Why a Blog?
I feel like it’s also important to explain in more depth what my goals are and what I’m going to be talking about. The previous post was made sort of as a too long; didn’t read to this post, which is going to be unfortunately long. Strap in!
So, why a blog again?
I went over how corporations are evil and that I hate them in my last post. But, what do we do about that? How do we share our most important life moments? Our interests, the things we like, the things we don’t like, we can’t be expected to keep that all inside, can we? Well, maybe a little bit, I think a lot of people on the internet shouldn’t speak. But I do think that sharing our lives is one of the most beautiful parts of being human. There’s an old quote by some old author I can’t remember now, but something about sharing pain and suffering with a close friend lessens that pain by half, but sharing joy and happiness with a close friend doubles it. I believe that that’s true. An accomplishment is almost nothing if you have no one by your side to celebrate with. How do we share in the digital age without inadvertently supporting evil companies?
Well, you touch grass and speak in real life. But that’s a bit unrealistic, isn’t it? I’d have to say goodbye to all my amazing friends around the world. Goodbye, Robin, Elliott, Marilyn, Joeri, Rachel, Airi, Yucky, Jon, Ken, and Remy. That’s fucking stupid and I don’t want to do that. I love them and I’m not going to say goodbye because I’m too busy crying over the cobalt in my phone - although there are some solutions to the cobalt issue I’ve been keeping my eye on. But let’s focus on the social media aspect because I’ve already taken multiple steps in distancing myself from what I call the Evilverse.
What is the Evilverse? Well, it’s all the Evil things. Twitter, Facebook/Instagram, Reddit, Google/YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Apple, Microsoft and others I’m probably forgetting now. Some are undoubtedly more Evil than others, but they’re all defined by the same core things:
- AI Slop pushing
- Selling user data to the lowest bidder
- Endless fucking ADS
- Subscriptions
- Unnecessary shopping tabs
- The never ending ragebait
- An Algorithm
- The general desire to keep users on the page for as long as humanly possible, no matter the consequences
That is the Evilverse to me. And if you’re like the me from 6 months ago, you’ve probably also grown uncomfortable with these changes but feel at this point there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Its just like this now and if there was anything to do about it, it should have been done years ago. We’re too far in, and it’s too late to turn back.
And oh, buddy, am I glad to tell you
YOU’RE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!
GET OUT OF THE DEFEATIST MINDSET!!!!! THE TRANSFEMS HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMING US SOME AMAZING FUCKING ALTERNATIVES!!!!!!!!! INCLUDING MY BLOG THANK YOU CASS!!!!!!!!!!!
There are multiple now new social media sites ran by random internet people, for random internet people. No ads, no data scraping, no algorithm, and all for free. They’re not particularly hard to access either, it just takes some digging and patience. Now, since these sites are made by average every day people, they’re not always the most perfect, pretty, or easy to understand for normies (like me 6 months ago!). But I promise its not unattainable. Just remember, these spaces are queer and punk and stand against EVERYTHING Evil companies stand to gain. Nothing is out of your reach, and if my dumbass made a whole fucking website by spending a couple dollars and asking Cass a few questions you can do it too!!
Leaving The Evilverse
Now, granted, I am still learning. But replacing all the Evilverse apps I’ve been using with these two new-to-me apps has honestly been night and fucking day.
The first is Bluesky, which is easier to explain. It’s like Twitter without the Musk and with Brazil. No algorithm, no ads, none of the other bullshit. They’re still owned by a company who seeks to make money, but for the time being they’re not Evil. And despite how I talk, I don’t think companies are inherently Evil, or even evil with a lowercase e. But I think they’re more prone to chasing Profit than a normal person is. I believe most people see plateauing as the logical conclusion to achieving everything they want. Meanwhile companies view plateauing as the end of the fucking world and a sign they need to make more Profit for the Shareholders. That’s bullshit and I don’t like it. I’m not putting all my eggs in the Bluesky basket, but its definitely the easiest non-Evilverse thing to get into.
Next is Mastodon, which took a LOT of explaining by Cass to understand, but honestly it truly isn’t all that complicated. It’s just different and unlike anything else I’ve seen before, but I think its genuinely so important to see and understand and I’m hoping to convert more of my friends to using it. So, Mastodon is part of what’s called the Fediverse, which basically means its one of a collection of sites and apps that all hold hands around a fire and sing Kumbaya. They can talk to each other and run off the same “code” (not quite but a good enough explanation). If you’re on Mastodon, you could repost a photo from Pixelfed, a completely different website!! You can follow someone on Misskey, even if you only use Pleroma! Its a beautifully created system, and they’re all run and operated by normal people. Which frankly means they have some kinks - see, they’re made by programmers (duh), so the user base tends to skew towards programmers (makes sense), but what happens is the instructions to join these sites are mostly targeted to programmers (which means dumbasses like myself get really confused and lost). Since these sites aren’t being run by megacorps with infinite money, the way you join them is.. different. I’m going to describe how they work in terms that would have been useful to me a few years ago before programmer gf, so if you know how this basic stuff works, feel free to skip/skim.
Basically, websites are run on servers. I used to think servers were some special kind of computer, but in fact, nope! Servers are literally just computers with no meaningful differences. Sometimes they look different, but sometimes they wear a cowboy hat and sit next to your unfinished Lego sets. Any computer can be a server. What makes a server special is they’re made to hold data, and that data can be accessed by the server owner from a different computer. That’s their one and only real purpose (w some exceptions but I’m not talking about that rn). As far as I can tell, if you add anything to a website, it is data that the server has to hold onto. When you make a profile and set a pfp and add a bio, that’s data that the server has to hold onto. I mean, imagine getting on Twitter one day and your profile is just - gone - with a little sticky note that says “sowwy, wan out of stowage space - musk :3”. That would suck. So when you’re just some random guy, hosting your small act of corporate protest from your own home, it gets hard to hold onto that much data. Its expensive, servers need to be on 25/8 and you need to constantly expand them lest it runs out of space. Imagine if Instagram shut down for a day because its servers were so full no one could even like a post.
So on Mastodon, here’s the solution. Thousands and thousands of people host their own servers, much like the Cowboy Server Cass and I have. Some are bigger, some are smaller, but they all come together to share the data load. This means, in order to pick a server where the data about yourself lives, you need to pick a specific server. Now, you can just do it randomly - it doesn’t really matter, anyone from any server can interact with each other. But what people do is they make themed servers! Servers where artists live, servers where queer people live, servers where programmers live, servers where gamers live, etcetc. Generally, you’re going to want to pick something that matters to you. There’s a giant list here of a bunch of servers you can join. Some of them come and go depending on storage space, my own haunt mastoart.social is closed to new members until they get more funding for their server. But, you can switch servers at any time and you can still interact with the entirety of Mastodon no matter what server you’re on (unless you joined a neonazi one.. yeah unfortunately since anyone can make a server… then anyone can make a server. luckily, most servers will ban users or even other servers if they are bigoted, so you’ll likely never interact with them.)
I’m sorry for the long winded explanation, this is just something I am truly passionate about and care deeply for. I have had a glimpse into an internet where people are kind and care for each other, where the internet can truly be a third place for you to genuinely and authentically be yourself. I deeply love it and will genuinely never go back to how I used to view social media. If I haven’t sold anyone yet on joining Mastodon, here is the Fediverse mission statement taken directly from their wiki:
Traditional social media is neither social nor media. It is not made for you, it is made to exploit you and it is full of misleading ads and fake news.
This is because the aim of traditional social media is to make a whole lot of money.
The aim of the Fediverse is to benefit the people.
The aim of traditional social media is to control and steer the users.
The aim of the Fediverse is to empower the users to control the Fediverse.
Wait, you never said why a blog?
Oh, right. Why a blog? Well.. I’m a yapper. I yap. Have you ever seen me without stupidly yapping? That’s because I’m a yapper.
And also because I’m a bit of a control freak. Despite how much I love Bluesky and Mastodon, they are fully out of my control. Bluesky could be sold to some other silicon valley whackjob and I’ll be shit outta luck. Mastodon couldn’t really be sold, but it could always move in a direction I don’t agree in, or lie dormant if people leave. At the end of the day, I wanted something that was tangible and undeniably mine. I wanted a place where I have full creative freedom, where I don’t have to censor myself, where I can do literally whatever the fuck I want.
At this point, I’ve given so much of myself to companies that wouldn’t care if I lived or died. I’ve posted some of my highest accomplishments and my lowest points to Twitter and I had it sold right out from under me to an Evil, EVIL man. The place I used as a diary, as a resume, as a way to find friends, was ransacked and destroyed and it will never be the same again. I’m stupid sentimental, I have backed up every single photo I’ve ever taken since 2016 to my laptop, to external hard drives, to Cass’s server, and to multiple different clouds I pay monthly subscriptions for. That’s because its data that is so unbelievably important and personal to me and I can’t bare to see it going off to some cold heatless corporation ever again. I’m doing it myself now, because I have to.
At this point I’m truly only limited by my own coding knowledge and Cass’s patience to teach me.. Luckily the latter is plentiful :). And besides, I can use internet powers for good by going on YouTube or Reddit and finding things out for myself! And by extension, I’ll then be able to teach others things! It’s beautiful and cyclical and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I do truly love the internet, but sorta in the same way I love America. I could never leave, not really. But so much of its most important and biggest “features” are horrid glaring issues that make me yearn for some vague time period I’m nostalgic for, but never really happened, where things were just Better. I love the culture, the sites/sights, and the people despite it all. I can’t leave, I just don’t have it in me. But what I do have is a space just for me, myself, and I as my own miniature corporation protest. Living right inside Cowboy Server.