Trying to Find a Home on the Internet

What's Going On?

I think since I was about 13, some form of social media has been part of my life. It's always made me feel connected to my peers and have a place to share my thoughts. I like sharing my thoughts. I like being creative. I have a lot to say, even if I don't always have the audience. I feel like I get these ideas in my head, and I need some sort of way to get them out, and social media has always been where I go to do that. But it's not making me happy anymore. Here's why.

Twitter:

Twitter was my favorite. I have over 1,000 followers there - not a huge feat for many of my peers, but pretty damn good for me. I'm just a guy; I was never popular in school - it blows my mind that my graduating class ~8 times over now has found something I've posted interesting enough to want further updates from me. I'm followed by people that are heroes to me, like Reed Timmer and James Spann. It has content I enjoy sometimes, but since Elon bought it, the rapid enshitification of the website has made it nearly unusable. It used to be really easy to just scroll and see a lot of content you're interested in, but now I'd say on average 25% of the content you are served is from an advertiser. Combine that with content from people that are paying for the Twitter verified subscription getting prioritized in your feed and in the comments, I don't really see the content I want anymore.

Facebook:

Facebook was a lot of fun for much of my adult life, but again, the ad content is overwhelming. The "algorithm" often doesn't show me the latest and best content - I have to really dig for it. This means more time spent on the website, more time having ads shoved in my face, and a higher chance to encounter a political post that doesn't align with my beliefs and makes me think less of someone I should care about indiscriminately. Mostly, I use it these days to share pictures that I take, but when a post doesn't generate a lot of engagement, it impacts me and makes me feel like I'm not doing a good enough job. Maybe I didn't edit the photo well enough, maybe I didn't write a good enough caption, maybe Facebook isn't pushing my content as hard today as it did a week ago. Maybe more people than just myself are getting fed up with Facebook like I am, so they don't scroll enough to see my picture. Maybe they don't like me? It's all out of my control.

Instagram:

Why don't I use Instagram more? It's simple: I don't like it. I should like it because photography is where much of my passion and energy are focused these days, but I don't like it. I just can't like it. It feels like work, like marketing. I don't want to market myself. I don't want to compete. I don't want to become a champion of the algorithm by grinding every day and using the right hashtags. I want to post a picture once in a while and hope people see it and are brought joy by it. It just feels like a lot of work for something that should feel natural, so I don't use it much.

So What Do I Do?

I guess I'm going to try maintaining a blog and a website. Just writing what I've written so far brings me some of that feeling that I used to get by sharing my thoughts on social media. Maybe 10 people will read this, and that's okay. I'm feeling fairly disinterested in trying to build any sort of following these days. Some of my family might read this once I share the link, and that's probably about it. A lot of days I feel like deleting my Facebook, but I stay for family and the easy OAuth2 login to various websites. If my family transitions to reading my content here, that's one step closer to not needing to open that app much. I'm not super well-read or fancy - I don't use a lot of big words, I just kind of use punctuation how I want to, and I don't expect much out of this blog. It's mostly for me to share thoughts as I have them in a way that makes me happy. To get them out of my head and reflect on what I'm writing as I write it. I've already started putting many of my favorite pictures on my mnowls - photo gallery website, and I like doing that. I don't have to pay for something fancy like SmugMug, and I'm in control of it all. I will pass that link around more than I pass this one around. I still love photography and what I do; I'm hoping to bring some of the magic feeling back by not having it so intertwined with social media.