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in early 2022, i had somewhat of a menty b and abandoned my tumblr, which i used for like 12 years. watching tumblr go from toxic to wholesome and self-aware** and then back to toxic over the years made my eye twitch. "not this shit again." so i stopped doomscrolling and i stopped posting on social media, save for a few very rare and random occasions. my instagram became an instrument solely for the purpose of sending my partner memes and saving craft project ideas.
2022, 2023, and now 2024 have passed. my life did not get easier, especially this past year when i lost a friend to cancer, had my job nuked by my state government, and everything else that made 2024 in america particularly trash. i also exist in a marginalized body so there's no real way of escaping constant news of doom. my aversion to living any aspect of my life with an online audience of strangers only grew. seeing people i once knew become addicted to shame because the internet rewards it was particularly disheartening. watching those people become indoctrinated in real time made me feel really hopeless.
so as much as i hate the idea of self-surveilling, i had to admit to myself that i have a lot to give, a lot to share. from all the reading i've done on the human condition in the past 3 years, it seems the only way to combat hopelessness is to share meaning with others. i'm still mostly going to do that offline, but i was happy to find that a platform such as pi.fyi exists because i hate algorithms and people sharing what they like with others is so human.
my corn mittens post getting so much love (tysm btw) made me feel very human, but also kind of sick from all the dopamine hitting my underprepared brain. overall, a great experience posting anything for the first time in years.
**in terms of tumblr, i mean. i realize this is not everyone's experience.
2022, 2023, and now 2024 have passed. my life did not get easier, especially this past year when i lost a friend to cancer, had my job nuked by my state government, and everything else that made 2024 in america particularly trash. i also exist in a marginalized body so there's no real way of escaping constant news of doom. my aversion to living any aspect of my life with an online audience of strangers only grew. seeing people i once knew become addicted to shame because the internet rewards it was particularly disheartening. watching those people become indoctrinated in real time made me feel really hopeless.
so as much as i hate the idea of self-surveilling, i had to admit to myself that i have a lot to give, a lot to share. from all the reading i've done on the human condition in the past 3 years, it seems the only way to combat hopelessness is to share meaning with others. i'm still mostly going to do that offline, but i was happy to find that a platform such as pi.fyi exists because i hate algorithms and people sharing what they like with others is so human.
my corn mittens post getting so much love (tysm btw) made me feel very human, but also kind of sick from all the dopamine hitting my underprepared brain. overall, a great experience posting anything for the first time in years.
**in terms of tumblr, i mean. i realize this is not everyone's experience.
Dec 19, 2024
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📱Went cold-turkey off IG/FB a couple months back and had already ditched Twitter a couple years ago. It was a weird switch at first (especially IG). There are just some people I'm probably never going to be in contact with again, and for others, I won't have passive daily updates on their lives. Honestly, I think that's normal. It's just not the cultural norm. There are definitely things I miss and events I don't know about, but I'm still filling my life with great things and am just texting people instead. This place has effectively been a public gratitude journal, and Bluesky is where I can still toss unhinged takes into the void as well as get my news. As with most millennials, I'm admittedly still wired to seek validation from people on the internet, but cutting out an algorithmic-driven life has been so much better for my mental health. The more I learn about the perils of big tech, the more I wish people in my life felt empowered to do the same, but I get that people have complex relationships with the big platforms.
Edit: I guess I also have Substack, but the 'social' aspects of it are so unappealing, I hardly ever look at it.
Edit: I guess I also have Substack, but the 'social' aspects of it are so unappealing, I hardly ever look at it.
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🌻I’m going through the same thought process right now. My twitter/x has been long gone, I’ve gotten rid of meta, and frankly if tik tok comes back purchased/changed/etc. I will no longer be using it either. So for me I’ve done a few things: I’ve made new social media on healthier apps (which sounds counterintuitive to less social media but hear me out). I made a Pixelfed and it’s like the old old instagram. No ads, no distractions taking you to new links, no memes unless someone happens to post one on their personal account. It’s literally just people organically posting pictures of things they like from their breakfast to the view of their nature walk. Because it’s so simple again, I don’t really think there’s room for doomscrolling. This is me if you want to see what I mean!
Next: I use Bluesky partially to see some goings-on in the world to keep up to date, I went to the library of congress website and specifically subscribed to their email newsletters on bills being introduced and news in congress to stay up to date, and I’m vetting some news sources looking for something more objective and reliable to start reading from.
Also: a while back I got some digital cameras like I had when I was a kid for nostalgia reasons but now they’re coming in handy. I’m transitioning to using a flip phone! You don’t have to go this extreme but honestly I’m excited for it. I’ll have a flip phone so not everything will be so convenient and at the touch of my fingers, so I hope that my internet usage will become much more intentional. I’ll be leaving only a few apps on my smart phone, music, reading, this app and pixelfed for periodic social interaction lol, and that’s all I can think of right now. I’ll essentially be taking the SIM card out and using my smart phone as a wifi connected ipod lol.
My goal is to get back into my hobbies! Reading, sewing clothing, knitting, painting, being outdoors, gardening. I’ll communicate more intentionally with family and friends and not just through sending memes. I won’t doomscroll for hours and then feel bad that I wasted the day away. A lot of the sinister stuff going on between social media monopolies and the government recently is making the transition even easier. It’ll be hard at first because you’ll be so used to reaching for something to do for some instant gratification or stimulation, etc. but it’ll be so overall rewarding in the long run! Good luck❤️
Next: I use Bluesky partially to see some goings-on in the world to keep up to date, I went to the library of congress website and specifically subscribed to their email newsletters on bills being introduced and news in congress to stay up to date, and I’m vetting some news sources looking for something more objective and reliable to start reading from.
Also: a while back I got some digital cameras like I had when I was a kid for nostalgia reasons but now they’re coming in handy. I’m transitioning to using a flip phone! You don’t have to go this extreme but honestly I’m excited for it. I’ll have a flip phone so not everything will be so convenient and at the touch of my fingers, so I hope that my internet usage will become much more intentional. I’ll be leaving only a few apps on my smart phone, music, reading, this app and pixelfed for periodic social interaction lol, and that’s all I can think of right now. I’ll essentially be taking the SIM card out and using my smart phone as a wifi connected ipod lol.
My goal is to get back into my hobbies! Reading, sewing clothing, knitting, painting, being outdoors, gardening. I’ll communicate more intentionally with family and friends and not just through sending memes. I won’t doomscroll for hours and then feel bad that I wasted the day away. A lot of the sinister stuff going on between social media monopolies and the government recently is making the transition even easier. It’ll be hard at first because you’ll be so used to reaching for something to do for some instant gratification or stimulation, etc. but it’ll be so overall rewarding in the long run! Good luck❤️
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🚨I'd love to get to a point where the we as the internet have "freedom" again. Escapism isn't the same anymore. And the whole concept of posting what yr liking at the moment feels pretty good to me. No strings attached. No traction facets.. . Fuck being yr own product under the guise of free-ness!. fuck adverts and targeted messages. fuck endangering minorities bc of the absolute polarization and inability to critically think bc of these posts that are so curated to either keep bigots stuck in that way of thinking or to pokepokepoke at those totally against it. conditioning us to be intolerant, to have less conversations. fuck being exhausted from being bombarded with emotionally manipulative algorithmz every corner and crevice it seems. taking away from the actual anger we have towards capitalism, institutionz and unethical big monie data mining FUCKS ruining the environment and exploiting us. #Instagram is experimenting on our biology... EMDR style with reels... sounds kind of conspiratorial but they've done this before in different wayz.. meta has all the power to further their psycho-tech-bio-warfare. #Perfectlyimperfect feels like a post-myspace somewhat, a more accessible tumblr... but it's it's own thing, a new thing, and i'm excited!! lets hug and hold eachothers hands as we try to unravel this mess .... #artandcommunitywillprosper
4d ago
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