Hello All

I joined Facebook in 2008 and frankly was unimpressed. Where were the blogs? I figured they'd be added later, but over time things actually got worse. Instead of seeing what my friends were posting, I was seeing what Facebook thought I'd quite like to see. Cheers Facebook, my social media bouncer.

I loved MySpace, and blogs, because they are so unassuming. Want to see what I've been up to? Fancy hearing my thoughts? Then pop along if you'd like. Don't give a monkey's? Well, don't visit. You can pop by a friend's page like popping to theirs for a brew, stay as long as you'd like. Have a friend you don't really want to hear from? Then don't visit.

Likes and retweets have changed the way people engage online. There is a grammar, a tone, to the way people post. Facebook has a language, Twitter too. If you browse the comments on Reddit I think it's the most visible there-  there's a way of talking. In my mind I imagine it like rocks in a river- you start posting somewhere with your jaggy rocky language, but over time the water flows and every rock becomes smoothed out, and very similar. I think related to this is the ever-present chance of going viral.

It's easy to joke about how bad Twitter is, for example, for debating. But I think it's often overlooked just how bad discourse has become online. Back in the good old days of internet fora, if you agreed or disagreed with something, you had to bloody say so. And there were no character limits. You were also forced to rub shoulders with folk with diverse views. Now it's so easy to fall in with your crowd, hurl out your slogans, enjoy the euphoria of getting those 6 likes, and then put your phone down, walking away dumber than you were at the start of the process.

So yes, I'm on spacehey. Not for reasons of nostalgia, though I do feel it strongly. Not ironically. I'm here because every social media site since MySpace has been worse.

If you like this blog, well, I don't think there is a like button. Maybe just tell me when you next see me?

"I'm dying to believe that you won't be the death of me."

Edit: Oh God, there's something called Kudos! It begins.