Goldkin @Goldkin@awoo.space

I have been doing a lot of dark reading lately on social media, which coincidentally, is why I've been so scarce. I've been revisiting my relationship with how I post online and what sources of media I consume, in the context of troll armies and other afflictions over on birdsite and its brethren.

In that context, I ran across this book: https://www.amazon.com/Messing-Enemy-Clint-Watts-ebook/dp/B072HLRW6Y. While provocative and redundant in its narrative, it provides a fair summary of what's happening to online social fora.

Hi, I’m Goldkin, and I dramatically overthink this kind of thing when it’s okay to just be a person.

In a nutshell: the concept that everything I say, even in direct communication, may feature in public aggregation, without context, has substantially chilled my speech.

That is something that _does not happen_ in privately maintained Masto instances (in fact, it’s one of the main benefits of the platform). But I constantly need to remind myself of that, and that it’s okay to have frivolous conversations again, without expecting it to train algorithms on my behavior.

So I’ve been deviling with a more substantive post to explain why I’ve been so quiet and sparse on replies. Some of that is personal, and some other part of that is wrapped up in keeping my antenna up while watching the second season of Watergate in uspol (ugh, ugh, ugh).

But there’s this other bucket of stuff best described as having been trained by birdsite, most notably “likes are shares” and “polls are marketing data”. And it’s led to habits I need to reprogram.

Traediras did a super cool thing for me (as part of a commission), and I feel the need to share it:
https://awoo.space/media/PtO3OtwUUoSigy-J5nY

Also, can anyone following here recommend a good crosspost tool that can manage multiple Masto instances (+ birdsite)?

Bitlbee is good for reading in plain text, and Amaroq is good for mobile, but neither do multimedia crossposts.

I am still around in lurker mode. Low emotional energy from unconnected life things has kept me in mostly read-only mode. But general reminder that I am still around and okay.

I finally had a chance to upgrade my home server, and in doing so, gave Mastodon-in-IRC a try (via Bitlbee). It’s not complete, but it’s a good reminder that plain text remains a good presentation model for social.

It also sorts birdsite by time when I point it there, which at this point feels like cheating.

I am still around. I’m working on smaller art projects and personal things. I’ve also been teaching myself how to PSVR to play the silly FFXV fishing game. They’ve helped.

The world has been hard for me to take lately, and I’ve had trouble communicating past long screeds of internalized anxiety. Pardon that this makes me distant; I’m trying my best.

I hope things are good in your corner of the world, the orthocosm, and your chosen corners of pocket reality. I’m rooting for you. 💖

My Skype was briefly compromised. I flipped its credentials and set it to closed, but if you received a dubious link from me, don’t click.

Interestingly, they may be suffering an incident, so if your account also gets popped, here’s some info: https://twitter.com/goldkin/status/969851164878553088

This is possibly the most important essay I’ve read in the past year (as in 365 days): http://www.rookiemag.com/2018/01/editors-letter-75/

I guess that’s more of a vent than a hot take. Eh.

I think I’m going to go back to doodling cutes while puzzling over Opus Magnum to take my mind off of difficult things.

I am also kind of incredibly thankful for everyone that tolerated me while I went through the bad parts over a year ago.

The penance arc the mind puts you through after leaving a group, where you don’t understand what’s going on and don’t want to cause more harm, really sucks and I do not recommend it to anyone.

Related: I need to get comfortable with kink and lewds on main again. I have no idea why those were the first to go when birdsite got so bad, other than as a self-preservation mechanism.