I’m Alive in the World
Part of setting up this blog again was about trying to figure out a way to exist on social media in a way that made sense to me. I don’t trust that these applications are made in good faith and I believe they intentionally use manipulative UX paradigms to make disinformation and advertising appear as truthful as facts. The users are the product and making them feel engaged and informed is the service social media provides to their clients.
But that said, you really are left out of a lot. Deleting my Facebook effectively severed my connection to everyone. I even miss major family news; they write the post and forget to reach out to me about it separately. Petty stuff like anniversaries and birthdays go by without comment. Your friends will start referencing Twitter jokes you don’t understand. That’s a cost I can live with. Forcing direct conversations with friends and family has enriched those bonds.
However, it does suck to not be able to reply to people’s tweets or to give them likes. So, I came up with the idea for this blog. Spin up a Blot blog. And then set up a RSS feed to post it to my new handle @hrprmd. My posts will be primarily Blog posts, but I will use the account to reply to people. I’m also hoping this will keep down my feed reading as well, since I’ve found it’s really easy for tweets to mess with my mental health.
So that’s part of one of my goals with this thing. Just trying to be out there.