Gen alpha on spacehey

before i get further into this topic as per the subject, this is not a blog to offend anyone and is merely an opinion piece. please comment and share your takes/insight! i saw another blog recently talking about the increase of younger teens on this platform and wanted to talk about it!

personally, i love spacehey's platform and the community on it. that being said, its a bit hard to find people within the same age range as me. i get what its like to be 13-15 on the internet, especially being into more alternative interests and spaces. although, i see a huge difference in teens today then from when i was 13. granted, i was 13 like 4 years ago back in 2020-21(horrible flashbacks to covid time omg). in the blog i saw that inspired this one it mentioned "DNI lists" which i personally had to look up and was a bit confused by. is it necessary to have a whole list of socially-agreed bad takes (stuff like homophobia, racism, etc.) telling them to get lost? i mean id hope your page would be enough to tell them its not ok for them to interact- or just block them? idk maybe im missing something. i get that there are definitely still people out there who hold these bad beliefs and the internet has changed a lot over the last several years. i feel like its pretty socially agreeable to just not be a shitty person and dont be rude to strangers online so whats the point of a dni list? i see a lot of it also surrounding fandom culture too which is another crazy rabbit hole. i guess if you feel like a dni list is necessary then yeah it doesnt hurt anyone, but why fuss with it when you can just use a built in block feature and ignore the person then go about your day?

i feel like more now than ever its more common to see people go on witch-hunts and harass people when they dont agree with something. in my personal opinion, cancel culture is so out of hand to where its hard to have conversations like these without some kid telling you your just being an insensitive hater for not agreeing. can we normalize being curious and asking questions again? with this, if you see something you dont like just block it. i dont understand the wasted energy of trying to "expose" someone for an opinion.

another thing similarly to this(dni lists) is "typing quirks", which is another thing i had to look up lol. i guess everyone has their own style of typing, as do i, but recently ive noticed in certain places of the internet where people will replace some letters with numbers that make their comment just genuinely hard to even understand. ive seen where 's' is commonly replaced with 'z', its not disruptive but its noticeable to the point where ive just questioned why its a thing to begin with. is this a new thing? whats the purpose? not hating, but i am just very curious. i feel like people who do this must have their autocorrect go insane every time they type something out lol.

another point made in the blog that inspired this was how many young teens actively list their age within their profiles. when i was 13 on the internet i probably did everything in my power to make sure people didnt know i was younger than 16 lol. not only does it feel unsafe for multiple reasons but the digital footprint you leave at 13 is not something you want to follow you. i would have to say unrestricted internet access as a young teen definitely lead me down some dark roads of the internet that i wouldnt want any teens today to accidentally stumble upon either. even places like spacehey with such a large, welcoming and open community still have bad people lurking and its important to stay safe.

overall, i think you should walk to the beat of your own drum and not care what other people think. if you want to make a dni list, go for it. if you want crazy unicorn hair, then do it! to be cringe is to be free and im not here to rain on anybody's parade. just be safe while having said parade lol

is this a hot take or commonly shared among other people?? idk, but was just thinking of it and wanted to share! im always open to learning more and just curious about it.