Aether (moved)

social media is a mess 

I've got a few followers on Twitter lately at random and I just look at their timelines and think... you're not going to be interested in me... why are you following me?
twitter.com/Tayruu/status/1208

I kind of want to go through followers and softblock a lot of them if they don't seem like they're following out of legitimate interest because I don't like that I have 230-ish people following when maybe 30 of them regularly interact with me.

I realise "regularly interact" is a bit of a weird statement, because some people you just like to see on your timeline even if you don't reply or like everything. That's just a psychological trick the sites expect of you.

But... still...

Social media is just wrong. Remember when we all used Livejournal? People had like, 15 followers each. You didn't have this social obligation to care about thousands of inconsequential people, to allow to have a view and say into your life. You had forums for public space, and journals for privacy amongst friends. IRC could be either or.

There's just a certain "wrongness" to the social structure of social networks. It's not about personal connections, but being a walking, living advertisement. You're broadcasting your life for consumption - if you try to be more personal or social, you risk being thrown to the wolves.

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Frost [moved]

social media is a mess 

@Taylor Huh. I am /so/ glad I'm not on Twitter.

Think this applies to Mastodon as well? I know I have a bunch of followers I never see. But I certainly don't feel like a walking, living advertisement...but then, I've never been much for Broadcasting to the World, either.

@faoluin

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Aether (moved)

re: social media is a mess 

@IceWolf @faoluin Twitter has always been a place where you will sometimes get... completely random followers, and it creates the subconscious need to please them all.

It wasn't strictly always this way, it's just ended up this way as it reached critical mass. (And name-searchers exist, leaping on any keyword.)

Mastodon is designed to be less about metrics, so I think if you use it with that mindset, it can be avoided... I mean, the local/federated timelines exist if you want to keep up with complete randos~.

But, yeah, I do have some followers here too that I... I dunno...

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Softwarewolf

re: social media is a mess 

@Taylor @IceWolf Yiu can make your account "locked", which just means you have to approve followers manually befofe they can follow you.

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Frost [moved]

re: social media is a mess 

@faoluin @Taylor Yep, I do that myself. ^^

I think the reason I still have some followers I never see is a) I never followed them back (this does happen, somewhat rarely), or b) it seems a lot of them just stopped using Mastodon altogether, or at least their accounts here.

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