the less impressive ego death
i'm noticing a lot of people lamenting that all the mainstream social media sites suck super bad, and how everyone's sick of site-hopping, etc. i understand and am sympathetic, as someone whose twitter account was 10 years old at the time of its deletion. to a lot of younger people, especially the younger end of gen Z, the internet is twitter and instagram and youtube and it always has been.
except is isn't, and it never was, because the internet as it exists now has been gentrified and poisoned by convenience, and must be centralized and standardized and appeal to everyone.
that's become the norm, so people feel like they can't escape it--because now there's 15 different standards and everyone is on a different site that's slightly different but all of them are vaguely the same and don't actually solve the fundamental issues.
social media sites like these are doomed to fail, because capitalism demands infinite growth, which is unsustainable. centralization is doomed to fail, as twitter demonstrated. you can have a perfect amazing platform that everyone likes to use, but eventually the wrong person will swoop in one day and ruin fucking everything.
however, these services are not and were never necessary for existing online. before social media, there was forums, and before forums there were homepages. you can go even further, to IRC and usenet/BBS, but you get the picture.
everyone's talking about the "indie web revival" or whatever, and it's promising i suppose, but even now when i browse neocities or nekoweb's explore pages for example, most people are treating their web pages like linktrees or carrds, which is immensely annoying and frustrating.
alternatively, i have much better luck surfing the web the old fashioned way. i do not use search engines (theyre all shit now anyway), and just click on outlinks and 88x31 buttons. i find the good shit this way--not just personal sites, but obscure networks, webrings, and (very active!) forums.
i think one of the advantages of having a personal site is one i don't really see anyone mention: you're not endlessly scrolling, so you have time to spend offline, trying new things, partaking in your hobbies, etc. things that you can then share with the world, on your website! i started working out, going on walks, and reading books again after deleting twitter (ymmv).
i also think people should just... learn the basic functions of devices they use. despite growing up with technology, most gen z are clueless about computers because they're used to the convenience of phones. it's a bit alarming. it's a disaster in the making. it's already a bit of a disaster. i don't think it will end well for us.
idk man. i'm not going to pretend i have the solutions. and i'm not saying DELETE EVERYTHING!!!! (i myself still use a few social media sites, to my utter chagrin and embarrassment), but read the criticsms section of the social media wikipedia article maybe. i also think it wouldn't hurt to read up on big grown up stuff, and thinking about what would happen if you applied those ideas to the situation we're all in. just an idea. :)
i don't have much of a conclusion. stop going to virtual nazi bars. smash phone with rock.