't think human communication has evolved for the scale of the internet, or its speed. It weirds me out when I hang out with people my age and they can't maintain focus on a project or a conversation, and they expect to get what they want immediately. (Granted, not everyone my age is like this but it's enough to be noticeable). It took time, but after I deleted social media I started to be more mindful about things. What I was doing, what I was saying, what was going on around me. Despite the fact I do things deliberately and slowly, I still have plenty of time in my day because it's devoid of social media.
I don't know what social media is going to be like 5 years from now, but I have trouble imagining it to be any less of a train-wreck than it is now.
No. 1200367
>>1199471I wouldn't save on the cloud, what if it gets leaked later down the road? I agree with
>>1200363, get an external hard drive and save them there. Or a USB flash drive, those are very durable and have gotten super cheap over the years. You can get 256GB drives for like $30 now.
No. 1200494
>>1198074Late but
>I felt irritated when I wasn't getting attention, but at the same time I would feel irritated when I did receive attention.is so true. A few years ago I participated in a few meme subreddits, and whenever I posted something I made I had horrible anxiety. Glad I stopped.
No. 1200500
>>1200386Posting pictures of yourself has been normalized for the past two decades, it sucks so bad.
>>1200365I hear if you make a paypal business account, your name doesn't show for the customer.
No. 1340465
File: 1663221002069.jpeg (26.82 KB, 640x487, received_1026213224697148.jpeg)
I reactivated my instagram because of some childish and stupid need for attention for my selfies and "aesthetic photos" (i.e. because I wanted people to think my life is better than it is). as soon as I reposted on it someone I thought was my friend unfollowed and softblocked me. it's retarded but it genuinely reduced me to tears and had me spiralling for days. I deleted the account again but I really played myself here. I could have happily lived without knowing that she disliked me that much.
No. 1340511
>>1340468nope but she is a terminally online person who thinks she's the face of ~academic twitter~ in my city kek
>>1340470she's been hanging around with a bpd psycho who doesn't like me because I won't stand for her shit. so I guess this person has been lying about me. I am just hurt because I thought she maybe had more of her wits about her. she had known me for years irl before she ever met this bpd narc
No. 1341741
>>1341653Same, how the most basic social media platforms work is already fucked In my opinion. The development of trends and Up-and downvote features as well as the requirement to make yourself recognizable substantially takes away from the free flow of the discourse and its potential. It causes extremely
problematic dynamics but no one wants to talk about the meta stuff because people are dumb and reflecting on this is not entertaining enough to them so they tend to seek their next little dopamine rushes and check back if someone liked their shitty hot take about x currently polarizing topic instead, rinse and repeat. It wouldn’t be an issue at all if all of that shit stayed in those online spaces, but it doesn’t. It seeps into the rest of the world and influences trends and political developments, even affecting the lifes of people who aren’t online at all or as much. Anonymous spaces are not immune to trend developments and stupid dynamics but if they have stable rules and moderation they provide a way better ground for and are actually stimulating unfiltered constructive discourse due to posts being judged by their content alone. I could doom about why social media is a curse forever. It’s a mess and I wish there would be more anon spaces or at least more non-profit oriented anon spaces with stable rules and a bit of moderation like no racebait rule on here. its absolutely necessary as almost all non profit platforms who didn’t want to do this due to muh free speech got flooded and claimed by stormfags and the likes the second they saw they can shill their shit ideologies there without getting banned.
>>1210677I swear this shit kills your attention span. Also
>being a twitterfag would probably warp them into the worst strawman stereotype of whatever they support. Sad but true, Twitters algorithm and trend dynamics is literally fostering the development of echo chambers and radicalization from the way it works at it’s core. It’s like looking at an artificial caricature of humanity where half of it is bots and marketing, an absolute cesspit. I truly believe we have to educate more about these problems as it will most likely become more relevant in our lives.
No. 1341775
>>1341741samefag adding to my post that social media is only useful for niche hobbies or art, almost everything that involves actual irl politics turns into a
toxic sludge the second it becomes of interest.
>Do you protect your image and data online? How?I don’t give as many fucks about that nowadays as I used to because I’m tired and boring and probably not very marketable and being profiled and having your metadata commercialized is hard to avoid nowadays. idgaf if someone knows which anime pictures I like but I always had the habit of using different aliases and mails for different accounts and refraining from using services that requires legitimate identifiable data that I do not absolutely need. Sorry that I sperg about this so much but it’s a topic that really bothers me. everytime I hear someone say “why should you be concerned with privacy when you have nothing to hide” I just want to facepalm and die because its not about that and such a dangerous and misleading take.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social media and how do you manage that?No and I would complain the hell out of it if it did.
No. 1343092
File: 1663595060132.jpg (68.26 KB, 850x693, sample-c45b957ee37b0da9cbf40af…)
I'm 28 with a pretty heavy offline job and every now and then I post my art online, I have notifications turned off on all mobiles apps so I only check Messenger and Whatsapp when I'm making the choice to because a few years back notifications and the pressure of needing to always be avaliable really ate away at me. I'm still social, meet with friends and have a loving relationship with my partner, but I keep things heavily offline. The only thing that is sometimes a bit awkward is when I post on art social media, I can't just say "Sorry I've been inactive for a year, my mother got cancer again" or, "Sorry I haven't posted much, I got really sick" so my general "I know I'm inactive" posts probably look flaky and vague but I don't want to air all my life and personal stuff online. I did as a teenager and it was so unhealthy.
No. 1348000
I'm on the verge of leaving all servers and unfollowing practically everyone who isn't family or an IRL friend. It's been chewing at me for a few days now for how much the instant-ness of social media affects my mental wellbeing. I don't want to be so connected this way. I want to use messages to briefly talk to a friend once a week at most and make plans to hang out, that's it.
I've condensed my Discord following down to 4 servers, one is just my own I may reset for me, my boyfriend, and our local friends to share things and just keep it as that.
How do you release that last part of your online friendships? Why is it so hard? I'll miss them for how many years I've known them for, but I understand these friendships are getting nowhere. No plans to meet, too expensive to do it with more than half the friends I have, so what's the point? I want to focus on real life. They are people I use to escape reality and I do not want that anymore. I want to go outside more. The friends I've made and meeting my boyfriend is helping me do more things, and he struggles with a social media presence too and it's great we're working on this together.
I've been too connected online since I was in middle school, it started on MySpace and random forums. At this point I'm tired.
I've told many people in my life I use social media as a diary, where I post and do minimal interaction with my friends, but even with that it still affects me a bit because I have a bit of a following; ~800 people on all social media with a follower count combined.
I only want to use the internet now to collect data and interesting information and watch random videos and look at funny images and listen to music and download games to play and use programs for productivity, but that's it. I want to go back to the old days.
Thankfully my job doesn't use social media, but I do have a side gig as a musician where we do local touring and the places use social media to promote us, but I might set aside time to promote us in real life, like hang up flyers at local businesses and light poles.
No. 1366274
>>1348000Updating; I have successfully stopped myself from posting more often on social media, but I've now circulated to here and other chan adjacent sites. I downloaded an app that sets timers for the apps and websites I visit. It seems to be doing a better job keeping me off the internet for longer especially since it can target specific websites for me to limit myself on browsing. I give myself 30 minutes a day to browse on lolcow so might as well make the most of it.
I've been journaling more too which I love, better than updating a private Twitter for my 5 friends to see.
No. 1452734
>>1452621THIS
If this doesn’t put you off from flaunting your ass on the internet I don’t know what will do. Or look into what women who got stalked and had shit they wanted to keep private leaked have to say.
No. 1456061
>>1452621NTA but I'm similar to this anon and I love cyberstalking. I just believe I'm not interesting or mentally ill enough for someone to try to dig deeper into my information, most of my info I can find under my name is outdated anyways. Even still, I feel immune from being trolled or becoming a cow. I just like saying random shit and regurgitating random trivia.
I'm already pretty offline, but I haven't gotten far enough to deleting my social media accounts, they're mostly there for archival purposes. Maybe i should just download my data and back it up to one of my 4 cloud drives if i want the nostalgia
No. 1466073
>>1366274Nonna, this and your previous message sound so similar to my situation. Though I'm not proceeding as far as you are, especially as I see this message of yours being from 3 months ago - I hope you're doing great wherever you are!
I've been glued to online things for almost 20 years, which makes detaching from social media so hard. I hate to see people not keeping in contact unless you are present there. I'm starting to think am I desperate enough to put up some paper letter ad on some local market for penpals but I don't want any scrotes' attention. Feels sad.
Something good has come from limiting online presence: I've reconnected with my family, and I aim to keep in contact with them more now on.
No. 1839225
It's a new year, I deleted some accounts. I have one email and the following accounts: pinterest (deactivated), discord (deactivated), reddit, and amino. I keep milling on whether I should delete my discord and amino since they are both used for a specific online community that I've grown out of. I only discovered imageboards about a year ago, I didn't post anywhere online until then. I like being mostly anonymous and not having to censor myself.
On another note, I think I want to start posting ~ anonymously ~ online on maybe a little blog, just as something to do. I wasn't around for the time on the internet where small spaces for fandoms, personal websites, forums, etc. were abundant. Maybe I could set up my own website but I'm pretty technologically illiterate.
No. 1839628
File: 1704426826695.png (1.34 MB, 630x849, tree.png)
Haven't had any social media at all in like a decade. I don't think there's any trace at all of me online and i only wished i was never part of it in the first place.
I was extremely against it from the start. I thought facebook was for retards when it was just starting out but eventually got convinced by friends after much peer pressure to join and i regreted it. I cringe thinking about my time as a user but i did let it fuck with my head and i was caught reacting and posting retarded bullshit that made me mad and eventually realized how much it was changing me.
Social media turns people into lolcows, i've seen the most sensible smart people i knew transitioning into histrionic buffons just from overexposure to social media, it is designed for that, it WILL bypass your defense mechanism and self control eventually and i wanted no more part in it.
Even people who have the normie profile where they don't post anything and never change their status and profile pictures are fucking getting wrecked just by browsing and lurking. Its a disease.
No. 1848797
>>1848561Whenever you feel the urge to browse social media pick up a pencil and a piece of paper and start drawing. You’ll thank me later when you end up being the next Kim Jung-gi.
If you don’t feel like drawing just do anything else. Literally anything else is better than scrolling on social media. Even watching longform slop on YouTube (I’m talking about those mass-produced video essays talking about inane shit) is better than going on Twitter or Instagram. You will eventually fill your days with something else when you realize the massive amount of time that gets freed up once you leave these platforms. I’ve wasted almost an entire day on Twitter today after a week of not going there and I can definitely feel the impact it had on my well being, and each time it happens I realize I could’ve completed the tasks I’ve been putting off for several days. Don’t be like this and think about the opportunity cost that comes from wasting hours on social media daily over a long enough period of time. You can always decide to stop.
No. 1848905
>>1848587I delete it and then I create another account. And I delete and create an new account. it’s a cycle for me, I know it and I hate it
>>1848570I know
>>1848797That’s my new years goals. So far, it’s nothing but lines and boxes. I’m much worse at faces than I thought
No. 1851553
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i realized that after using the unhook extension for yt + greyscaling my computer + a github yt shorts extension block + filling my time with good hobbies = i cannot stand even looking at youtube titles and thumbnails after not looking at them for so long, and also how little i truly actually care about the youtubers that were very much a big part of my life as a teen or as of now i'm close to saying goodbye to lolcow (except for the book recommendations thread) and instead just actually opening up about everything to my actual friends and making plans to hangout, but 100% lolcow is damn addicting to my hate watching and i have to work on that part of nyself that projects so fucking hard
I think the main reason why i am so ok with parting or avoiding social media is because i always filled my time with hobbies/knowledge i care about, also journalling for 3 pages every day helped a lot, dedicated long walk times, defaulting to airplane mode, minimalism and general self love
tips for people itt that want to quit
1) you'll make it more difficult to quit if you believe to be abnormal e.g. i thought talking to strangers was hard but its as easily saying "hi" and then listening then saying whatever, because you'll never see them again, or coding or math or anything under the sun, you will unconsciously make it hard for yourself if you do believe its hard yourself
2) fill time with actual good hobbies, no consumerist hobbies, hobbies with actual production and result which has to be there
3) dont be strict and vague about your time on the social media, troubleshooting for quick problems like reddit or YouTube is fine and warranted, anything for pleasure should be given a time slot beforehand (yesterday, or the morning of) of'x' minutes (even hours if its that bad) of 'x' social media what matters is that its slotted in and afterward you cannot check that site again
4) i highly recommend fumio sasaki's goodbye things, the julia Cameron's artists way and cal Newport's digital minimalism for further help (use annas-archive.org)
No. 1851633
>>1851553not really a socmed addict since i'm not on any platforms but i didn't even know that you can grayscale your pc! i just did that, thank you for the tip, nonna.
if you don't mind me asking, what hobbies did you pick up? everyone always recommends artsy hobbies but i'm genuinely bad at stuff like this. i like stuff like jigsaw puzzles, building legos and putting together furniture, but anything artistic or handicrafts is a nightmare for me. i even took several courses when i wanted to learn crocheting/knitting and pottery and the instructors are always disturbed because i seem to have the opposite of talent and i don't get better with practice at all.
No. 1851777
>>1851706thank you for the suggestions!! i love baking and i wanna try and challenge myself more starting this year, namely by trying to get into baking fancy cakes with layers and baking with yeast. there are a ton of cooking and baking courses available at my local community college so i might pick up some courses there.
sadly i live right in the middle of the city so i don't have a garden, but i just saw that there are bird feeders for windows and windowsills available. i'm gonna have to do some research of them..
No. 1851962
i love not having "classic" social media. i deleted my facebook and instagram a few years ago. i still browse pinterest and old reddit, but i don't really consider them to be social media in the classic sense because they're not attached to my name or image and especially since i can control/curate my experience and block ads.
i do sometimes get a bit of FOMO, feel a bit lonely, and occasionally feel a bit odd when i'm asked about not having social media, but then i'm so relieved by not having to deal with the petty, obsessive nonsense driven by social media. i don't think it's healthy to to have constant voyeuristic access to the personal information about each other social media presents to us. without social media, lolcows would likely be few and far between.
i think social media also encourages a lot of muddied and passive engagement that doesn't actually satisfy our human social needs. "liking" a post or viewing a story isn't really social interaction but we act like it is because it sparks off a little bit of dopamine in our brains. similarly, there's also the parasocial relationships that come into play on platforms like twitch and youtube. i think this is partially why so many young millennials and zoomers struggle with social anxiety and direct communication.
as i've grown older, i don't really feel a desire to share with people outside of my small, trusted circle. i've come to really understand the value of real life connection/interaction and protecting my mental peace. i really love not having products constantly shilled at me via ads and sponsorships. i love not having to see inflammatory content that exists solely as clickbait. i love not having updates from people who are no longer pertinent to my life in anyway beamed into my eyes and taking up valuable brain space.
i think the internet will always serve a utilitarian purpose, but i see social media falling off for the most part in the future. it will be perceived as a zany product of its time. i think there's already a trend of moving towards privacy-oriented products and i think that will continue especially as AI and data scraping continue to play more prominent roles in tech.
No. 1852015
I only ever use Instagram since 2021 because Facebook blocked my account because I dared to log in anywhere else than home (which is bullshit IP tracking) and they didn't validate me sending my ID to verify my identity and asked for other documents to confirm my identity instead, which they can keep up to a year (which is downright fucking creepy) so I decided not to comply because fuck that shit. I had a phase where I migrated to Twitter for six to nine months because I used to use it to criticize the Eurovision song contest, which was hilarious, but I hated the negativity of the platform in general. I don't use anything else than IG and WhatsApp to communicate with my family, friends, colleagues etc.
Otherwise I entertain myself watching YouTube on my TV screen, I sometimes crochet while watching things, or I play on my Switch lite. It doesn't bother me anymore to not have Facebook or Twitter feeds to check because nothing really new happens anyhow to the people I know. If it did, they'd call or write me, and they usually do if that's the case.
I wanna pick up more reading and finally empty my on hold stack of books, maybe go back to a reading on my way to work in the public transport and same to get back home, as well as go back for a weekly swim as well and some yoga.
No. 1852200
>>1851984>>1852076i only use pinterest with my friend
because we write rp together so we make boards for our ocs and ships but i never interact with anyone there so it never seemed like another socmed platform for me. then again, my friend can scroll it for hours while i scroll for five minutes, get bored and do something else.
No. 1906936
>>1906933Change your name
Or have you tried contacting Facebook? They might have to ask for your personal info but if you convince them they might help
No. 1906941
>>1906936>Change your nameI've seriously considered changing my surname because of facebook kek, it's funny because i had real life stalkers in the past but having anyone that knows me nowdays find out about that cringe is worse to me, but i don't think my country would let me change it so easily in general.
>contacting FacebookI've never done anything like that before but i thought to look into it, i'd be willing to give some information if it meant that they would get rid of that content but i don't think they would delete posts or photos of me others posted? God i hate it so much, wish it was more strict with minors at least
No. 1907563
>>1851962This post gave me so much comfort for some reason, I hope you are right that it will eventually fall off because I hate what social media.
I need to copy this and read it when I have moments of FOMO to remind myself not to go back lol
No. 1910847
>Are you anti social media? Why?
I am anti social media. I think social media ruined the world wide web. I think social media breeds a very specific type of person: closed-minded, ignorant, obsessive, and factitious. During Web 1.0, the internet functioned as a unique place in the real world, where one could visit, explore, and leave whenever one desired. Now, it feels like the internet is an omnipresent facet of the real world: an inescapable extension of reality that distorts truth. I don't like the fact that the internet is coalesced around ~4 major social media networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. They act as severe echo chambers for the worst groups of people, and actively contribute to ongoing social decay. The social media brainrot has affected all age demographics.
>Do you hate social media?
Yes, I hate social media. It is antithetical to my worldview. I dislike that people feel so free to discuss & disclose intimate & private parts of themselves. I want everyone to be farther apart, less neurotically open, and more polite to one another.
>Do you prefer anonymous websites and imageboards?
I like the anonymous website and imageboard lay out, but I also enjoy a proper forum dedicated to one thing. I like small forum websites centred around one topic or activity because sometimes it's fun to get to know different users instead of just being anonymous all the time, but at the same time only getting to know the online persona which I believe should be separate from the real life identity. I really hate that a lot of forum websites require an email login now: I miss the days when you could just create a username and password and then boom, you're in. Some websites even request your phone number at this point, which I find very annoying. I dislike the fact that many websites will turn around and sell your data to data farms for a small profit, which at best is a major inconvenience for the user and at worst, can endanger the user.
>Do you protect your image and data online? How?
I have never knowingly uploaded an image of my face onto the internet. My friends and family all know not to post photographs where my face is visible. I can't stop every photo of me from being posted online, but I try my hardest to never use my photograph under any circumstance. I also do not use my real name for anything besides Paypal. Even for minor things like Uber, Amazon, etc., I'll only use the initials of my name or a common alias. I don't have an uncommon name, but I'd still rather be known as Jane Doe to anybody outside my immediate circle. Trying to tell these things to people will often get a strange look from them, but I think in the era of non-privacy we have to be extremely vigilant in regards to what we put out into the world. I have two phone numbers as well, one is dedicated for my personal life, like friends and family, and the other is a number I'll only use in the context of online things or for one-offs. For example, if I want to give my number to someone I meet on a date, I'll give them my burner number until I can trust them enough to give them my personal number. I find it bizarre that so many people nonchalantly advertise their entire person onto the vast and wild internet.
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?
The only social media I use regularly is Tumblr and Discord. I don't mind Tumblr because I've been on there since 2012 and I have a pretty popular blog, plus I like the Tumblr culture for the most part. I like Discord as well to communicate with online friends just because I think it's the most versatile messaging app on the market right now. I dislike that Discord has somewhat superseded website-based forums because I worry about the longevity of a Discord as a platform and hate to think of all the great knowledge that will be lost when servers close. For emails I use a wide variety; for important communication I still prefer snail mail and I have a PO box to protect my housing information.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social media and how do you manage that?
No, and I refuse to use LinkedIn or anything like that on principle. I find it disingenuous to pretend to be a worker bee when I'm not one at heart. I have a few websites that I own and operate, some where I sell things, and even then I don't use my real name or information. I have an eBay store and a Fiverr account, but for both of those I use fake images of myself and fake names. I don't see the point in uploading a real photograph of myself when I can easily assume the "identity" of an AI-generated facial model.
No. 1910875
samefag
>>1910848
>Are you anti social media? Why?it was fun as a novelty thing, but now it’s gone too far. i am very against it seeing how it has affected people in real life, and myself. social media in its state now is too predatory
>Do you hate social media?i like how i can stay connected to people from around the world and make new friends, but i hate the algorithms, the ads, short form content, and the mindless scrolling. i hate the culture around it too. i feel pressured to have that perfect picture, to look fun and sociable, to not be a loser
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?highly. even though lolcow has some problems it’s amazing a place like this exists. no ads, no bullshit algorithms and actual people
>Do you protect your image and data online? How?as a teen no, i would regularly share my face on discord and tiktok for attention. i used to be really ugly and was bullied for my looks in real life. everything changed when i went through puberty, learned to apply makeup, and used filters. people started to call me pretty and follow me and i got addicted to it. i was in a online fashion community and would post my makeup and outfits. innocent enough i guess, but moids would send me weird sexual messages. i brushed it off at the time, but now i’m realizing how severe it was. nowadays those creepy moids don’t even have to harass you for nudes, they can just use ai for their own wicked benefits. i regret it all. i am trying to be more anonymous now
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?i spent too much time on my personal insta. i have a hidden account on twitter with no followers to post art and blogs. i like it alot because the algorithm is easier to control than insta and i don’t get short form content unless i seek it out
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social mefia and how do you manage that?no thank the lord
>>1910855>I was in middle school and I remember being so confused and off put by the whole idea of posting a picture of myself onlinethat was me at first, also in middle school. i first got the app because my friends did. i wouldn’t post my face. i would post my drawings, random things i did that day. it was like a digital journal and it was fun. then my classmates made fun of my account. i posted selfies like they did and tried to get validation. years later i am like this. i regret all of it. i think i will post my phone number just for close friends
No. 1911274
>>1907637this is how I felt when I went back on instagram. It used to be just the people I follow in my feed and now it's a bunch of random pages and ads and I hate it.
What I really hate is businesses that use facebook or instagram as their primary business web front or primary way of contacting them basically forcing you to get on social media to associate with them.
No. 1925010
>>1923932I hate the precedent it's set but I hope they ban Tiktok ASAP and demonetize any content heavily featuring children, like family vloggers. Kids are being exposed to torture, porn, and snuff videos on autoplay. They don't need to go looking for that shit, their parents put an ipad in front of their toddler's face with a Cocomelon playlist and someone will have edited the middle of the video to be graphic dog rape or whatever trannies are into these days. The constant shilling of plastic surgeons, whether it's for gendie uwu surgeries or regular plastic surgery, is fucking up kids' self-esteem and perception of beauty. Social media has destroyed kids' self-preservation instincts and respect for privacy, whether it's other people's or their own, so they can't tell the difference between filming Starbucks employees making drinks and filming themselves walking home after getting Starbucks. The pressure to share every facet of their existence online is destroying their mental health. Kids are being pressured into buying items that are completely inappropriate for their age, like retinol, because it's trending. Bullying is worse than ever now that kids can't even escape their bullies away from school.
Getting rid of Tiktok won't solve the problem, but it will absolutely slow down the rate at which this shit happens. Social media is a disease, but Tiktok is fucking smallpox. I can guarantee that whatever other shit site they all migrate to will be an improvement.
No. 1946651
File: 1712013414030.jpeg (92.66 KB, 349x1160, 1649398246511.jpeg)
>>1946549There seems to be a conception that because the internet is more normalized and publicized it's also become more sanitized. I have had this conversation with some former edgelord/shitposter friends who are now parents with children using the internet that have claimed things like that they are better at monitoring usage than our parents or that "things have changed" and fucked up content is harder to access.
In a way I think that is correct. I think it's harder for adults to stumble upon random gore/cp/etc without searching for it than it was in the late 90s/early 2000s. But youtube kids and children's sites are getting worse and worse in terms of predatory marketing, weirdly targeted algorithms, and exposure to pedophiles. it's all just more insidious and hidden now.
No. 1946707
>>1946668agreed. i feel like those of us who got exposed to the crazy early internet growing up are far more careful anout it than the normies. precsely because we rememeber the wild days where everytone tried to send you goatse and rotten.com and how easy it was to end up downloading a porno on limewire when you were looking up innocuous shit. there was also this "never reveal your name ionline or even mention any personal details" trend that ended up being quite a lifesaver.
otoh the ones that only the web for shit like favebook and blogs never got the proper healthy sense of paranoia we had
No. 1946799
File: 1712020913328.jpeg (79 KB, 750x826, IMG_3209.jpeg)
>>1946777because the corporate internet is far more presentable. tech corporations still doesn't have our best interest in mind, but they know how to present harmful shit in a convenient and palatable way.
like the anon above said, even ppl who grew up online in the wild days think the internet is safet now because it appears more sanitised. it's also harder to realise when you're being taken advantage of. people know how to spot gore but they don't know how an algorithm works, let alone the ways it can be harmful to them.
people are ready to accept a lot of extremely intrusive shit in the name of convenience.
our corporate overlords are very good at always shwing you the carrot (oooh cinvenient delivery app! smart doorbell! free babysitting with youtube) and never the stick (privacy is dead, you don't own your own appliances, your kids have attention disorders etc)
No. 1965016
I hope this will be of some help to Youtube addicted nonnas like I was. There is a Firefox extension (I think it's just called No Clickbait?) that essentially turns off custom thumbnails for youtube videos and only shows a frame from the video instead. I never had insta, facebook or tiktok but youtube i've been addicted to since i was 14 and this is what finally got me to kick it. Couple that with the grayscale filter (thanks
>>1851553) and Youtube is now wholly unappealing to me. Small victories.
No. 1965094
File: 1713199425726.jpg (385.14 KB, 1536x2048, IMG_2783.JPG)
>>1946707This. I still don't understand people who use their actual full legal name for their social media handles. These same idiots then get surprised when they get doxxed kek I think internet safety needs to make a huge comeback.
>>1946651>I think it's harder for adults to stumble upon random gore/cp/etc without searching for it than it was in the late 90s/early 2000s.I agree to a certain extent. I think now edgelords are finding a work around for this where they're making bait videos where the thumbnail will be something harmless like a meme, and the rest of it will be gore, porn, or CP. Even on tiktok I've heard of people getting actual gore videos on their FYP. It's insidious. Even on twitter I get recommended foul videos of women getting assaulted or something upsetting on my new account feed. I hate it. Total social media death
No. 1965222
I recommend Kagi search engine because you can block websites like TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. from appearing in search results. PocketTube because you can subscribe to any channel and add them into groups without being logged into YouTube ever and watch new videos from those groups in the phone app directly, which is great for curbing distractions (and gets rid of ads). It syncs between desktop and phone if you backup your settings and use Syncthing. Then you can block YouTube with e.g. Lock Me Out and put the password somewhere inconvenient or, if you choose the option, pay to recover it.
To block websites and apps on desktop, there's Cold Turkey Blocker, and the free version is excellent (and respects privacy more than others) but the paid version lets you schedule blocks for the whole week in advance and isn't a subscription. NewPipe for mobiles is a YouTube front-end with SponsorBlock built in and it has an option to change the names of clickbait titles or just outright hide similar videos, suggestions, Trending and What's New. I think it still sends your data to YouTube so if you're motivated by privacy then try LibreTube (in settings, disable Piped which is their proxy and use a VPN in general instead like Mullvad or Proton) or Invidious/Clipious. A read-it-later app is helpful for curbing distractions too, but I don't like Readwise Reader's fake nice privacy policy or team so I use Omnivore, which is free and has text-to-speech on iOS (whereas Reader has it everywhere and allows you to highlight on a webpage - these are my biggest tests of convenience vs. morals). This way you can't listen to music or anything else distracting while reading or go clicking around on other articles. brain.fm is another option if your brain has been fried by social media into needing two forms of stimuli at once but it's expensive. Possibly just download some nature sounds or add those chillout study stream channels to PocketTube (or the streams you want to a playlist in a front-end because I think videos from those play in the background).
No. 2060790
File: 1719124407366.png (119.57 KB, 275x270, best perfect most beautiful im…)
I never got interested in most major social media platforms. I've never had Instagram, FB, Twitter, or anything. I used to use Tumblr a lot as a teenager, but I don't browse it much anymore.
I've always liked to run small personal websites, but lately I've been getting into using smaller social media sites like SpaceHey. It's kind of like homage to MySpace, and I like that "style" of social media a lot more than the style used by major ones today.
I was wondering if anyone else is in a similar boat, where if you don't like most social media but you still use one in particular. If you know any small, newer social media websites, what do you think of them?
No. 2060871
>>2060790I used to have a Tumblr for random shitposting, but deleted it ~2017 when the pornpocalypse was a thing.
This probably doesn't count, but I still used Fakebook right up until 2019 when I cut ties with that cesspit of a platform. Will look into SpaceHey (already found some fun themes I might use)
>>1911282It's not just small businesses. As soon as Failbook became popular, everyone that previously used MSN or Geocities (RIP) was using it as free publicity for their fandoms, communities or whatever.
No. 2061326
>>2060871I'm made both posts you're responding to kek. Also please don't sage I love when this thread gets bumpedSpaceHey has been really fun for me so far, I've been using it for 4 months now. I really like the blog feature, it reminds me of a journal. I've made like 50 "friends" so far, mostly it's cool people that are nostalgic for MySpace. It makes me remember the early days of the internet, where you could get little glimpses of someones' life, not the whole thing in 4k. Two of my other "no social media" friends signed up for it too.
I also hate that FB centralized so many hobby and interest spaces previous occupied by dedicated forums or chat rooms. For me, the worst thing about Web 2.0 has been the centralization of the Internet. I get so bored hearing people talk about the same 6 websites all the time. I wish more small, limited, retro-themed (or whatever you wanna call it) social websites could begin to sprout and become more popular. It's not like I hate social media because it's
social, I hate it because of how the major players have shaped it into an all-encompassing overarching extension of material reality instead of just a fun virtual club to talk to friends.
No. 2061503
File: 1719176406096.jpg (45.71 KB, 720x540, lain.jpg)
>>605663For other anons that are social media free, I thought it would be fun to pose more discussion questions besides the ones mentioned in OP.
>Were you ever interested in social media? If so, when did your interest begin to wane?>How has your life changed since quitting social media?>Does being social media free affect you in your daily life?>What have been the worst consequences of widespread social media usage in society?>Is there a specific phenomenon that you particularly dislike that's prevalent on social media? If so, why?I'm always so happy when I meet people that are social media free, it's getting rarer and rarer. I dislike how much social media has changed the way we interact with each other, I can't go 15 minutes at work without someone referencing something they saw on Twitter or TikTok. It can be frustrating.
No. 2061762
File: 1719191328723.png (43.82 KB, 633x508, come on.png)
>>2061326my issue with spacehey is the userbase. Like everything about it is awesome and it gets me pretty excited considering the mods and devs are active themselves. HOWEVER the userbase is HORRIBLE it's all kweerio 14 year olds who found out what scene was from tiktok. If you go on the blogs page you'll see it's absolutely clogged up with little kids whining about trolls or whatever twitter discourse there is. I wish the userbase was older.
It'd be super cool if we could get some of the women here on spacehey though. I've been trying to get my friends into it but the userbase just turns them off. I'd love to see spacehey be more active
No. 2066946
>>2061503>Were you ever interested in social media? If so, when did your interest begin to wane?I think I missed the first social media boom of the early 2010s because I was an autist and couldn't understand why people wanted to share their face online kek, but I did get really into tumblr in 2012 and I later joined Instagram when I went to university to make connections. My interest started to wane when I realized that the social media sites are all just data mines and sell my identity for a few cents.
>How has your life changed since quitting social media?I think my life has improved, I was never using it that much to begin with but it feels so good to be "out of the loop," I don't have to pretend to care about the issue of the day and I don't have to be aware of petty drama that I don't care about.
>Does being social media free affect you in your daily life?The only real thing is that when I meet new people or make acquaintances, there's always some distance between us if they use social media and I don't. I've gotten a lot of surprised looks from people when I tell them I don't use it!
>>What have been the worst consequences of widespread social media usage in society?The blurring of personal boundaries. I don't wanna hear about anyone else's mental illness, and I don't want anyone to hear about mine. So many people act like their social media is a personal diary and it's completely fucked up interpersonal communication.
>Is there a specific phenomenon that you particularly dislike that's prevalent on social media? If so, why?This one is weird but I hate that a lot of people my age have forgotten how to use mail. I like email, it's really convenient, but I still send out 20-30 letters every month to various family members and friends because I think it's a good way to stay in touch. Letters are a lot more personal and it's easier for me to say how I feel when I write something down rather than speaking on the phone. My monthly letter exchange with my grandma is always a highlight of the month for me, I like printing photos and sending them to her to give her updates on my life. I like knowing that those photos are
just for her, nobody else gets to see them. I think more people should send mail, it's fun and it's a good pass time.
No. 2067418
File: 1719512533239.jpeg (931.66 KB, 1242x2232, IMG_4561.jpeg)
I hope this and the TikTok ban go through. I'm tired of pretending social media turned an entire generation into psychopaths
No. 2072928
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What are some online hobbies that aren't social media related? I'm honestly so sick of the main platforms and all the constant ragebait and political astroturfing. I miss the days of simple websites like Neopets and Gaiaonline and shit. I just want to waste time online without reading constant negative predatory shit pushed by algorithms.
No. 2072942
>>2072928Some of my online hobbies that aren't social media related are:
>WikipediaI'm just a data junkie. When I was younger, I would spend hours and hours on Wikipedia. I would search for an article I was interested in, and I'd read the whole thing and every time I saw a link to something I was interested in I'd open new window with the link. After I was done reading the first article, I'd go to the first window I opened and read through that and repeat the process. My family nicknamed me "Google" because I had so many random facts and knowledge on obscure topics.
>Create WebsitesI like to create websites in my spare time. Now that sites like Carrd and NeoCities are popular, it's easy to create a simple website about something you enjoy. I have websites like a diary, a social page (I give that out to people since I don't have social media), websites for topics I enjoy, etc., it costs me like $50 a year for all the domains but I have the money for it. I think it's fun being creative and designing webpages.
>MMORPGsI like playing online games a lot, it's fun to interact with people from around the globe. I like to play online games on servers that are older, and with the same frequent players over time. It's fun getting involved in online video game communities too.
Honestly, the big social media sites right now are all floundering because they're basically just personal data mines and ragebait factories. It's way more fun to surf the web and avoiding the big sites.
No. 2074099
>>2073367Yeah, I hate that Instagram has just become like a glorified Rolodex for everyone you meet. I've never used IG because I just don't like the idea of strangers knowing so much about me like that. A lot of people don't realize how easy it is to identify where a person lives or their schedules from social media, and that kind of freaks me out a bit!
>What do you include on that social page?Over the years I've gotten commissions for portraits of myself from various artists that I like, so I usually only have artwork of what I look like instead of actual pictures of myself on the site. On my social page I have information like my interests & hobbies, my favourite movies, books, and video games, my star signs, just so people can get to "know" me better if I've just met them, then I also have pages for recent movie and book reviews, usually I like to change my reviews every 3 or 4 weeks because it's fun to write reviews, and then I also have a guestbook for people to write down stuff in, a contact page that's linked to a burner email I use specifically for the site so people can reach me if they want, and then I also have a random thoughts page, sort of like a mini blog, where I post little spergouts every so often about topics that interest me or stuff that goes on in my life (e.g., my most recent was a post about how I make bread and how I do it).
Everyone's webpage will be different, obviously, but I find the perfect social page acts as a vehicle for someone to get to know you a
little bit more, but not
too much. It's fun designing a website for yourself because people won't just learn about you from what you write, but also how you design the page. I like that aspect of it.
No. 2074772
>Are you anti social media? Why?
Not really. It was fun as a way to see what friends were up to and to talk to them, in fact very important friendships on social medias but (second reply)
>Do you hate social media?
I hate it now. I hate that corporate internet fed us and younger people the lie that internet could be a job and now everyone runs after the coin by making "curated feeds" and "curated posts" and "family friendly ad friendly" fuck off I want to be able to say kys again
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?
Yes because on imageboards no one is after the clout so people can be raw and no one will actually doxx you over saying that you hate a fandom or some shit. Too much information is too much power on immature hands.
>Do you protect your image and data online? How?
I don't post my shit, simply. I use fake names and only tell irl people who I am, if they call me with my irl name on social media, I block them.
>What are your go-to accounts and emails, do you have any hidden ones?
A shitton, I use throwaways for stuff that mildly interests me and then I use one as a general trash bin for stuff like newsletters that I like.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social mefia and how do you manage that?
Yes because i work in the art and comic industry, people won't hire you if you don't have high numbers because they don't want to risk their money on stuff that couldn't potentially sell much to make up so I went around this by getting a normal job and building my own follower base online and sell my shit directly to them. No deadlines, no publishers, no rules about what I draw and write, no bosses, I'm fine like this and strongly advise everyone to do like this. Any job that requires social media following is a dead job and we should star shame them more.
No. 2098334
>No selfies ever
>Nobody else has pictures of me from at least the past ten years, I'm only in class photos or family ones kept at home.
>Had 1 Facebook in my real name but kept the privacy settings on maximum so that everyone who wasn't a personal irl friend saw it was empty, never used it except to make maybe a dozen boring posts in total then eventually deleted it
>Real name is never, ever connected to gaming accounts or anything else
Technically I do have accounts on other platforms, but I genuinely believe in spirit I've never used social media. Whatever subcultures or golden age they must have had, I've missed it all and don't care. Very rarely I have to log in for whatever reason and it all looks like an endless landscape of annoying billboards, or looking at the world's shittiest magazines, or walking across a town square full of schizos yelling and peddling nonsense. I'm shocked at how terrible the UI is for everything, it's very toylike and locked down as if I was told I'm going to be given my first computer and it's actually a smart tv.
>Do you preffer anonymous websites and imageboards?
Being anon encourages me to post more because anything I say doesn't hinge on my identity, just the content of the comment should stand on its own.
In fact, the more time passes, the more unappealing it gets. If I haven't made an online presence in over a decade, I don't see why I should start one now when the internet is full of normiesand garbage content that outweighs the things I initially came online for.
>Does your job, career choice or field of study require social mefia and how do you manage that?
My previous jobs didn't need a LinkedIn or anything like that but I'm afraid that in future I'll have to compromise. If I don't get hired for not having social media then I'll be glad to miss the job and if the background check actually has to be thorough then they already have the authority to go through the local police to check my non existent criminal background
No. 2107555
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You see what the internet has turned peoples brains into? It’s no longer Hmm, do I like this outfit or not? it’s now
> IS THIS GIVING LIZZE GRANT 2008 WHITE TRASH VYBES OR
No. 2325361
>>2325352In my visions, I've seen a resurgence of personal sites and a mass shunning of centralized or federated social media sites.
AI is a very temporary problem, it will be eradicated shortly. Most AI companies won't survive the coming economic hardships, they'll probably all be gone by 2030. Besides that, legislation will begin to target AI once something big happens. Politicians won't like the implication that AI has on the disinformation market.
I foresee a time in the very near future where various intranets will gain popularity and government support over the internet. More and more countries will adopt China's approach to the internet; that is, the majority of the population will be regulated to internal national sites and only the tech-savvy or worldly will know how to connect to the global internet.
No. 2328487
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I have never had a TikTok and never will. I've never actually seen a TikTok video or the app in its entirety until this past week. My sister showed me her TikTok feed and the longer it went on the more nervous it made me. It straight up gave me anxiety and I'm wondering what is wrong with people's brains to voluntarily consume this shit? The way the videos are sped up and the background music is edited to go faster than the original is extremely bizarre to me. Everything about TikTok just seems anxiety-inducing to me and specifically designed to give dopamine hits in the same way cocaine does. But just like cocaine it makes you feel like you're getting a lot done in a short amount of time when really you're just speedrunning your way through life without actually accomplishing jackshit. I won't get into the fact that the content being produced by TikTok users is dog shit and not even remotely entertaining, but that's more a matter of taste I guess. I'm just disturbed by the way TikTok and maybe also the internet in general has made people feel like everything needs to be done rapidly and at speeds which are not normal for human beings. Reality, in fact, is pretty slow in comparison to the speed of which we think and process information. I don't know where I'm going with this but I genuinely wish TikTok was destroyed, and also I think people should just sit by a lake and watch the pace at which the actual real world operates and maybe it will heal us to move and think at speeds which are normal for us and not the frantic abnormal speed of the internet.
No. 2328508
>>2328487>I've never actually seen a TikTok video or the app in its entirety until this past week. I wish I were you. I've never made a tiktok account and never will but people repost tiktok video everywhere and all the time. I can avoid that on twitter and bluesky but at some point the fyp on twitter was so shit I was recommended a lot of unfunny videos in there. I deleted my instagram account because of how the explore page kept recommending me reposted tiktok videos. But my family members show me videos irl, just shove their phones in front of my eyes and scream "look, isn't it funny? it's sooo funny! haha!" until I have to physically push them away from me.
>I'm just disturbed by the way TikTok and maybe also the internet in general has made people feel like everything needs to be done rapidly and at speeds which are not normal for human beings. It made me believe that there was a time limit for videos on tiktok like on Vine for the longest time until I started seeing people repost 2 or 3 minutes long videos on twitter.
No. 2367000
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I still technically have the account but I wiped my instagram and logged out and deleted the app. I kept waiting for particular friends to reach out to me and they never did unless they were being nosy and would ghost me again. I was always so anxious opening the app when I had a message, always wondering if it was them but it never is. Unfollowing them and then them asking to follow me again only to literally not even say hey but to just lurk, that was the last straw. That was my final piece of social media that was tied to me and my name personally, good riddance to them all. If anyone really wants to reach out they have my number, I’m tired of the games we’re adults.
No. 2367066
>>2367005>i can’t look at any social media accounts and see anything but a performanceagreed. i was on the old web way before the dawn of social media so i never gelled with it because it constantly feel like you're being "sold" something, even if that something is an idea. i've hardly used social media over the years, and when i did it was very clear that people post very performatively. i feel the whole thing has brainwashed people who have unhealthy relationships with the need for validation that their love for "number go up" makes it harder for them to see what's in front of them. so they end up seeing the world through the lens of "how can i use this as a prop to boost myself up". it extends to seeing family members, friends, children, and random unconsenting strangers as props for their posts.
i drove by several clusters of random girls in crop tops in the winter who were posing in front of mountain ranges and i genuinely wondered if they ever stopped to admire the beauty of the nature around them or, if they unfortunately just see everything as a set and background as if their life is one big instagram reel/movie. i was genuinely just there only to admire the mountains so it really irked me
No. 2367723
>>2367005And this is why I can't stand people that use social media excessively. I get why some people have social media: it's easy to connect with distant family, to keep in touch with friends, it's socially expected, etc., so even if it's not for me I won't hate on people that have a social media account. But I just cannot stand people that use social media every day all day, constantly posting. I've ended several friendships because of this. My biggest grip is that they can never actually live in the moment. They are only focused on how others view them and their life.
Once, I got invited to a party, when I showed up, EVERYONE was on their cellphones. There was just 15 or so people in a room together drinking, while being completely silent and scrolling through their phones. I ended up staying for less than 30 minutes because every time I tried to talk to someone, they'd give me a one word answer without looking up from their phone. The only time I saw people interacting was when they got up to take photos with each other to post on their social media profiles. My friend showed me a few of their stories the next day, and if you hadn't been there you would swear that they were having the time of their lives getting up to all this crazy shit you'd see in movies, when in reality it was so lame and boring.
No. 2408604
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quit social media and made a blog to type about my day. no 280 text limit is so freeing
No. 2420231
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going to bite the bullet and delete my instagram today, I plan on doing facebook too but I need to archive my photos first. it's actually so fucking crazy that I have so many important life moments growing up that are only posted on facebook by me/family. makes me sick to think about tbh
No. 2503290
>>2503276Idk I just can't imagine being that retarded. I'm not even that smart but to fall
victim to social media addiction is next level retardation. At least people that are addicted to crack do it because crack makes them feel good.