Social Media Refresh

[olivermoss]

Time to do some housekeeping on my online life

* DW is good. I wish more people were here, but what can you do? Some people who are not me have posted to tranmediaclub, but every other comm I've started was just a drain at best.

* Twitter is now something to check maybe once a week until I transition off of it

* Pinterest! I am doing two Skillshare classes on finding your style and an assignment in one was to make four pinboards. A lot of artists use Pinterest to refine style and for other good purposes.

I hate it. I don't get how to use it good. My searches were filled with mis-tagged images. I wanted to put some Denali images on my Experiences board and got a lot of inspirational quotes and pictures of other national parks.

Also, I can't do some of the boards the class calls for without compromising my privacy. I tried a few times to make a new account and it was all 'we know you, you're Rathany!' and just sent me password resets for that account. You can have private boards, but what you pin is still public under 'all pins' and maybe some other ways too. So I did the assignment by making image folders on my computer instead.

* Masto- Nope. Not even going to bother typing it out or explaining why

* TikTok. Um, I don't know what I'd do there. My content is not right for the site. No creators I follow are there. It's so big that there probably is some corner of it that I'd love, but I don't know enough about the site to know what or what search terms to use.

* Tumblr- Should I make a photography sideblog in the year of our lord twenty twenty two? Back in the day Tumblr was huge for photography! But it's so hard to get a new account enough traction to even get seen on tags.

I am not currently planning to do this, but I might take a whack at it when I have less on my plate.

* Reddit - I really need to be using reddit to drive traffic to my website more, especially with the changes in how people are searching for stuff. I am just bad at this.

* Facebook! I hate that I am on FB. I was off of it completely for years. But, when I wasn't using it I missed out on a lot of social and professional opportunities. FB is where to find out about my local brewery doing a watercolor class, especially if I am going to stay off twitter. For seeing people in meatspace, this is a place I need to be.

I am sure there are FB I'd love to be in, but just don't know about them.

So, the upshot of all this is not much. The internet I am looking for does not exist in 2022. At least I have DW, my personal site and highly entertaining long-form video essays.

I should stop spending brain cells on this and get back to my pins project.

Comments

[writedragon]

Oh I feel this. I use FB for groups and to have a contact with some people I'd otherwise lose completely. The trick there is to friend but not follow so your feed stays clean and curated. Wish I could leave but it's the Hotel California of sites.

I am a tumblr old. I stay on there now mostly for the memes and out of sheer chaotic spite (and the occasional flurry of activity from fandoms once thought dead -- can you say Quantum Leap?).

Good luck out there and enjoy your pins project.

[olivermoss]

I was off of FB for years, and that hurt me a lot more than it hurt the site. We live in a society, I guess. Also, it's good for local events and stuff and hopefully going out and doing things will happening this spring!

Tumblr restored sort by new and that is so useful for small fandoms. Oh, isn't Quantum Leap getting a reboot soon? That'll be interesting

[mistressofmuses]

The feeling of not really having the internet you want available to you is a familiar one. :/

I... do not like pinterest. I've gone on there a few times to look for stuff, but it is truly almost all stolen and mislabeled images (as far as I've seen). It's one of the worst sites out there for correct information or proper credits, and it is constantly frustrating that so many things point back to there. I know a lot of people use it for image boards and can find a lot of interesting things on there... but while there IS a broad range of cool images, I can't get over how poorly much of it is attributed.

I've never managed even a tiny tumblr following, but I'm happy with the many people I do follow, so I enjoy that aspect of it. (There is zero surprise regarding not having a following, as I don't create any content there.)

FB is the only way to keep up with some distant family and vague acquaintances, as well as local groups and niche hobby stuff.

DW is my fave and at least the closest to the type of internet I do want... and it seems like there's at least a slow trickle of people interested in it. But I don't know how much it will truly grow. I'm sorry communities are a struggle to keep going - I know I struggle to remember to share things to comms, even when I have good intentions to do so!

[olivermoss]

I have done a few tumblrs over the years and even tried to have a photography one. My photo blog could never get that tiny bit of traction it needed to start showing in results. That first bit of traction is often a problem for me.

I had one successful blog on tumblr that laid out twitter convos between creators. This is back before it was easy to follow/read convos on twitter. But then a more established blog scooped up all my content and reposted it. Having more of a base, the the content blew up there.

Yeah, DW is what I like it's just... Well, at least snowflake and sunshine challenges are great.

[mistressofmuses]

I've got a couple sideblogs that *also* never went anywhere. It does seem to be very arbitrary at times when it comes to getting any traction at all. The handful of times I did make attempts to post original content, it never seemed to come up in the tags. Once you get that foothold, it seems easier to keep it, but getting over that initial hill is a struggle.

Uuuuugh, I know you've mentioned having your shit stolen before, and that's just so fucking garbage!

I feel like I see more and more talk from people who "miss the old internet", but that's probably very much a self-selected group on my part, haha. I do think DW could scratch an itch that some people don't realize they have. I wish all the people who said they wish DW were more active would be more active on DW, heh. Snowflake is always fun, and I should probably give Sunshine a try.

[olivermoss]

My posts got stolen, but it was mostly reformatting things for tumblr so it's not nearly as bad as the other things. Still sucks that that someone did so much with my efforts.

You kinda already need to be connected on some sites to get traction going. Sadly, I know too many people who think it would tarnish their souls to like things to get me that start I need. Heck, a bit reason why the photography magazine I wrote for a while is gone is that no one would do the social media things I told them to do. It was all Quora and stuff, nothing that would even impact their private, personal social accounts.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, at least that's not as bad as having your creative work stolen. That doesn't make it okay, and it's still garbage that someone else profited (even just in terms of popularity and attention) from your work.

It's true. People are really weird about social media stuff! Even when it comes to relatively low-effort things that can help, people balk and I don't always get why.