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Comment by ChrisRR

7 hours ago

I just stopped using twitter and I've not actually felt like I've missed out

I opened it again after many years and frankly i'm seeing better content than i find on other social media platforms.

For example, instagram is clearly trying to understand what political side i lean on and pushes me that kind of content. I have to be very careful what kind of stuff i like otherwise my feed gets very polluted with political content rather than with interesting tech stuff and cats videos.

On the other hand, X/Twitter is routinely serving me better and more interesting technical content.

as it turns out short form stream of conscious rambling was sometimes funny sometimes interesting even sometimes pivotal as a communications tool in countries experiencing civil unrest / injustice. but in its current stage and the state of all social media at this point one wonders why anyone pretends twitter is what it was a decade ago. it just isn't, it could also disappear tomorrow and things probably might even get a little better for the world given how much of a vehicle it is to amplify division. i remember like i dunno 5-6 years ago when the people in my life started to wean themselves off twitter and i smoked a lot of cope to justify why i was still on it. can't even remember when i stopped using it but again... nothing of value was lost. feels like a fever dream i always thought i had to be tuned the hell in theres just no way that's good for anyone's brain.

instagram/facebook over my 20s left some real mental scars though im still trying to sort what the f those apps did to me and to culture at large. i quit instagram like 3 years ago, the classic millenial exploration of pruning your life of shite things to lower the anxiety. the scars i am still stuck with, and mind you i literally don't have these apps anymore:

- i still feel this soft pressure that anything i do doesn't matter unless there is a witness (a post, a story, etc). that is insane. it's been three years and i can still feel that what the hell? there's just no way the guy from 100 years ago who trainhopped around the country ever experienced that kind of pressure. it literally messed my brain up and i have no idea how to fix it for me at least the feeling hasn't gone away

- when you're on the other side it feels like you're just sitting outside of the rest of the worlds culture at this point. it can actually challenge why you left it in the first place and make you consider sacrificing your own well being just to not feel like you're not an outsider from another planet

i never did the tiktok thing so i dunno what that's like. at least leaving twitter felt like shutting a book that kinda sucked and you don't really ever think about it again

I'm even cooler. I never used it.

Also, I don't watch TV and only smoke menthols. I mean vape. Or whatever.

I’ve never used any microblogging platform and feel like I’ve never missed out. :)

  • Microblogging has always felt so strange to me, I could never get into it. Why would I want to hear dozens of different short-form opinions from people? Maybe it's the 'tism, but that sounds so anxiety inducing & overwhelming.

    • politics and hack takes abound, but there were some legitimately funny people on twitter (some of whom've migrated to other platforms).

      mostly bad, though.

Im so cool that the only social network I use is hacker News and I don't even use that - I use hckrnews.com!