Random thoughts coming out of left field:
I have never been able to aim myself deliberately in the social media
ecosystem.
In 1986 or so, I became deeply involved in Usenet at a time when it was
a playground for crunchheads, techie university students, and members of
the U.S. military.
(I had been online for about 10 years at this time, where my ability to
communicate with someone depended on my ability to plot the uucp route
from me to them.)
In 1992, I withdrew from Usenet to email lists, where I was able to have
really rewarding conversations with mostly like-minded individuals.
I never really made the next transition, to facebook and twitter.
Instead, I ended up in the unsatisfactory world of MMORPGs and private
chats. It was a much smaller and less expansive world, although it did
give me the opportunity to make friends with women my age [0] who grew
up behind the Iron Curtain.
So now what seems to be happening for me in the social networking space is:
1) Conversations with my family.
2) Ink on paper.
3 Walking over to the neighbors' and conversing with them on drainage,
connectivity, and the removal of tree parts. I have great neighbors, and
we've been weathering natural disasters together since the 1989
earthquake. I can depend on them, y'know? They're there when the world
has shrunk to our road.
4) Chatting with the cashiers at the grocery store.
5) Work slack.
6) Comment threads on youtube channels.
I can't completely believe the last one because of what everyone knows
about youtube comments, but, in the youtube backwaters I swim in, you
can actually have discussions with people you don't know about topics of
mutual interest in the comments.
Mastodon has seemed great in theory since I drank (some) of the dweb
koolaid and decided that peer-to-peer was a good, if difficult, path to
a better future. It just hasn't done anything for me so far [1], much
like facebook and twitter.
So if I am content to wait for the next emergent social network, and
meanwhile think about hosting ladies' gatherings for the neighbors where
we older mountain woman can transmit our hard-earned wisdom to the
younger neighbors, does that mean something bad about me? Should I
imagine myself a mover and shaker [2] when I've mostly been happy to tag
along with the nearest good thing I see?
--
Heather Madrone ([email protected])
Blog:http://www.knitfitter.com/category/personal/
http://sheltershock.thecomicseries.com
The Goddess moves mountains -- bring a shovel.
[0] And also men half my age who were intent on seducing older women.
[1] I'm not a hub person by nature, although it would be fair to say
that I've been an influencer at times.
[2] Way too much work, and I have a whole life to lead.
--
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