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Settling in to new social media patterns after the "Rexxit"
I thought I'd share my own patterns as a writing prompt to hear yours.
- Tildes -- This keyboard-to-keyboard connection we have here is why I loved Reddit years ago. It's slow-brain (vs. fast-brain), considerate, insightful, enjoyable, and yet doesn't waste my time.
- Lemmy -- This has my hopes up that it could be a way to find niche communities (one of the strengths of Reddit) in the federated lemmyverse, but instances large and small seem overwhelmed by users who, like me, are still figuring it out. I joined https://lemmy.one/ but I have a feeling that https://lemmy.ml/ is slightly more my style. I might jump or not, but no big difference since the federated communities that I like are available in both places. This may just be me being nitpicky over instance quirks (such as an instance that does not have downvotes or currently allow community creation).
- Mastadon -- Too Twitter for me. I never got (understood) Twitter or its appeal, and I don't understand the appeal of Mastadon, either. I deleted one account that I created and may leave it altogether. If you like/liked Twitter, you'll likely like Mastadon.
- Reddit -- niche interests and citywide subreddits are still valuable to me, but even these were and are dropping in quality due to terse Reddit mobile users and meme-culture and my interest in them is dropping in correlation. I nearly exclusively only read /r/loseit (I'm maintaining -125 pounds lost for 8 years so far) and a multireddit of local subreddits in my local area. Since the Rexxit, I don't look at much else on Reddit.
- Facebook -- like the local and niche subreddits, I read Facebook on and off (mostly off) for these as well. The Facebook Marketplace is the way I find second-hand items locally.
I'm beginning to understand why I'm not practicing my music (Barbershop Harmony) as much as I should recently!
I used the Reddit meltdown as an excuse to try and finally move away from Social Media. Reddit was basically the only thing I still used.
Checked out Beehaw and Lemmy and just wasn't that interested. Found Tildes and it is kind of perfect for what I want. Pop in, read some discussions. Maybe add to a couple interesting discussions, then close my browser and move on to something else.
I was on my phone 3 hours less then the previous week when I was using Reddit so basically exactly what I wanted.
I'm trying to do more useful things on my phone like reading interesting articles and trying educate myself away from using social media. I basically quit Reddit cold turkey the first day of the black out and haven't looked back. I have been kind of surprised at how easily I transitioned.
Happy so far!
Very similar here. I quit reddit because of the API decisions, but I had been meaning to do a reddit detox for quite some time. It became my go-to time filler, something I'd pull up anytime I had a few moments to kill, or nothing directly in front of me to do. Mindless browsing, and esp reddit, really eroded my attention span over the last decade. I used to plow through books, but it seemed like I barely had the attention span to finish a long form article without clicking to something else.
I also was starting to be less comfortable with how I engaged with reddit. I spent a lot of time on subs like the best of redditor updates--basically rubbernecking people's drama and tragedies rather than being inquisitive or connecting through meaningful discussions. And when I was using reddit to be informed, like on the news or politics subs, I found myself giving more weight to the comments rather than the post itself. I do think the discussions are one of the strengths of reddit--particularly useful when offering context or greater background to the lay reader, like in the case of science, economics or world affairs posts. But I noticed I was leaning too hard on the comments section, and letting it guide how I should think about the topic at hand.
So now I'm consuming news at the source--really using that NYT subscription I basically got for the crossword. And I've read more books in the last 2 weeks than I did in the last 4 months. Even if reddit totally walked back their API rules tomorrow, I'd still be avoiding it--my attention span and critical thinking needs further repair.
If you want to spend more of your phone time on long reads, I recommend you adopt RSS and either a read-it-later app, like Pocket, or a bookmark manager, like Scrapp. That really shifts the balance of time spent from dopamine scroll feeds to more complex ideas and long form articles.
You nailed it. I am using Pocket to actually read more articles. I was the rare person on Reddit to actually read more then the headline so Pocket has nicely filled my desire for quick hit and longer articles on interesting things.
Nice! In that case, my next recommendation for iOS users (I’m sure there must be something analogous in Android) is to get a Siri shortcut from the standard gallery called “Kick back and read.”
Basically you invoke it and it asks for a number. You give it the number and it returns that many unread items from your read it later app of choice. One of my issues with doing more long reads was just the decision paralysis of deciding which to do, but this just took care of that. So I usually start my day scrolling through NetNewsWire (my RSS reader of choice), saving everything that interests me that isn’t just bite-sized content to Pocket, and then pulling up articles at random throughout the day.
I quit Reddit about a month ago because I found I was reading about horrible things happening and it was affecting my mood. Tildes feels like a small subreddit, but not focused on any niche. I like the browser first approach to the web as well because it encourages me to use it on my computer instead of my phone. I think social media works best when it’s used intentionally instead of as a way to entertain yourself anywhere.
Sorry for replaying to old comment, but I have a question: you did not perceive tildes.net as Social Media?
Not in the traditional sense but I guess that is probably more a technicality in my mind.
Tildes feels more like a forum, which I guess you could call Social Media. I use and check Tildes significantly less than I was with Reddit so I'm happy with the change regardless.
I've honestly stopped using Reddit entirely. I swung past yesterday to see some news that someone linked me to and I just stopped reading at three comments. I never realised how much a toxic popularity-contest the comments really are. I do much prefer here.
I've actually been spending less time looking for "Stuff" now that Reddit is gone. I do miss certain communities... but the fediverse stuff feels really 'social media, but different' aspect and I'm not SM's biggest fan in the first place.
Yeah, I blocked Reddit on my home network and have completely stopped using it. Occasionally I still type “Reddit.com” when bored, but I just get a “Address is invalid” page.
Same here - Reddit joined the likes of Facebook and Twitter in my pihole blocklist.
For me it's threefold at the the moment:
Reddit: I reduce my activity more and more. At the moment I'm still using RIF for the last days, afterwards I'll stop using it on mobile altogether. There are just three subs at the moment that I care a lot about left, the one I'm a moderator in included. Deleting now would feel especially letting the wonderful mod team down, even though I told them I'll restrict activity to desktop. Once they'd deactivate old.reddit or those three subreddits are gone I'd delete my account.
Tildes: Just as you said - rather long, but very interesting read in a polite surrounding. Replaced Reddit for me regarding my internet conversation with random strangers part.
Squabbles.io is my third pick, it more and more replaces Reddit for image sharing as the photography subs are revived there. Together with Tildes it's the main spot of activity for me now.
Lemmy: I tried, but it doesn't feel comfortable for me as of now. At the moment, even though it might be the most popular rexxit space I don't think I'll really have a tent there, maybe this changes if Squabbles would fail.
Facebook: The only reason I ever created an account there was that one of my mobile games requires it as backup for saves in case you switch your phone and don't want to do 4000+ levels from scratch.
I’m with you on tildes and squabbles. I accidentally became a moderator over there for a group I wanted to see and I am hoping someone else will take over for me (someone with moderation experience who actually wants to see the group grow and thrive). But I love that tildes is optimized for web browsers, including mobile is browsers. It just fits better on my phone. So I eagerly await an app that works for squabbles. For me, apps are much easier to pick up, put down, and put on time out if I need to than the browser.
I haven’t actually been on Facebook in close to three years and the only reason I am logged on on my phone/computer is because of messenger in my phone’s case and I needed to be logged into Facebook to make a work project easier on my computer, but if it logs me out, I won’t go back.
I’ve found squabbles is nice like tildes is, which is nice. People respect each other and generally try to be kind to one another (a few jerks notwithstanding, but isn’t that always the case in social media). It’s also completely replaced the scrolling itch for me because I can’t doom scroll if it doesn’t automatically scroll and you have to press a button to keep going.
Tildes is the forums I was missing from the old internet/ravelry, and squabbles is the perfect (for me) replacement of twitter and Reddit like it aimed to do. I get my fast news and memes there, and here I get the insightful, well-thought-out comments and discussion on bigger topics.
This is the insidious corner that modern social media seem to back people into. I've been on the Web since the late 90s and through the early 2000s golden age. The stark difference is back then, it was a bunch of creative people making and sharing things with the world, for fun.
Now we have a weird class system of consumers on a morphine drip of short and cheap entertainment, and "content creators" chasing pennies and attention, keeping the system going. We've also reduced all pretense of artistry to "creator of product for the system." Not illustrators, not talk show hosts, not musicians: it's all just "content" for the content mine. It's demeaning and dystopian.
I think it's probably much healthier to break out of that and try to spend time better. Reading long form things, including books, learning and honing creative skills, watching videos longer than 30 seconds, whatever. I realize many people, including myself, talk about how they used to read novels or nonfiction books but don't anymore. It's because social media has stolen that time, replacing something edifying with trash.
I feel like the whole shift towards "content creators", we have lost some of what artistic expression even means. Art has always been a way for humans to communicate with other humans in some way, often as a way to express things that are not easily explored logically.
Now we have tons of content that is algorithically optimized to specific tastes and demographics. I honestly don't understand those who seem excited at the prospect of a future where you can create your own novel from ChatGPT with a few prompts. We might get what we think we want, but often the most rewarding experiences with an art form (novel, movie, music etc.) is what we didn't think we needed or didn't necessarily actively seek out.
I recently saw Chungking Express which is definitely not a movie any of the algorithmic profiles of my habits would have recommended, but has opened me to a whole new type of films that I haven't explored before.
HBO reversed their recent change with only listing "creators" and not directors, actors or writers, but it definitely feels like the entertainment industry is trying to further devalue everyone into to simply being content creators.
I feel you. I'm having the same issues. Personally I picked up reading books which I haven't done since I had to for high school. Except study books of course.
My life feels much quieter and relaxing now and I enjoy it. Sometimes it's hard if I have some time to kill but I was alive pre social media so I'm sure I can do it with less.
Also congrats on the weight loss and more so on keeping it off. Changing habits is not easy. Same with the social media habits I guess.
I also switched over to reading instead of browsing Reddit. I put my Kindle app where Baconreader used to be, and now every time I have a minute I whip open a book instead of social media.
I was a voracious reader in high school, but that fell off almost immediately upon entering adulthood.
Now, I've knocked out three novels since the lockdown. My girlfriend, having never seen me read a novel, is astounded at how quickly I knock them out lol. I think the actual time I'm spending on my phone is actually increasing though...
I am borrowing my wife's ereader at the moment and I got to say it makes it even better. Easier on the eyes and less distractions. Definitely a worthwhile purchase if you read a lot I think.
I renewed my library card because of rexxit. I am going through many books now.
After rexxit, I find myself mostly using tildes. That is as my main which replaces Reddit. I also use Facebook. I don’t care so much for the actual Facebook side of Facebook, but the groups. I love moderating some of the local buy/sell groups. I am almost always trying to get added to new groups. I just seem to have a hatred for spam that drives me to clean it all. I also do moderation for several groups ran by the anime navigators. I have only been with them for a little less than a year, but they have already became in a way like family. I also use Twitter, not much as since musk. Now I only use it to see who I follow. Comment 竹 on some posts and look at “art”.
I haven’t quite got into fedi stuff yet. Whenever it settles down some, I’ll eventually join one for cat pictures and such.
Since that fated day the Apollo dev made his first post letting us know about the API situation, my daily usage of reddit was reduced from browsing hundreds of my normal subs, down to 1) checking r/redditalternatives to find somewhere to go, 2) checking r/modcoord out of curiosity to see how badly the situation is devolving, and 3) spending my last few days with RIF to enjoy couple of niche subreddits that will likely never be recreated elsewhere. I will probably use old.reddit+RES to check in on those communities from time to time after June 30th, but the inconvenience will most likely cause me to lose interest.
Those niche subs I'll miss are mostly snark subreddits, so the only real alternatives I know of are kiwifarms and other dark, sticky corners of the internet which I can't stand to lurk in more than a few minutes at a time.
Honestly, it's probably for the best. What I really enjoyed about snark subreddits wasn't making fun of absurd influencers, it was having interesting discussions about things like religious fundamentalism, gender roles, theories about social media and internet culture, etc., which can certainly be accomplished in a far less low-brow environment. Snarkers, I'm sure I'll come across a few of you sick fucks out there somewhere.
Based on the past few weeks, I'll be spending most of my time on the internet here.
I was very much into the political subs and circles on Reddit and Twitter. I'm interested in politics, but it had already started grinding me down - so much rage, so much impotency, so many trolls and dishonest actors. The mindless rage was worrying me, honestly, and how it is rewarded by the karma and retweet systems, and how those systems require even more violent rage and even more mindless engagement in that rage.
I signed up for Kbin to get the reddit+twitter substitute and poked around. It's good for people who want that, but I'm not sure I want it for myself anymore - it just makes me unhappy and I never could figure out how to help redirect people's angry up/downvotes and retweets into real action, IRL, on boring issues, so what was I accomplishing?
Before Reddit, I was on Metafilter; and before that I was on forums and blog circles for the Web 2.0 stuff. I just got here 2 days ago, but it feels a lot like Metafilter was back in the day... and that's a compliment. Slower, more thoughtful; I'm more likely to learn something new here, more likely to grow as a person from the conversations here.
I've settled into a similar pattern - check other SM sites, flip through various news sites. I'm considering setting up a subscription to a news aggregator as that's the one thing I miss most.
Just had to highlight this because holy shit - that is a major accomplishment, first to achieve and then to maintain for so long. Congrats!
Thank you!
Lemmy - I tried browsing a few instances, but frankly I found them confusing.
Twitter - I used to be pretty active there, for a few years actually. But recently I've came to the conclusion that it's full of people boasting anything they've done, to get likes etc. Kinda like Instagram.
Reddit - I don't remember exactly why I joined it. One of the things I like about Reddit is you can (or could - I'm not really following after recent events) find a community for everything. Like for books, language learning, relationships or porn. And yeah, I kinda miss all those NSFW subreddits.
Sadly, when I cut down on Twitter and Reddit I found myself watching various YT videos, and similar to what @Elegy has said - it doesn't help my attention span at all. And I would love to come back to reading books.
Gosh, it's a bit strange to resonate with so many people on here. Tildes, books, Duolingo. Loving this slightly more mindful approach to spending time.
I moved away from Reddit as soon as all this mess went down. I've reaquired my love for RSS and Read-it-Later apps and am self hosting instances of Minflux and Wallabag and honestly, it's been wonderful. I also tried Lemmy and still hang around and participate there, but Tildes seems more my speed and the UI is vastly superior to any alternatives, imo. Also helps that the discussions I've had here are more productive and friendly than any I've ever had one Reddit.
Tildes does seem to be my preference. Prevents doom-scrolling and the people are great. Very thoughtful conversations that you'd never get on Reddit.
Reddit alternatives
I made a list of these and once my purge is complete I'll spend time leisurely researching if they're worth joining. It's not a short list though. The aggregators I use are reddit, tildes, Hacker News, Lobsters and Hubski.
Reddit content purge
My quest to purge all my reddit content is ongoing
Power Delete Suite
PDS
When you delete your account, all contents remain but get attributed to [deleted] - comments and posts. My plan is to delete all posts (submissions), keep all comments (including self posts) and use PDS to edit them to a message explaining my actions and some reasons. This is why I chose PDS because it lets you choose to delete or edit comments,
Once I've completed that and waited to see what reddit does (see Conclusion below) I will delete my account so all those comments remain attributed to [deleted]. I've noticed some search engines picking up the edits already (again see Conclusion below).
I started using PDS 3 or 4 days after the initial blackout. I set it to delete all submissions and to edit (not delete) comments and comment only self-posts.
PDS fork with 5 second delay
PDS+5
I have a lot of free time on my hands recently so I wrote a script to take 1 item from my remaining list of subs (sorted alphabetically) and open sub specific searches (that include the sub) to both Google and DuckDuckGo. For example to search only the Music sub (DDG/Google) you use the query
site:www.reddit.com/r/Music <search term>.There are flaws and mistakes in this approach e.g. I'm opening all results manually at the moment. I should invest time to amalgamate both sets of results but I'm going to try PDS+5 on those remaining subs and then double-check the results to see how effective it is.
Conclusion
I think reddit may very well implement a mass restore of deleted and edited content. I think the whole reason for their behaviour is to effectively price out all the popular 3^rd party apps in order to force more and more people to use their own, very poor app. They can deliver more ads, force even more adoption of their pitiful features (digital currency, NFTs, web's worst video player) onto more people so they can present much better stats for their upcoming IPO.
It's all about the money.
It was a reflex to hit the Joey app when i was bored. Now i split this time between Tildes and duolingo. Feel that i learn more than doom scrolling on Reddit. I havnt deleted my reddit account yet july 1st is my deadline.
Hope for a SLOW grow of Tildes with a forever invitation system.
I also highly recommend Duolingo. I'm on a >1000 day streak for Japanese. I'm not always terribly productive with learning new things, but I make sure to at least fly through one review lesson to help retain my hiragana/katakana skills.
I think it's definitely most useful as a companion to a textbook or something (I need to find a good one) but it's definitely a much better use of time than social media.
I can't even figure out how to register for lemmy. Everytime I try, I get the Neverending loading bar. I've made sure that the username I am registering is not already in use. I've made sure my password is 'strong.' Nothing seems to work. I guess lemmy just isn't for me.
The neverending loading bar is what mine did too. I had to wait for an email saying that my application was approved (took days). https://lemmy.sdf.org/ I did today and it took less than an hour. https://discuss.tchncs.de/ took a couple of hours. Both seem to have a good selection of communities.
I'm glad it (eventually) worked for you. It would be nice if you were given any indication that the request went through. I don't think mine ever did. It's been many days. I don't have much confidence in a product that has this many problems on the registration screen. I know these are new communities and it will take time to work out many of the bugs and quirks. I guess if lemmy ever gets their $h!+ together, then I'll try again.
The creator of my favorite reddit app (RedditSync) says he will be making a lemmy app. So I will eventually end up there.
The issues you highlight initially kept me from joining Lemmy as well but I was able to figure it out. There are several items that return the spinning wheel instead of any type of message letting you know what the error was. There is a github issue for this and I expect it to be fixed.
Lemmy is far from perfect, but it will continue to improve and these things that are preventing widespread adoption will be ironed out I think. It helps to think of Lemmy as brand-new software. Reddit didn't have comments when it first started out.
I'm still planning on using Reddit 🤷♀️. In the end, there really isn't a replacement - Lemmy/whatever does not have the pull to have a sufficient population. For specific niches, now that forums are dead, Reddit is where you go.
I've been on Tildes for 4 years, so that's not really a change. An adjunct platform.
I don't take anything on Reddit's frontpage seriously anymore, but that was way before any of this. It's usually filled with banal, emotionally manipulative content. The best park of the blackouts was that /r/antiwork was private.
I think I might be overcompensating a bit to fill the reddit-shaped hole in my
heartfree time: I joined a very small Lemmy instance (and subscribed to a bunch of communities from many other ones), Kbin. Squabbles and of course here. I'm slowly settling down into accepting that I don't have to (and physically can't) check everything and all the time, but I'm still in that child-like phase of "I got a new toy, so now I'm going to play with it every waking minute because it's new and it's mine and I got it".It is a bit scary how addicted I was to reddit though, and how addicted I still am to random bits of information drip-fed to my brain constantly... I do try to be more conscious about it, if only to avoid manufactured outrage and coteibuting to it, but it really is like a drug.
I still visit reddit, but only to check /r/ModCoord and my moderation duties (a small subreddit that requires just a couple decisions per day--decisions that a fellow mod seems to be 100% taking care of). I don't miss it much.
I visit here a bit compulsively, but that's dying down a bit because the platform just isn't built for that. But even when here, I'm doing things that are actually worthwhile, like listening to music recommendations or reading articles. It's nice.
I also visit facebook compulsively, but I mostly just check marketplace, because the content facebook thinks I want to see is incredibly dull (other than the half-naked women that they have learned I hover on longer than anything else).
Overall I'm liking this change. I'm not sure I especially want to go back to reddit, though I do want to stick with the two communities there that I feel like I'm a part of. I'm kind of waiting for July 1st to see what happens and what other people are doing to boycott.
I decided to get picky about where I spend my time as an actual user/presence, and that's on one website only, and it's this one. I dip into the others occasionally but I keep them under glass with no accounts, and I usually only land there searching for something else. I don't do the doomscrolling anymore. When I'm on my computer there are usually other things than Tildes going on, and it's just sitting there for when I'm waiting on a progress bar and have a moment for some reading. I just came back from a couple month break of not even posting here because of the stirrings on reddit. I love a good fire, especially when it's not in my own parlor anymore.
I've been on reddit since the protest started for the first time in four-ish years, mainly pitching tildes to people and sending out a couple invites when an interested party hunts me down. Pickings are pretty good in that department - I like to invite reddit moderators. :) I also did some cleanup work the other mods were neglecting in /r/listentomods. With all the subs being forced open from private I was expecting reddit's hamfisted scripting to blow open the listentothis mod's private back room - which hasn't been used since I left - so I took the time to blank it completely. I'll put it back at the end of next month after the admins stop panicking. I'm sure reddit's pack of witch hunters would have a field day reading all of that old stuff.
You might consider adding lobste.rs and ycombinator (hacker news) to that list!
lobste.rs is almost like a cult tribe or community which started with a keen interest for rubyists I think but has new focused around technology just like HN
HN is also a minimalist tech specific forum, pretty much like the /r/technology sub I think but without all the zeal and eccentricity.
I joined Kbin and Tildes and they both are pretty great
I like the tailored discussions in Tildes the most but the shoot-from-the-hip chaos of Kbin and the fediverse is kind of fun, although there's quite a few things about it I don't like in general
But once third party apps die this week I don't see myself going on reddit much
I've been replacing Reddit with Squabbles and Tildes. Squabbles for dumber, constant entertainment. Tildes for thought provoking and more serious topics.
I'm just starting to explore Tildes, the community and comments all seem incredibly nice and well mannered (at least what I've managed to read so far), as I deal with the reality that I'll have to uninstall Reddit from my phone eventually. Last week, both Instagram and Tiktok were finally uninstalled, and I haven't had Twitter on it for quite a while. Reddit was the only social media app/site that I frequently interacted with (and not just passively consumed content from) but not everything is made to last.
Half of the subs I cared for are either closing or moving, so it's time to make a move too. Maybe not having social media at all in my phone will help me focus more on my work. It won't solve my tendency to procrastinate, but there'll be one less variable now!
I've tried many times over the years to stop reading Reddit and Hacker News. HN has been easier to stop engaging with. After years of semi-lurking with 2 accounts I got one to 500 points to unlock downvoting, then stopped posting. Then stopped reading because lately it's pretty much all articles about Rust or "Why X is Bad" substack spam. Reddit was proving very difficult to quit. The patientgamers sub for the weekly what-are-you-playing, or movie recommendations, podcast discussions, that sort of thing, but thanks to the API stuff I went cold turkey when I signed up here.
Procrastination is just the worst, I hate having no will power. I tried using a firefox plugin to ban certain sites, but it doesn't really help because I just go in and turn it off.
Apologies for the unsolicited advice, because this is something I struggle with myself. It was a lot easier when I was an IC and could just put on music and click into the zone. Now that I'm a team lead I'm in meetings all day and there just isn't enough time to ever get my brain into concentration mode.
Banning stuff has never helped for the reasons you said. Even if I am strict with myself I end up finding other things to procrastinate with or I'll literally just space out or end up making music playlists. But the one thing I've found helps is to gamify getting actual work done by making myself "To do" lists that get very granular about each step of the way. As long as I have a consistent dopamine loop of crossing off items it keeps my mind from wandering.
Yeah, breaking down tasks into the small units of work definitely helps, and having a plan for the next step just to get moving. Also, I'm more of a finisher than a starter, so things that need fixing up or problems that others have given up on, I usually do those. My sticking point is when it's a start-from-scratch type task, I just cannot get going and will do anything to not face it.
Anyway, better get back to it :-P
I wish I had the same experience. My local subreddit had all its mods step down and then it was taken over by crazies.
squabbles.io is by far the leading reddit alternative in my experience, it has a really nice vibe and the developer is incredibly responsive making changes on a daily basis.
This site is ok, but the rigid structure of the "subs" doesn't work for me, it puts me off wanting to post anything.
I tried Lemmy a couple of days ago and that isn't a good experience at all, terrible UX and very low engagement.
Yeah, I like this site quite a bit, but the inability to acknowledge that people want to see some hope that there will be a place to post about their interests in the near future seems like a footgun to me.
It's nobody's fault, but the activity from the new users already looks to be quieting down. Maybe there will be one more burst of users in July when the new Reddit API terms actually go live, but I expect those new users will be just as likely to have friction and resistance looking for an obvious section to post all but the most broad of topics.
I've been using Tildes and Trust Cafe and loving my interactions with other users (minus one bad interaction on TC. Someone posted about Asperger's not being the proper term to use anymore and how it relates to Nazism and I asked for more info because I couldn't find anything and was promptly blocked after being told they won't spoon feed me info. Damn, sorry for wanting to hear from a real human that has knowledge of the subject).
One thing I try to avoid is telling people to do a Google search or read a FAQ. They came to discuss. I might point to those things, but I'll still remember that they came to hear and be heard, they didn't come to a FAQ or a search engine.
I used to be that jerk, but, back when Shazam was really taking off, I was on a road trip with two friends and my buddy in the back asked what the song we were listening to was. I said, "Just Shazam it, dude." He shouted back, "Well fuck me for wanting to have a conversation with my friends!" Immediately made me feel like the biggest asshole ever. Ever since then, I try to engage more. Especially after seeing the XKCD comic Ten Thousand. It is so much more fun to teach someone something new than sending them elsewhere.
i haven’t seen anyone mention BlueSky yet—but really, that probably tracks with the userbase of Tildes. it’s basically just Twitter without Elon and that’s why i like it. it could use with a little less “twitter” because sometimes there’s the usual twitter braindead argument-ness, but with how few people there are there yet, probably mainly due to the severe lack of supply in invites, it’s not so bad. it seems to have some interesting ideas around moderation and stuff and it’s a lot easier to join compared to something like Mastodon even though it’s a federated thing. i think it could have potential if it made the site public like Tildes. but keep it invite only for now since it’s still in beta and can have some bugs.
i still use reddit and twitter, and obviously i use tildes too, and i believe this new crop of social media platforms are a lot better than what came before but they just haven’t hit that critical mass yet.
Mastodon is like Twitter in the same way that Tildes is like Reddit. They look similar on the surface, but in each case there are intentional design differences that are meant to help keep the spaces in a healthier state.
I'm a big Mastodon fan now and I deleted my Twitter account once I got settled in there. I'm not sure if my Reddit account is headed in the same direction, but I did just unsubscribe from one of my formerly favorite subreddits because of how annoying it has become, so the trends are not good.
Around last year I was getting less and less value out of Reddit.
I tried Twitter and made a few connections there (People I might DM for advice or follow on instagram and like their posts and stuff.) Twitter definately fizzled out (and I'm generally bad at tweeting.)
This month I deleted Reddit after seeing it again take huge steps in an IMO bad direction, and got an invite for Tildes :)
My only regular social media is Hackernews and Tildes now. It's slower and I prefer that. The signal/noise ratio is higher on both places vs Reddit.
One thing that has helped a bit, is to resist the temptation to write on my phone. Taking the time to write something on a laptop feels better. I think in the sense that mobile is so connected to gamification and posts are made to get likes. While on my laptop I don't really care about likes and Karma etc.
Honestly, I'm still going to use Reddit. There are subreddits that just aren't wholly replaceable. City specific subreddits are VERY useful for keeping up with news for an area and engaging with local residents. I also feel like Reddit communities are really good self-curated RSS feeds. Subscribing to /r/rust and /r/elixir is going to get me updates for those languages.
Additionally, and I know this is somewhat counter to most cultural norms - especially on Tildes - but I actually want "mental junk food." When I'm out and about, I want to open my phone to look at cat pictures and simple memes/web comics. Reddit will still be used for that category of content.
I think I will start slowly migrating over to RSS feeds for news, however.
It's a bit of a vicious cycle like WhatsApp migration. People want to find an alternative service but are always reluctant to move because all their contacts are still using WhatsApp.
The only thing that I'll miss from reddit is r/GameDeals and r/Games. They are well moderated and contents are usually high quality. Hope I can find some good alternatives for it.
I've been on tildes and lobste.rs for ages. Since spez's incredibly disrespectful spectacle, I've used these more, and also added beehaw, which I like so far, and exercism, which honestly is way more satisfying than reddit could ever hope to be.
What is exercism?
It's a free, volunteer-driven site for learning programming languages
Facebook
I deleted my facebook account a year ago.
Twitter
Roughly 6 months ago I started to unsubscribe from one user every time I opened twitter and now I only have ~50 more to go before there is nothing there for me.
Mastodon
Some of the accounts I used to follow on twitter moved to mastodon (that is why I started unsubbing on twitter) and I use it to get science news and analysis of current events.
Reddit
I joined reddit 16 years ago and it is more of a habbit than something I need. I cant really say I miss reddit but I miss something to do when Im commuting to/from work.
The only site of the below that I use actively, is Tildes. The others were more to see from a curiosity side of things.
Facebook: Deleted 2012
Twitter: Deleted 2012, made an account or 2 afterwards, but always deleted it again. (Hoping Mastodon might convince me, just love the idea of microblogging.)
Reddit: Only started using in 2020 or so, blame lockdown. I've made and deleted an account on there about 5 times. After Apollo passed away, it's only if it shows in a web search with a possible answer. (Without an account, would have liked to use Teddit.net though...)
Tildes: About 1-2 weeks and loving it so much. I can't believe how peaceful and wholesome it is here, especially with it being text only.
Mastodon: Made accounts about 4 times, always deleted it, didn't know anyone. A kind user on here messaged me though and I will look into his suggestions. :)
Lemmy: Tried it with my current Mastodon account, but wow the Fediverse is so complicated. I really want to make it work, as I love rooting for the "underdog." (People have been very helpful.)
T2: Probably the friendliest site I've ever been on, joined a few days ago and haven't ever been welcomed by so many strangers!
BlueSky: Got an invite the first day on T2 a few days ago. Their timeline filters are really cool. You subscribe to a filer (eg. comics and tech and movies) and then it just adds those to your feed. So the filtering is pretty powerful. (Not using it really, curiousity I guess.)
Other open-source / fediverse concepts that I can't recall: Tried it and most of them never took off.
Sometimes I might complain about tildes, but the truth is it's still one of the best places online to actually have measured, in depth conversations about current topics.
I've actually gravitated towards Mastodon and Kbin recently. It just took figuring out either site and setting things to my liking.
I might give Bluesky a try if I ever get an invite.
Eitherway I'm just happy so many communities are opening up when for the longest time it felt like only the big four. It made me forget I could actually have fun on social media.
One niche that only occurred to be recently is Facebook events. If I want to invite a bunch of people to a party I still have to dig up my Facebook passwords to do it. I guess the other platforms don't have the old-fashioned pretense of connecting with irl friends.