Social-Light...

So my musings on dropping Bluesky lead to a few comments that made me think about it all differently.

Caren pointed out that what I miss doesn't really exist anymore. And she's totally right. Talking to Joe about why Bluesky doesn't really scratch that itch I realized that what I miss is what Facebook was WAY BEFORE the past couple of years. Before I ever started thinking about leaving. Because there was no reason to leave in the beginning. It was fun. It was social. It was basically a bulletin board but with a different interface.

Sometimes.

I mean the place where I met my largest contingent of online friends was an old fashioned board. Facebook used to support them inside of games. Do you remember games on Facebook? Not like someone vague posting and you have to figure out if it's serious or not, but actual games. Mousehunt for me was huge, as most of you know. But there was also Zuma, and various word games, and Bejeweled Blitz, and a version of Risk that Brent, Katie and I would play against each other. And inside of those games there were boards. And on those boards friendships were made.

That's all gone now. Facebook took away the boards pretty early on. A lot of us moved to groups, but those weren't quite the same. And those ended up fading away as people either left Facebook, or interpersonal dynamics in the group blew things up.

Aaron talked about group texts and how he likes those. For me a group text chain is really difficult. It doesn't work with my ADD. If I wake up and there has been a lot of discussion in the night I feel a little stressed trying to catch up. I know I don't have to. I know that anything important someone will flag me. But the large volume of texts just gets a little much for me. It's one of the first things I would do in a new group on Facebook, turn off the notifications. If it's pinging at me I have to deal with it. I will most often leave a group text within a couple of days. Unless it's a specific we have to plan this or that then I hang until it's done. And my extended family texts I stay. Not that the texts are extended, the family part. And only because we only text each other when it's health related. We aren't exactly close. The family I am close with I text individually when I want to chat.

So yeah, Bluesky isn't scratching that itch, but there isn't anything out there anymore that would. Everything that used to exist in that space has either been shut down or changed to allow advertising and tracking and monetization. Late stage capitalism doncha know...

I'm looking for that Goldilocks experience again and I don't think it exists. Big enough to interact with a variety of people. Small enough not to be overwhelming and also small enough that people aren't assholes. The larger the group the bigger the asshole contingent. Even people who are pleasant in small groups can become horrible in large ones. It's a weird online phenomena.

I think I'm just going to have to be content with the knowledge that for awhile it existed. That I made friends with some really great people because I happened to be there when it did. I found lost friends because we were all there at the right time. It was really lovely.

But it's gone.

I'll probably end up keeping Bluesky and allowing it to be what it is. A quick news source with bonus kitten pictures.