social media

i made a bulletin post about this but i want to expand on it more here. the gist of the bulletin post was that i'm very fatigued from other social media (instagram, tiktok, twitter, etc. and even tumblr to an extent although i don't actually use it that often) due to the constant and looming presence of corporate greed and attention economics. the enshittification, as some would put it.

this site actually feels like a reprieve from that. no constant ads clawing for a split second of your attention, and a place people can actually customise their profiles again and ACTUALLY express their true personalities and interests. it's so refreshing. can i stay here forever?

something i also mentioned in my bulletin was that despite this, i hope this site by no means becomes mainstream. see, the thing is, i don't think that's likely to happen anyway, but in the off chance that it does, dear god. i feel like the lovely experience i've had so far will go to shit very quickly. 

i speak from experience, kind of. i lived through what happened to ao3. ao3 was by no means unpopular or unknown in online spaces (at least the ones i frequented) back in, like, 2019, when i joined it. but it certainly was NOT as mainstream as it is now (due to tiktok), and not to be one of THOSE people, but to be honest, the vibes were better back then. there used to be a general upholding of an often unspoken but very present etiquette, especially when commenting/stating an opinion about a fic where the author could see it (eg bookmarks). even the thirteen year olds knew to do this. i know because i was one of them. nowadays, people can be so rude and entitled when commenting on fics, acting as it the fic is supposed to be catered to them instead of it being a story the author wrote for themself and chose to subsequently share with the internet. additionally, people are completely losing the plot, because i see WAY more ai-generated content on that site than there should be (and there should be absolutely none). guys, the whole point is that WE, as loving and dedicated FANS of a piece of media, are CREATING fan content for it. us HUMANS. and yes, with more people on the site, there are so many more stories and fics to choose from, but i honestly don't know if the tradeoff was worth it.

so yeah, i hope something similar does not happen here. basically, i hope this never reaches tiktok because the lack of an algorithm is SO refreshing but this spreading on tiktok would just make it have a proxy-algorithm and people would once again forget how to curate their own online experiences for themselves and i would hate that <3