So, you wanna change social media platforms
When the sharks sniff blood in the water
So, some quick house cleaning/updates here: MNR is on a hiatus until July 15th, at which point we’ll be back up to running as normal. We’re working on some things behind the scenes and just generally taking a breather. Part of this break is also a refresh to the desk, as you can see we have changed some colors and I have a few other things planned for this. So for now consider this a transition period.
Last Saturday at work I was working on a post about social media and how it seems to of been corrupted, well I wrote that in the morning only finding out later in the day just how much of a seeming dive Twitter took in less than twenty-four hours. So scrapping entire posts is never fun but it also brings us to a point of discussing something we’ve all been thinking for awhile: If and as it seems to be going when Twitter finally sends out its last tweet. Where the hell does the world move to talk about things and also share information and post cat pictures and food before we eat it (which I am sorry, is just stupid EAT THE FUCKING FOOD!) Also, how will we be able to watch things on our phones and scroll endlessly as we sit on the toilet at work? Well the answer to all this is...kind of murky?
Twitters seeming impending death has been coming for a while (or we think, at this point I’m of the opinion twitter runs on the nine lives theory). As the slow descent into death has begun and people question things. Other companies and hell even just you know regular bored people who are just doing it because. Have decided to take the challenge head on. As of this writing (Thursday July, 6th 2023) we also have the possible replacement arriving in the form of another famous company known for exploiting peoples data for profit. Today I’m going to try and show off what platforms seem to be seeing the most traffic and try perhaps to ration why you should go there. I will break them down into the following areas:
1. What the place is
2. What makes it unique
3. The pros and cons of the place
4. Is it even worth looking into further
A bit of a thing we all kind of need to understand before we start. NOTHING IS FREE! In some way or form these platforms need to make money, if its for profit or even just to function is up for debate. This will make more sense why I am saying this in a bit. But, if for some reason you have not learned this lesson yet: Nothing in life is free, even if its given to you for no payment something is being paid. Even if it just your friend trying to be nice to you. You taking the free thing is at best the payment cause they get the joy of helping you. If you stop reading beyond this point I hope you do take that with you. Nothing else, maybe if you look at things and your choices you might understand how much of an ass or something you maybe. If you do understand this, well good sorry to waste your time reading this part.
I know what you are thinking, why if we’re looking for an alternative to twitter are we starting with the thing you just claimed was dying? To be perfectly honest, I dunno if it can truly die at this point. So, I’d be remiss to NOT at least describe it to the three people who do not know what twitter is. Also if you are one of those three, please tell me the rock you’ve been under, it must be so damn nice and quiet compared to being outside it.
1. Twitter is a platform that someone decided needed to be made with short and sweet bursts of content or as it can be called. Micro blogging, your locked to a set amount of characters and cannot go any further. For people like me who never stop typing this sounds like hell, but also does make you think about what your posting and teach you some possible editing or even being more succinct in your postings. For others, well they probably just post something like “DUDE” or “Yo, dawg this be lit” I also want to point out I am almost forty and white, I do not understand anything culture after about 2010, and an argument can be made I didn’t know much even then. I am not gonna try and be in the know, it just isn’t gonna happen.
2. As to what makes it unique, well you can argue the limit, but also it has for a good chunk of its life been sort of a source of news for a great many things, presidential races? Probably found out who won the next day on twitter. That big movie spoiler or whatever the hell that celebrity did? Also probably found out there. Your best friend posting about their lunch and showing a picture for some stupid idiotic and dumb reason before they ate it? Yep twitter.
By and large though a lot of people do get their information there for better or worse. That is also in some ways the danger of the site, people do not look beyond it and take that odd guy who has no right even talking about anything involving politics not because they can’t share their opinion, they can. The thing is it is most likely uninformed or believe it or not, just an opinion. Yet many take some of these people who speak theses as some sort of devine profit who knows things. The reality warping of information on this site is something unique to social media at large. Though if we all had to go to one place and say “it’s the worst here.” It will probably be twitter
3. The pros of twitter are simple: LOTS AND LOTS OF PEOPLE, everyone has it we don’t want to admit it, but we do and, it is why a lot of influences and other people of the ilk seem to thrive there, companies also enjoy it for well the same reason. I won’t list the things above as I kind of mentioned them already as cons. The thing is the biggest con is also its pro in my mind: Lots of companies post ads there, and its kind of gotten overwhelming since its take over by Musk. I scroll through and the lines between posts and ads seems to be blurring, I have to stop for half a second to see if the thread keeps going or not.
Oh and yes as of now there is a cap on how much you can scroll depending on if you paid or not for a blue check.
4. Once more, if you have been living under a rock, well I guess read on but since we are using this as an alt to twitter, you may as well just join and see how good/bad it is yourself.
Blue Sky (or Bluesky?)
1. Blue sky is kind of like twitter, with out Elon Musk, it is backed by one of the founders of the original version of twitter and by all accounts if you see it. Well, it kind of functions and acts like twitter, have no idea why though. The only real clear difference is that Blue sky is also decentralized and you are probably asking, what the hell is that?
Decentralization is a loaded, and at first blush complex, the best way I can explain it though is through something we’ve all used before: peer to peer service
a peer to peer service is something like, lets say johnny has an item you want to see but only he has a copy of it. If johnny loads up the thing online for sharing, well if they are just leaving it there its there to look at. You would get the item from johnny as would several other people. Now if you got the whole thing and wanted to help Johnny share said item, you can and so can others thus information is shared faster because you are all sharing it. If a person suddenly stops like say Johnny, well the information they shared with you can still be shared by you and others. Until you decide to stop or maybe if its something you should not be sharing someone tells you to stop via legal action or a warning to do so. If this sounds familiar to you, you can see why they like centralized internet theory. In all honesty the internet is sort of at a tipping point between centralized and decentralized, so the next few years are going to be very interesting to see where this goes.
2. From what I have read and seen, its basically the twitter we knew, just you know decentralized. It is also slowly letting people join, I tried joining late last year and was put on a waiting list. Though most say if you wanna accelerate that you can post to other sites begging for it. I don’t care that much. They also seem to be catering to getting celebrities on it. So if you enjoy following them, that's a perk I guess?
3. The pros so far seem to be that is still small, and that being among the first to join would kind of have the envy/clout people. But that will fade when people are allowed to join at any point. Also if you were getting fed up with twitter maybe you do wanna look else where also.
4. Moving over here will take some work, as I said it is more or less invite only at their discretion, Also if you are a fan of if it isn’t broken don’t fix it you’ll probably be really comfy with the UI and layout if its basically twitter with a different name. The fact its moving to decentralizing is a perk, but that's the thing with it, you may find another place similar. Speaking of….
Mastodon
1. Mastodon (or Masto as its users shorten it to) is often looked at as the next twitter, it actually has Blue Sky beaten with the decentralization hook by a good two to three years. It has usually when twitter done something we all think is dumb benefited or suffered from it. Meaning, they get an influx of users and servers are hammered and the thing slows down by varying degrees of a little to we’ll be back after these messages type of situation.
2. Until Blue sky and others started to go with the decentralizing, it was that thing which brought people in. Although something truly unique to them is this: No ads, that's right you will not find annoying ads as you scroll or even a hint of something other than a reference to a product. All servers and instances (think of it as like a neighborhood in a city) are ran nonprofit, the admins usually donate time or are supported by patrons or other crowdfunding to support its servers and maybe their very finances in order to devote themselves to the cause. Masto also has a perk of controlling your timelines, don’t want posts to last more than 3.5 weeks? Well you can do that here, just wanna post cat pictures on a seeming infinite loop? Go ahead, matter of fact weekends you’ll see A LOT of pet pictures. Its kind of what we are always told the net was meant to be, the thing is you control what you see not the other way around.
2. The pros are obviously, no ads, rather robust options to how you want it to be, and the communities by and large are very welcoming, if you feel you wanna make your own community complete with black jack and hookers...well just make a sever and support it. They are cool with it, if other instances don’t wanna talk to you they just block you like anyone would on another social platform if they thought about it.
The cons are it can all die quickly as its more or less the PBS of social media, however if you join you’ll find quite a loyal and even helpful group awaits there, if the server is strong odds on bet a donation is being sent by a good amount if its asked. Also if you made your own server well it may just be you and your friends and you wind up in an echo chamber. Depending on your politics I will admit, yes Masto tends to lean more left if Twitter is becoming more right. Also learning how the place works and how to make it more fit for you can be rather cumbersome and intimidating, if you thought hashtags ruled twitter wait till you come over there.
4. If what you read appeals to you, maybe you should at least go over and look, everyone seems to be saying its the new twitter but it remains to be seen. However as far as stable and easy to get into. Of all we mentioned its pretty hard to say not to try it if you wanna see what’s going on.
I thought about doing this for Threads, but to be honest I feel its pointless, to me it comes across as Facebook does twitter. We all know kind of what Meta is capable of with our data and other things, so the idea of them doing a twitter is kind of unnerving, even people are saying its Instagram with words instead of pictures. So the jury is still kind of out on it, but I’d honestly be very concerned with my data on their stuff. Even if it is already too late after Facebook et all did what they did, they smell blood in the water and going after the top brass ring seems very Zucker mindset. If you can’t buy the problem just kill it outright and replace it with yours. Kind of wish he still was working on VR so he’d tank his company into oblivion.
Of the places I mentioned I said I can’t try Blue Sky cause I applied but got nothing, and if I see an invite appear, I’ll take it more as “whatever” kind of thing. I have been a Masto user since April of 21. Every time I go back its always a sort of pallet cleanser, I often find the more interesting people posting stuff they want not because they have to keep up with trends. I will also say when it comes to new users, you will not find a more supportive place anyone who knows anything always offers advice to new people, or can be messaged and often you’ll find a response waiting for you if you not talking down to you but helping you improve your experience.
It is a place I feel thrives on the positive mindset it has set up. If you always get tired and drained from scrolling twitter, Masto may in fact be the opposite feeling. I’ve connected and found more people there in the week or so I’ve kind of been more active than I ever did on twitter. Also, there are no real bots its people behind the profile. You may not get 10,000 people following you. However, you may find a highly loyal and devoted group that are small in number instead. My wife recently rejoined Masto and said she told me she did an experiment of posting the same art on Masto and Twitter at the same time. She got one like on Twitter, on Masto she got over 5 likes and boosts (Mastos retweets) and multiple replies to her post. She has not looked back on twitter and just watches things there doesn’t interact as much.
But those are my thoughts? What are yours, do you have an alternative you’ve found you liked? Are you even caring about any of this at all? Leave a comment below and let me know, if it sounds interesting I may join that social media place. I’ll be leaving my Masto link below in a button, MNR and Ili as well as Vash from MNR have all joined Masto, so we’re looking to be putting a forward operating base there more or less. If you are already on Masto don’t hesitate to drop me a follow I really enjoy the people I’ve met there and we’ll all grow a community there as well.
-The Chaos Director
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