Ranty Rawi ... Me and social media and what drives me away from them

Lately the mood of online social spaces brought up a thought of my road throughout all the spaces I've been in and what drove me away. And weirdly enough, it wasn't the the incompetent, autocratic, self-serving leadership. Those may have provided the final push but the build-up to that step was something else. What was it? Let's see:

Now things get interesting:

There's a very old picture I saw once that was poking fun at various internet spaces and Reddit in there was described as “Stupid people pretending to be smart” and sadly, it's one of those cases of “stereotypes are based on facts” (that of course doesn't make them good or harmless). So no, it wasn't the “Reddit pulled the rampant capitalism” thing with ts API that got me out, it was the atmosphere above. And mind you, I'm far more of a passive actor rather than the super talkative one (this will become important later). * BlueSky: Now we enter the era of when I actually started taking my online presence more seriously. Those who have been following my journey know I was both on Mastodon and Bluesky, the latter which I eventually stopped using although I haven’t left fully yet (although I doubt I’ll come back there as the place burns brighter than Betelgeuse). What got me out of there? Well, let’s see: * Inability to properly self-moderate (seriously, you give people the moderation tools and they proceed not to use them; granted, it’s not a great approach to moderation either as it’s more of shifting the responsibility but at the same time it doesn’t really paint a good picture about those who scream “we can handle ourselves”) * Directionless, paralysing, unsubstantiated rage mixed in with doomerism (like, holy shit that place can be so dark it makes the goth culture look like the most colourful circus) * Inability to respect boundaries (goes hand in hand with the first point and is especially present in my dear fandom; there’s a reason why the “furries are the biggest haters of furries” exists and the disrespect towards personal boundaries is one of them) * (This one’s mostly personal) Exposure to “my people” (as you know, I’m at consistent odds with my place of birth and living and what drives me to bestial rage is the “liberal whiteness” of people here; trust me, I’d happily join in if someone came here and punched that stupidity out of my kin)

Now add to this BlueSky becoming the “Twitter 2.0” just more quickly and you have many reasons to never touch the place with a ten-feet pole. For me personally the place also fails the “Casual furry exposure test” = if the place can’t handle you at your weird (note, weird not boundary-disrespecting and personal-space-invading) then it’s not a place you want to be in. * Mastodon: Finally, we arrive to my current “online home” which honestly took me a bit to settle in. The initial anxiety wasn’t exactly due to me being bad at social things (I’m techie so of course my social skills are shit and will be my life-long “ticket” to work on) but the perceived inconsistency and sometimes overzealous enforcement of rules (the term “Mastodon HOA” exists for a reason). Personally, I wasn’t affected by it because as it turns out, people in general have some sense of moderation and won’t kick your face in for a small transgression (and those who do aren’t your people in the first place). The only warning that came my way was after years me being around, it was very warranted and it wasn’t even for me being really harsh in the post (I just forgot about a CW in the heat of the moment).

With all that said, I don’t just stick to my home and venture to the wider network as well, even going into places I don’t have to. Why, you ask? To get the overall feel of the place because that feel will inevitable seep into the home place too. And frankly, I don’t like what I’m seeing. Now, the feeling is skewed by the events unfolding at the time of writing but I’m noticing “the Reddit pattern” with some other things added up in the wider network: * Directionless, paralysing, unsubstantiated rage * Delusional sense of superior competence (which is harder to break due to the nature of the network) * Unwillingness to discussion when the talk was indeed in good faith (the automatic “you don't agree = you're the enemy”; it’s less present there since it’s largely coming from bad actors but there are moments which do raise questions) * Sense of “benign superiority” (it’s still supremacist, even if it doesn’t seemingly hurt anyone) * Interest in “being right” rather than “doing something better” (And I mean better; equal isn’t enough)

The thing I’m talking about here is the wider space is feeling like it’s creating “anxious safety” — the place is safe because the people who are familiar with it already know the rules and the new people are quiet because they’re too afraid to break them. Occasionally someone manages to get through but to do it can come at a cost: they need to adapt in a way that suppresses and might even erase part of their personality without an improvement if there was a bad trait present. This has two massive negatives: It makes the place unsafe for those who are already “othered” and are looking for safety and it gives ammunition to bad actors to break the space apart. It effectively creates an online equivalent of the suburb where all the houses look the same, with the same fences and with the suburb walled off from the outside world. Which is mildly ironic considering the wider network consists more of people (at least I believe that’s a thing) who would get utterly repulsed by such image.

I personally have experienced people stepping out of the network who didn’t really do anything wrong. Hell, I’ve seen instances of people being decent and only providing their voice and showing no bad faith to be hammered by people more radical in their stance. I hate to say it but that’s not what a safe space looks like. That’s very much how you get people to leave. And I don’t mean bad actors, those should be kicked in the arse on their way out. I mean people who are indeed decent folks that do no harm but get absolutely tired of having nails thrown under their feet for “not doing enough”. Mastodon tends to be guilty of that. Not too often or at least many instances of this evade my eyes (I’m not terminally online) but it’s there and it doesn’t bode well. Yes, many of you are terrified. Many of you are in survival mode (myself included even though it doesn’t look that way). But none of that warrants the use of your views and your pain as hammer to bash everyone around you. We already have enough people like this in power; the kind who use their faith/ideas etc. to bash everyone (sometimes to a fatal end) who doesn’t agree with them.

So please, instead of lashing out, look for ways forward. Step down from the pedestal of “being morally on the right side” and examine whether it’s actually true. And I mean examine, not just superficially think about it. Don’t shut yourself away from disagreement. I’m not saying engage with bad actors (fuck no, preserve your sanity) but don’t immediately assume malice where there might be a hint of curiosity. Discussions aren’t binary and never will be in a healthy environment. Look into the history. Every time there were only two sides, things weren’t in a good shape. Things are never purely black and white. They’re also not perfectly middle grey either (that’s for those who want to scream “CENTRIST!”). The things can however be many shades of grey between the two. Sometimes just a smidge off white, other times almost black but not quite. Whatever it may be, it shouldn’t be so white that it blinds you with its brightness nor so black that you can’t see any other way.

In the end, what am I trying to say? That it’s not the whims of the owners of the platform that are the driving force for people leaving. It’s the atmosphere in general that contributes to that drive the most. The former can be a major force to commit to the step but every plan requires a build-up of which you might be a part of without knowing so.

R.R.A.