Content warning: This blog post is navel-gazing. It's fine if you're not interested in that, but then please just stop reading now and close the browser tab instead of becoming annoyed that I'm wasting your time. Thank you!
For several reasons, one of which is the introduction of Threads (an Instagram app), I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of social media. I'm not personally on Threads or Instagram; most of my social media use these days is on Mastodon, though I also have a Bluesky account (don't ask me for invitations). I still occasionally check my Twitter account, mainly because I'm the developer of the web browser extension Tweaks for Twitter, which I created in 2021 before the hostile takeover of Twitter. At this point I'm vacillating over the fate of Tweaks: a week ago I removed it from the App Store, and I don't know whether to bring it back to the App Store now, discontinue it forever, or continue waiting to see how things shake down. Anyway, I was inspired to put pen to paper—err, fingers to keyboard—after I noticed this in my Twitter notifications.
Having mostly forsaken Twitter, I can't say it's a happy anniversary. Moreover, 7 years doesn't tell the full story, as this isn't actually my first Twitter marriage. I joined back in 2008 for the C4 conference, making next month the 15th anniversary. I divorced Twitter the first time in 2012 and deleted my account because they dropped support for RSS feeds, and I joined app.net. Sadly, app.net was ultimately discontinued, but to this day I consider it to be the best Twitter alternative ever made, from a user perspective. In July 2016 I was thinking about quitting my job, so I felt I needed to rejoin Twitter for professional networking purposes, and I did indeed quit my job in August 2016.
While Twitter never got me a new job, it did help me to promote my indie software, which has kept me in happy self-employment. Social networks were never just money-making platforms for me, however. Working from home since 2008, I found some desperately needed social interaction online. For better or worse, I mixed business with pleasure, to the extent that you can call tweeting or tooting (Mastodon) or skeeting (Bluesky) a "pleasure". (Is it called threading on Threads?)
I have mixed feelings about social media. As far as I'm concerned, the main problem is that it only takes one aggressive reply from an internet rando (typically someone who doesn't even follow me) to ruin my day, and given a globally open social media platform, the odds of such an internet rando existing at any time are uncomfortably high. Some people claim that the "algorithm" is the main problem with social media, but that's not my experience, for I've encountered aggressive internet randos even on Mastodon, which has no algorithm other than the reverse chronological timeline of the accounts you follow. The worst part of the aggressive internet rando reply is that it's totally masturbatory: the rando doesn't really give a damn about you, they're just using your post as an excuse to boost their own ego. They always take your post completely out of context and assume the most uncharitable interpretation of your words, as if you're merely a punching bag rather than a person.
I'd say there are two underlying causes of the aggressive internet rando phenomenon. First, there's the "boost", as it's called on Mastodon, the retweet on Twitter, the reblog on some other networks. It's not necessarily the automated algorithm that's putting your social media posts in the crosshairs of the internet randos but rather your own followers who are manually spreading your posts to others who don't follow you. This can actually be seen definitively in many of the replies from randos, which include an @ mention of the account that boosted your post. The paper trail is marked.
The second cause of the aggressive internet rando phenomenon is the lack of consensus on social media platforms about the purpose of the platform. I've already stated my purpose in using social media, which is to promote myself professionally and to provide a substitute for friendly in-person social interactions. Fortunately, there are a lot of people who feel the same way as me about this. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people on social media who feel very differently. Some of them are here for "debate club". Social media is like a sport to them, and they feel the urge to participate in verbal battle, either to sharpen their intellect and knowledge (they believe) or just for shits and giggles. On the other hand, social media is also popular with the "slacktivist" crowd: internet randos who not only feel strongly about social and political issues (which I do!) but also believe (which I don't) that posting on social media is important work that makes a difference. As far as I can tell, this so-called "important work" by the slacktivists is exclusively preaching to the converted among their followers. They appear to be more interested in being loud than convincing, which inevitably results in alienating rather than converting anyone who isn't already a disciple. Bizarrely but nonetheless predictably, their ineffectiveness fails to disabuse them of their slacktivism but only emboldens it, for they take angry responses as proof that their "work" is important and making a difference. (Yes, I know I'm being harsh here. The reason is that I recently got an unapologetically aggressive internet rando reply from a slacktivist with delusions of grandeur, and it's still bothering me.)
[Edit:] To clarify, I do see the value of organizing online, as a prelude to action. But I've seen no evidence that simply posting stuff makes much difference, while I've seen a lot of evidence that yelling at strangers online is pointless and counterproductive.
Whenever you push back against an aggressive internet rando reply, their reaction is almost universally the same: "You posted in public! What did you expect?" The inherent problem with this reaction is that it's extremely difficult if not impossible to be social at all on social media without posting in public. You can lock down your social media account so that your posts are only visible to your followers, but how do you even meet other people on social media, make friends, and acquire followers in the first place if nobody can see your posts? The attitude of the aggressive internet randos is nothing more than an assumption and demand that you use social media in the way that they prefer, not in a way that you find useful and convenient.
From what I can tell, the majority of people on social media are actually quiet lurkers who passively consume content without posting much. When they do speak, they sometimes express puzzlement about the notion that social media is "toxic", because from their perspective, they only see what they want to see, their chosen content that they follow. They read and then leave, without participating or contributing. In fact the quiet lurkers will sometimes offer the advice to emulate them in quiet lurking to avoid any problems you might have with social media. From my perspective, however, this attitude is strange, since the quiet lurkers are 100% dependent on non-lurkers like me to provide content for them to read. Without the minority of social media posters, the majority of social media readers could not exist. In other words, if my social media behavior is illogical and irrational, then why are you following me, an obvious nut case?
It's natural for people to want to express their opinions among people they know, to shoot the breeze, as it were. In person, this is pretty safe. You're among friends. Even in a public space, such as a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar, it would be uncouth for a random stranger to listen in on your conversation and interrupt with an aggressive response. Nobody would defend the breach of etiquette in that context with "You were talking in public! What did you expect? If you don't want random strangers responding to your conversations, go home." Apparently there is no etiquette on social media, though. It's not a safe space among friends, even if your only intention is to shoot the breeze with your followers—followers who you acquired only by posting in public. You're expected to have a "thick skin" online, and if you don't take well to aggressive internet rando replies, then you're forced to become reserved and strictly censor yourself, defeating the purpose of your internet presence, which is to open yourself up to others. It seems to be a no-win scenario for those who use social media to be, you know, social, not antisocial.
So yeah, this has become quite a bit of a rant. As I said, not a happy anniversary! ;-)
I don't claim perfection in my own social media behavior. I've sometimes responded to the perverse incentives, fallen into the trap, given in to temptation. I am human, and thus flawed. Yet I do make an effort to mind my own business as much as possible. For example, I disable boosts/retweets for every account I follow, in order to minimize the number of potentially enraging or annoying things that cross my path. This may be my dirty little hypocritical secret, because I do boost posts myself despite hiding boosted posts from others! Sosumi. I also mute a lot of words related to topics that would potentially enrage me. Relatedly, I don't get my news, especially non-tech news, from social media. Which is not to say that I bury my head in the sand and don't read news at all. I simply read news under controlled conditions, at times of my choosing from sources that I choose, instead of allowing my social media feed to push whatever it wants in front of my eyeballs whenever it wants. That's how I maintain at least some semblance of sanity online.
Has this blog post been useful or enlightening to anyone? I don't know. I'm only rambling online, as I do on Mastodon and did on Twitter before that. My blog doesn't have comments, so I can't get any aggressive internet rando replies here, but please try to avoid that elsewhere as well! That's not what I'm on social media for, and hopefully you want me to remain on social media.