i have been having a busy couple weeks cause my brothers been visiting and ive been trying to balance hangout time and drawing and oh!! thats hard!!!
it's weird because i've been thinking about the nature of social media and the kind of impersonal connections it fosters, and how my best relationships with people are all in group chat and 1 on 1 chat settings. what's the point of social media? the connections are so flimsy... but they're not that way to everyone? maybe it's that I'm not in a position where I feel comfortable getting close via social media? too much vulnerability in the open? i dunno
i think it might be that i have a hard time trusting that people I'm engaging with on social media have any idea how to manage their own emotions, after getting burned multiple times because of someone's anxiety that manifested as blaming everyone around them for any interpersonal conflict where their anxiety caused a problem? I don't really understand how to engage with mystery problems that strangers MIGHT be coming at me with
there's also the pedestal-placing that people do of anyone whose work they form a personal connection with, and this is hard. people don't know how to separate negative feelings about an action a person might take (with a context they don't have!), from the work they love and enjoy. so any perceived fault of the author often makes it really hard for people not to feel angry that their "trust" has been "betrayed", you know?
@glip I continue to think “social media [and the era of its popularity] is the uncanny valley of communication” is a good take from folks over on birdsite.
I don’t think human beings were set up for such ephemeral connections, and the way it emphasizes performative behavior makes it really hard to build meaningful connections. Sites set up with smaller communities that connect to each other modeled things better, and... I guess we’re seeing those return?
@Goldkin yeah... ive got a community i run which has been like... extremely important for me to become grounded in, especially during everything i've been through, because i think like... the way social media has developed has made it EXTREMELY good as a tool for abuse in communication. and being able to make/forge meaningful connections is like a reminder that no not everything is shit, and yes it's still possible to find community even in the internet today
and I think this ends up being something that people with a higher audience-engagement deal with more. people who bring their personal problems TO YOU because you're visible and they want to engage with someone visible, because they want to be seen, and regard you as such. and so it's easy for me to interact with a group of 50-100 on an intimate and familiar level, but engaging with 1000s of strangers in public is draining as fuck