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Alright, time to break some news for anyone who is following me on any social media.
Diet Twitter, I mean BlueSky is no longer gonna be used to platform my art, and I feel like I have every reason to explain starting with my history of social media from the time I left Twitter up until now.
Why I originally left Twitter
I couldn't stand the discourse on the site surrounding Elon Musk, so I left the site initially for that reason along with me hating other shit such as cancel culture, political bullshit, echo chambers that have no opinions on their own and just repeat what others say, etc. In retrospect, I never got away from the discourse.
Don't get me wrong, Elon Musk is someone I can't defend because he's someone I don't think is remotely human at all, he's a different species that looks human, just not based on the way he makes decisions.
Hell, we're talking about the same guy who has an obsession with the letter X and greenlit a low-poly truck that barely works. The funniest thing about the rebranding from Twitter to X was that X was originally the name for PayPal before Elon sold it to eBay, and then X rebranded to PayPal.
PayPal was basically a reverse Twitter rebrand when you really think about it.
Of course, like I said, when I decided to leave Twitter, it was mainly to get away from the discourse along with me thinking Twitter was gonna slowly die, but of course, that plan backfired... hard... real hard because not only is Twitter still around, but once I decided a certain platform would become my choice to post my art for the next several months.
Cohosted Transition
In between my times on both Twitter and BlueSky was CoHost. Technically I already started using it before I left Twitter, but I will say that I felt like it was a better version of Twitter more or less, and I am not gonna lie, I lost interest slowly but surely as in 4 months of trying it out. Though I was slowly getting interested in a platform I would use for 9 months and would regret using in the process slowly but surely, 9 months of my life would be on that platform.
The Sky of Butterflies
BlueSky became a platform I would use for 9 months. People I knew were on there already and it was growing. Some people I know wouldn't use it because they knew better than I did... just saying.
Of course, I didn't mind BlueSky at first. A lot of artists I know are on there, some even using it as well as Twitter, but the one thing the site had was of course, invite codes for a limited time. I was given an invite to the site while it was still in beta. I was glad it was a more closed-off site, but what I didn't realize was how underdeveloped the site is... no, that was intentionally present tense, because even after 5 months of the site publicly launching, it is still underdeveloped, and I will explain why that is.
The Sky is Falling
First, there is no direct Animated GIF support, the only animated GIFs you can use are from Tenor, and can I just say that while it's not so bad, Discord and Twitter support Tenor GIFs too. Direct support for animated GIFs is something that websites as far back as 1995 can support on Netscape 2.0, especially since there was no Tenor at the time, so if you want your GIF on BlueSky, then you have to get it approved on Tenor first. Direct animated GIF support should've been a thing since day 1!
Hell, video support with a limited duration sounds like something that could also be supported, I get that server costs and shit are a factor as to why the site is limited for sure, but I am very sure the site is making a lot of money, not Twitter money, but big money no less. Hell, Jack Dorsey was helping support the site, so there wasn't much of an excuse to keep that from being a feature from happening.
Again, should've happened day one. Especially since BlueSky was funded by Jack Dorsey, as in the same Jack Dorsey that co-founded Twitter and was a CEO of it until selling it to Elon Musk for fuck sake.
So the technical limitations were one thing, but what about the rest of the site, well...
remember how I said that my plan to get away from Elon discourse backfired. That's exactly what happened. Some people would just shit on Elon and Twitter at every opportunity, regardless, and my god, it really feels like they made that platform just to shit-talk Elon.
Elon discourse wasn't the only thing that the site was known for accepting. The same reasons that made Twitter bad are also on BlueSky. The ever-so-annoying echo chambers and shit practically let themselves live on that platform to the point where it became clearer and clearer to me that the site is literally made to be a hugbox for anyone who hates Twitter.
Now it's gotten to the point where I somehow realized that BlueSky was made as a compromise. A compromise for the Twitter userbase to jump shift if they absolutely wanted to boycott it because of political reasons, Elon Musk, and both while wanting to stay on that platform as well.
So putting the technical limitations and the userbase being an issue together. It made me realize I made a huge mistake joining BlueSky. So I had no problem with a friend of mine, coolspeedyjosh wanting to leave his BlueSky behind as he didn't use it that much first and foremost, and that he realized that it was just a hugbox for the Twitter offshoots.
I also decided that I was gonna leave as soon as ArtFight was over, as mentioned in my previous blog, and it got to the point where I wish I realized it much sooner.
So all and all, BlueSky sucks, prolly worse than Twitter despite it trying way too hard to be better than Twitter. I swear, a BlueSky user finding the tweet forwarding this blog post will prolly try to defend BlueSky not realizing what I am saying is true. Not asking everyone to leave just because I am leaving.
Conclusion
Overall, aside from Pillowfort (if that counts I guess) and Tumblr (which I only joined to post Sinikka's World comics), I will never appear on most sites that falls under the microblog category. Microblog sites are hell, and anything that is an alternative to Twitter in that category is prolly gonna be avoided. Mastodon, MeWe, and especially Gab and Threads.
The only ones I may think about joining are not used by the people who ruined Tumblr, Twitter, and BlueSky (the snowflakes that want the whole world to be a hugbox).
I am mainly gonna stick to sites that were made for art in mind to post my art such as Newgrounds, Pillowfort, and SheezyArt while SpaceHey is my primary blogging site. I may only ever use Twitter rarely for announcements involving my videos and some other shit, most purposes besides that, absolutely not. I had no idea I was gonna have this blog be this long if I am gonna be brutally honest.
Hopefully, you all understand why I am largely abandoning BlueSky, as BlueSky is gonna remain an archive.
But before I finish this blog post, I am just gonna have this image I made symbolizing my distaste for the two platforms I talked the most shit about.
Also last-minute text to point out a coincidence, August was when I started to use Twitter back in 2020, and it was
also when I left last year, and it was the month I am leaving BlueSky
now... so I guess August is the month for me starting (and later
killing) my main social media accounts.
And yes, for real, one last thing I end it, before anyone brings up any sites I posted videos on for any reason to avoid YouTube. Yes, I don't use YT because it was a site that had problems for years and it kept turning me off of it to the point where I refuse to upload there.
So to briefly go over my video platform history: I joined Vlare before it got killed because of a DMCA claim that Vlare's staff didn't notice until it was too late and any attempt to bring the site back failed.
VidLii was terrible and it was the only platform I completely nuked myself off of because the community was a lost cause and so was the site.
Tracle was only there for a few years only to die because the dev was struggling to pay his bills in hindsight, that site was very underdeveloped, but it was more or less serviceable, unlike BlueSky, still very underdeveloped though.
Now that Vanillo is my platform for Mazentu content, I wish this was my platform the whole time I was on Tracle and Vlare more or less. Plus it actually feels like all the features I wanted from YT are there except for live-streaming (even then I rather use a different site for that anyway lol).
I rather stick to not uploading on YT no matter how many alternatives fail, so I am aware of my mindset that I prefer to use alternatives to YouTube and not microblog alternatives.
There I am done.
Comments
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Channeleven
I don’t blame you. Though I may still use BlueSky I get where you’re coming from on microblogging sites.
I may follow you on Vanillo, PillowFort, NewGrounds and SheezyArt if I can find you.
Also for video alternatives, I’m on WeVidi. It’s more limited, but it has a good community and it’s secure.
My SheezyArt is: KenMAZU95 and my Vanillo is Mazentu.
I also had a WeVidi, may start using that too, though I have to get a new PC first before I make at least one video.
by KenMAZU95; ; Report
Cool.
by Channeleven; ; Report
Jeltus
I understand your opinion why your leaving bluesky. For me i don't have plans on leaving Bluesky, It's probably because it's a good hub for me. But yeah, At the end of the day, Microblogs can be bad or good sometimes on other sides imo.