I wrote sort of recently about engagement farming, and how ridiculous, annoying, and bad it is. How there are people out there who will post things, not because they believe in it, think it, or like it, but because it’s what will get them the most clicks and views. Either because they believe it’ll bring in monetary gain, or because they have a severe addiction to the serotonin pump of getting likes in their notifications. And that, at the end of the day, it’s money, and lack thereof in our current society, that likely drives people to waste their time on the internet in this way.
In the past couple weeks, I’ve spent a little more time on Threads. The only reason I have an account on the platform is largely due in part to the fact that I was banned from what was my home on Mastodon at hackers.town after a little over three years. At the time, I had briefly sworn off Mastodon, until I realized that federated, open source social media is still probably the only road forward online, even if millions of people still haven’t convinced themselves that corporate social media is not good, and is completely designed to wear you down.
Bluesky is a different story. Their developers have decided to create a new protocol that … uh, well, doesn’t connect to anything but their own central server. And, after missing the mark about seven different times to garner mass amounts of users, I’m 99% sure Bluesky is not a healthy platform and will likely die out sometime in the near future.
Side-tracked thoughts on Bluesky aside, yes, even after writing a few times about the issues I have with Mastodon, and how some on the fediverse view creators and artists through an uncharitable, and sometimes nasty lens, I don’t think there is any other choice besides the inevitability of remaining on the fediverse.
Now, with all of my initial thoughts as to why I wanted to write this post out of the way, what exactly am I getting to?
In spending more time on Threads over the past couple weeks, and briefly viewing Twitter here and there, I’m noticing now that because of engagement farming, whether it be a tech bro posting a bad opinion for the sake of likes, or forty-seven different bot-like accounts on Threads copy/pasting each other, or posting empty questions: I personally feel like it’s becoming harder and harder to determine, on corporate social media, who’s being genuine, who’s sharing things they actually like and believe, and who’s just saying whatever for disingenuous reasons. Who on Threads, or Twitter, is replying to something you said with genuine thoughts, and opening conversation in good faith, and who’s intentionally fanning flames, and baiting you, and others, so that maybe in some mythical future, these corporate platforms pay them thousands of dollars.
And it’s in the past couple of days, I’ve realized, this is exactly why federated social media, run on software that is not designed and maintained by billionaires, is the only way you can meet and talk to people without having to sit for minutes wondering if a person is just using you for their own potential financial gain.
It’s making me feel like, despite having met a few cool people who are genuine on Threads, it’s probably best to keep corporate social media as a way to share things I’m doing, or working on, and almost nothing else.
I work a stressful job, I spend a lot of time at home relaxing, and recovering. I don’t have the mental … space, to wonder if I’m making a fool out of myself by interacting with someone who wasn’t being genuine. I’d rather not go through any of that. And then you have to worry about whether the person you’re interacting with is even real. Although, I’m pretty good at detecting AI generated photos and text, it can still sometimes slip by my bullshit-o-meter.
But, if I’m feeling like this about corporate social media, then it’s likely others are, too.
I see, all the time, people saying things like, “If Threads isn’t a good place to be, I guess there’s just no social media!” and things about Mastodon like “The only people who use that platform are tech obsessed dudes who hate women.” And, I cannot stress enough, despite some of my grievances with people on the platform, that is by and large not true, and hasn’t been true since 2017.
Are Mastodon servers that are set up entirely and only for shitposting annoying? Yes. Are Mastodon servers full of dudes who breathe stock options and tech trends loathsome? Yup. Are these two things a reason to subject yourself to the disingenuous slog of a social media feed on Threads, or Twitter, in the hopes that at some point, someone might say something genuine, or disprove the theory of the Dead Internet? No.
Time and time again, these websites: Threads, Twitter, Instagram, even TikTok, are themselves a stark reminder as to why these places are bad for your health. They don’t need any outside help to prove this. They are, by virtue of existing, a testament to their own volatility. And I keep writing about these things in hopes that more people will someday go, “Oh, yeah, you know what? Maybe I can put up with a few tech industry dudes who have bad opinions every now and then as opposed to every single person on my feed bullshitting for clicks.”
And that’s the sauce on that, chief.
I think, personally, I’m likely finished experimenting with corporate wasteland social media. It’s like, oh boy! I got 1000 followers on Threads! And, without a doubt, more than half of them are probably bots.
It may be harder to gain a following on Mastodon. There may be people with severe issues that you need to block immediately. There may be entire servers full of assholes and jerks–But the difference is, you do have the ability to completely erase them from existence, at least from your own point of view. I can’t really say the same for corporate social media, where reporting functions often lead to dubious or a lack of results. But hey, maybe that’s a topic for another time.
Until the next time.
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