Tag: Social Media

February 4, 2023

Everything requires a disclaimer

Unfortunately, things are made by people. People have the tendency to live for quite some time and go through several iterations of being while existing. This, combined with the fact that nearly all 8 billion of us are now permanently connected through a series of tubes, results in everything having the potential of being tainted forever.

Everything requires a disclaimer now.

So, you enjoyed watching Seinfeld? Did you know that one of the actors had a weird racist breakdown live on stage? Oh, you’re looking forward to what seems to be the best Harry Potter game ever? Please keep in mind that the original author of the books is transphobic! You’re enjoying the wrong thing! Please be entertained by products made by, with and based on less flawed people!

These things are wrong and absolutely worth criticising. No doubt.

However, I wonder if the dynamic of always watching out for the next bad thing, being on edge because everything has the possibility of being tainted, never being able to enjoy something for what it is, because it has to be dissected on a socioecological level, does something to us.

There must be a cost to always having to watch your back in case you’re enjoying something a little too much that others feel should not be enjoyed anymore. I don’t think that’s helpful for anyones mental health.

Not criticising wrong behaviour is obviously not the solution. Attacking ourselves and everyone else all the time, because things are made by people and people are inherently flawed, doesn’t seem like the way to a content life either.

I don’t know.

It’s complicated.

February 1, 2023

The negativity loop

After leaving social media for over a year, I realized that one of the worst aspects of it is that it rewards you for being negative. Every complaint, gripe and grumble can be a piece of content. Complaining about something makes you look and feel like someone who knows better.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. You complain about something, people agree with you and you feel good. Since there’s always something to complain about, we’re all sitting on a cornucopia of hot takes that we can help ourselves to endlessly.

I’ve been there myself. Now that I’m back on (parts of) social media, I’m actively trying to be more positive, constructive and understanding. Shouting never-ending criticism into an endless void of an approving audience doesn’t cut it anymore. Neither as an author, nor as a consumer of such content.

November 18, 2022

How to choose the right Mastodon server without being a huge nerd

Here’s a bit of tough love, bear with me: Stop thinking of yourself as somebody who doesn’t understand Mastodon. You’re better than that. This negative self-talk doesn’t help with anything. It’s not so hard, you just need to keep an open mind. Let me tell you what you need to know without forcing you to read words like “federation”.

TL;DR: Mastodon is like Twitter, the only thing that’s slightly confusing is the fact that you need to choose a server first. Choose a server, follow your friends (it doesn’t matter on which server they are) and soon you’ll have a timeline full of roughly tweet length content you can scroll through. Easy.

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