You take photos? Where do you put them? Where is the Bus now? Which country are you in?
I’m asked regularly where I am, what I’m up to. How glorious, to have friends who care.
I want to use social media, I want to document, log, blog, vlog and express the now creatively for friends and family. But I just can’t make myself care about Social Media. I can’t make myself post on Instagram regularly. I know browsing it ends up with doomscrolling in Reels, every swipe closer to death.
I tried bluesky, and it’s lovely! But no one I know uses it, so I use it the same way I use HackerNews or reading the news mostly. It’s not a social media for me, it’s just media.
I started a journal and I love it, it’s paper, freeform and I can just dump whatever I’m feeling. I see a nice cat? I can paint it, sketch it, describe it, write a little poem about a handsome cat and it doesn’t matter if it’s shit. There’s no judgement, no follower count, likes, dislikes FOMO. It’s perfect.. Except… I have to be in person to show it, and that’s not great when I live far away from many friends and family.
So I started a little website. It’s all markdown based, which I love! It’s in Git, which I’m already using! I can post things about the past, migrating content from other sites. I can change the theme, I can make it easy to read, I can do ANYTHING. And there’s no likes, dislikes, FOMO, no content subscriber agreement, moderation, content takedown etc etc etc. And the cost? It’s hosted by Github so that’s free. I pay $80 a year for the domain? That’s fine by me.
Oh. And no adverts. I fucking hate adverts.
So I say to you, the little internet frog visiting my cottage in the woods. Are you really using social media, or is it using you? I implore you, IGNORE your instagram, forget Facebook, throw your Twitter. Create your own nice little internet cottage in a forest, and invite friends around for tea.