Goodbye to Instagram, TikTok, “X,” and a Bunch of Other Garbage
In the process of dechudifying and delibifying what I see online, this was a crucial step. A black non-binary transfem can only take so much.
Had the urge to upbear immediately without even reading the thread. I'm glad for you that you made that decision, i can say for myself that getting off all the hellsites was a pretty big improvement for my mental health, general mood and blood pressure.
I never understood the appeal of TikTok.
Theres some good content there despite its other failings. Same for isntagram. People make a lot of cool shit but dont wanna spend a bun h of time finding where to post it as theyrd mostly busy making cool shit IRL
There is a sort of "in your face" aspect to the karaoke shorts that I never liked. Also it's popularity makes me just automatically dislike it because of how ubiquitous it is. It was the same way for me on YouTube when AMVs were popular over a decade ago. Sometimes YouTube has some good shorts but, I never appreciate how the site pushes them on people.
I abandoned pretty much all social media because my time could be better spent reading or watching something more long form.
Cannot recommend this move enough. Unplugging permanently from social media toxicity is one of the best things you can do for your mental health, especially as a queer person.
I used to use Unsocial Media like Instagram to find trans+queer creators that I really liked but I had to stop because they kept getting shadowbanned off the platform. Once a queer person gets any sort of traction they face so much shit.
Any post that discusses queer people, especially trans and/or non-binary people, got me having to repeat "don't read the comments" to myself excessively. Even posts by queer-friendly accounts would attract a lot of bigoted assholes.
Been waiting for you to do this!! Shoutouts to putting trash in the trash!!
I wish i could remove some socials, but i kinda need one for work.
I wish I could completely disengage from social media, but being stuck in a shitty stuffy small town makes it tough
Got banned from reddit for calling out some liberal's eugenics rhetoric "suspicious activity". That was the last of the corporate platforms I was on. From now on, its good clean browsing with my trans owl red volcel polycule whom I can never meet unless the empire dies
I should stop posting from my lemm.ee account as well...
RIP to your discord account but I still got friends on there
There is only Seksbjørnen.
I am going to say something controversial, which is that while it is totally appropriate for some of us to completely avoid spaces online where there is misogyny, racism, and transphobia to protect our mental well being, we can't afford to all do this at all times, unless we want to just let the hate toward marginalized groups multiply in this culture.
There are plenty of irredeemably hateful people online but there are also a lot of people who are just suggestible, or have only ever been presented one side of an issue, and if leftists do not actually wade into at least some online discussions veering toward bigotry, in order to unapologetically state a pro case for the humanity of marginalized groups and win over these on-the-fence people, then pretty soon they could find bigotry becoming so ubiquitious that no amount of blocking accounts will make it avoidable.
The only people I regularly see these days actually wading into hateful/reactionary spaces to unyieldingly and pointedly defend things like LGBT rights, polyamory/promiscuity, social justice, etc. are libertarians, Evo Psych people, and fucking Mr. Beast and Will Stancil. They readily face the ratio-ing and barrage of hateful responses to do this. A lot of leftists/liberals, on the other hand, just shy away from directly addressing any prejudicial talking points that they don't feel they can counter with sufficient resonance, allowing those talking points to grow in popularity and cause new panics unabated. It's sad that Shane Gillis and Joe Rogan made the point to their chud audience that it's unfair to smear all gay people by publicizing individual incidents of a gay guy behaving inappropriately with someone, and we are too invested in thinking that that sentiment should be self-explanatory to also try saying it sometime to the politically uninitiated.
The people on the left, who supposedly support the marginalized the most, tend to observe their most prominent defamers from a distance, and tell just tell one another "OMG, can you believe what xyz said about so and so?" That, or they exclusively call out people in their in-group for being problematic. Not saying those things don't have their place, but until we have people who can stand proud and undaunted in online and real-life environments where we might get triggered by ignorant and hateful people, and make persuasive arguments directly countering the false-but-salient attacks on the humanity of the marginalized, our movement of love will only contract while theirs of hate grows.
And if you can't withstand the heat of something like defending the people you cherish unvarnished in the face of a ratio by Nazis, you can at least go out of your way to leave some earnest, positive comments on the posts of people who face harassment from bigots. You possibly even leave your comments as replies their harassers. It doesn't feel like this will do anything, but if a ton of people all do this, the hateful voices will find themselves outgunned and drowned out.
People really underestimate the power of unbridled and sincere positivity toward, and arguments in favor of something, or maybe are too afraid to put themselves out there to demonstrate such. But such might be our most effective tool against this newly burgeoning wave of bigotry, and at least some of us need to stop being afraid to enter proverbial lion's dens to put it forward.
The only people I regularly see these days actually wading into hateful/reactionary spaces to unyieldingly and pointedly defend things like LGBT rights, polyamory/promiscuity, social justice, etc. are libertarians, Evo Psych people, and fucking Mr. Beast and Will Stancil. They readily face the ratio-ing and barrage of hateful responses to do this.
Do these people possibly have an outsized platform and reach, or a lot more privilege than OP for example? Do algorithms and moderation preference these other types compared to people such as OP?
To be clear I actually don't really disagree with your point, like yes getting out there and speaking out can make a difference. I just also think the odds are so stacked against certain people that I cannot really blame them for disconnecting like this.
Some of them do have a larger reach, but many others do not and are just everyday people, and most of those with reach generally built it from nothing. And regardless of what algorithms put in front of them these people are often directly courting the attacks by quote tweeting and replying to the chuds they come across.
I do not believe the odds uniquely overwhelm most people in the way you describe, and the ones that are so overwhelmed of course can totally disengage to preserve their well being. But I hope that most of us are not disengaging permanently, and find some sort of inner resolve that can steel us against inflammatory rhetoric enough to articulate cogent and unyielding responses at least on some days.
Like, I stopped reading Twitter, but I still reply when an Instagram/YouTube comment I come across is hateful or ignorant to lay out what the commenter is overlooking, even at times when that comment already has a ton of likes. And even when I leave a mean response to the ignorant or hateful person, I don't forget to also leave positive and sincere praise for the person being attacked or a similarly marginalized person. I think that's something most of us forget to do when we are too focused on countering incoming attacks, not focusing enough on putting more positivity out there.
I've barely any social media, discord being it (though I don't talk in any servers and I have no friends bar my wife) but I agree it's better to remove things of no use to you
what's that, some kind of porn site?
Yes