#anyway I hate algorithms and algorithmically curated social feeds

[hayleykiyopioids]

Oops I was accidentally on the For You page or whatever and reblogged something from an account I DONT follow so obviously I deleted it as soon as I realized the sin I committed

If you saw that post no you didn’t

[monkiekidtwt]

Genuine question, no hate! Why stay on lmk Twitter and repost stuff to here abt it if you dislike it so much? And why are we all arguing over which platform is better? They are all good and bad, there's no better over the other.

To answer this seriously: the reason I stay is because it’s where the majority of LMK fans are. It’s the only place where Monkie Kid News and other such resources resides, and it is often the place that first gets wind of stuff like new releases. If I want to have my finger on the pulse of the show, I sort of have no choice to be. So, while I’m there, I repost the good stuff.

I’ve never engaged in arguments that one social media is better than the other, mind. Just said that Twitter sucks. But the reasons why I dislike Twitter (especially fandom Twitter) are as follows:

A culture of directly harassing people for minor infractions, or what turns out to be misinformation (just the other day, a minor was harassed for something it turned out they didn’t do)

Idolization of big name fans (like I said in an earlier post; if you criticize a big name fan, then you’re gonna get dogpiled to hell and back, and if a big name fan says something, everyone will pretend they’ve always agreed, even if they’ve expressed the opposite recently)

Literal 24/7, unavoidable discourse that nobody tags (today, the topic of fandom-wide discussion was people who treat Mei like she gets in the way of Spicynoodles, which literally nobody does)

It is so hard to optimize your experience and curate your feed, because tagging is not built into the system (like, what would I filter other than ‘Spicynoodles’ to stop seeing the previous discourse, when the majority of them are just text posts with no tags? what if I like that ship and don’t wanna mute it?)

Even if you could curate it better, general social media stuff that everyone knows about Twitter at this point makes it so that you’re always seeing stuff that upsets you (it’s designed to addict you, and feeds you the algorithm which is designed to show you posts that make you upset or angry for engagement, plus more!)

And that’s not even getting into the Elon Musk of it all, or the fact that I’ve had multiple friends on there both watch and be victims of horrific harassment campaigns on LMKtwt that left them with literal trauma symptoms.

Compare this to tumblr:

The culture here is largely “block and move on”

The tagging system makes it easy for people to tag their discourse so I don’t have to see it

Since there is no algorithm, there is no issue with being fed posts to upset me

Harassment is less normalized, and when you are harassed, it’s usually via anon, which you can turn off to shut them up

I have never personally seen any people showing weird behavior towards fellow fans, which is either a sign that it doesn’t happen or that you’re able to curate your feed with minimum effort to never see it

Twitter is an infinitely worse experience, culturally and by social media design, but I stay there because it is where most of the LEGO Monkie Kid fandom is, plus the chill people that reside there sometimes.

So, that’s 1) why I hate it there, and 2) why I’m there anyway. And I run this blog to share the goodies with tumblr, so that nobody else has to feel obligated to be on LMKtwt like I feel that I do. Which is why I make jokes about making such a huge sacrifice for the sake of LMK tumblr, via running this blog.

[don-quixotine]

If seeing people be negative is enough to drown out your own positivity about it, maybe you should ask yourself why and either A. Stop deluding yourself, or B. Accept that it's not what some people wanted and that that's fine and you can still enjoy it anyways.

You're confusing 'drowning in negativity' with it just being plain annoying and unnecessary. It is simply a matter of courtesy.

The tagging system in fandom has always been the backbone of self-curating, which not only is a quintessential part of the fandom experience, but it is paramount in a time when we're having algorithms force-fed to us.

Failing to use the tagging system speaks of a lack of courtesy for the others. I'm not saying people that like to hate on things should stop. I'm saying their opinion is not above the social agreement within fandom, and they should use the tags so that whoever doesn't share their opinion can opt out of bumping into it constantly in their feed.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I also think you should give others the chance to curate their online experience in the same way as you have the right to curate your own.

[cyrsed]

just rambles about how i feel lately. the vibes are not rancid, but they are not joyous

cw very brief implication of completely hypothetical suicide, ig drugs mentioned too?

feeling really strange lately, just like having really really intense weird nostalgia for growing up in the 90s/early 00s or something, which sounds silly, i’m not really one to romanticize the 90s (nothing wrong with liking the fashion/music/culture of previous decades to a degree obvs, but ykwim, it can become a trap of thinking that things were better then and now they’re bad which isn’t a helpful way to look at things) but it’s more like this weird pain for having lost something because right now the world today feels so hopeless and bad that i keep fantasizing about going back in time to before hyper-capitalist social media hell existed and imagining living like that. 

i’m trying to limit my social media use a bit right now, regardless. i don’t think social media is all bad, and who knows where i’d be without it, i might still be living thinking i was a cis woman, i might have even less friends, or worst case scenario maybe i wouldn’t have been alive at all, but i just hate how much time i waste on social media obsessively looking at things that are designed to make me angry and upset me. i’m trying to stop doing that, and i’m trying to unfollow/block accounts that are bringing that sort of negativity to my feeds. 

actually tumblr is pretty decent as far as social media is concerned, i really like it as far as a curated experience goes. it feels less exposed than twitter does, it’s just like a little corner of the internet that the older gays (ig meaning late 20s and on) hang out in and we’re not being relentlessly advertised to and preyed on by godawful Trending algorithms. tumblr isn’t all good lol it’s awful in its own ways but it feels like the last place i can go online to just get away from everything else and surround myself with other weird gays :)

just rambling, thanks for reading if you did! feeling sad and weird lately (trying again to quit kratom after a sliiight mess-up and it’s probably not helping my mood, but it’s not just that either)

anyway i love you all, thanks for being here, tumblr 4 ever tumblr never dies etc etc <3

[rayliur]

I don't know ... YouTube

It’s been five months since I’ve uploaded a vlog to my channel (most recent vlog linked below). During this time, I’ve been trying to stay away from YouTube, as a creator, because something wasn’t working for me. I had personal-life matters I needed to take care of and stepping away from being so public with my life on the internet (2015-2018) drove me insane. For some people, being a   vlogger is so narcissistic and I completely agree to some extent. I hate carrying a camera with me in public, pointing it to myself and pretending like life is the most interesting thing ever--trust me. I get it. We vloggers look dumb as fuck. But vlogging is also a way to create art.

Stepping away for a few months, I saw how disgusting and unsettling the YouTube community has become. I still love making videos and creating visual journals of my life from time to time. But it’s so easy (for me) to get sucked into a mental state where I always compare myself to big-time creators.

And I’m not talking about the ones in the millions subscribers range. For the longest time, I thought that if I kept up my internet presence through making stupid videos, I’d be able to turn it into a side-hustle and maybe one day quit my day job. In time, I grew less confident in my content, through comparing myself to others and also the fact that my view counts don’t reflect the number of subscribers. I know YouTube has algorithms that solicit certain videos on subscribers feeds and bury the less popular ones beneath those. And many time, I would feel like “what’s the point.” Why am I spending my time creating something that doesn’t matter? Turns out, I’ve been clinging onto this ledge or cliff of YouTube because it was my only creative outlet. My day job is fuckin’ boring--I’ll tell you straight up. Of course, there are days where it’ll be interesting and exciting; but for most part, it’s boring. Making videos was my only way to express myself and be however I want and whatever I want. It became harder to balance my creative side and the side that pays me and puts clothes on my back. So I let that non-creative side take over and swallow me up. I have no excuses for not dedicating my spare time to making videos--because people don’t understand the amount of effort it takes to curate and produce a good-quality video. It takes hours and hours and that’s something I don’t have. I also don’t have the liberty to film anymore because I don’t have a studio to do so in anymore. Sure, I began filming in my bedroom at my workstation, but as many work-from-home brothers and sisters know, it cripples your productivity and motivation--it’s too comfortable to be able to create art that way.

Anyway, I didn’t want this blog to be this long. Bottom line is: I don’t know when I’ll be uploading videos anymore and I don’t know what direction I’ll be headed moving forward with either channels. RayARCH is my baby and I can’t thank my subscribers enough for their support when I took a huge step in 2015, creating a separate channel away from my original channel. I didn’t know what to expect then--I certainly did not expect it to grow to what it is right now. Thank y’all!

Lastly, I just want to say that even though my most recent vlogs have not been the turnout that I had hoped for, with only a few views, but these vlogs have been my light when I feel down in my shit. They’re reminders of my past--in a time when I felt happy and good. That’s when I realized that these personal vlogs mean so much to me; forget the views and the analytics. Watching my friend Ayana smile and laugh or Bashir take me around his hometown brings tears to my eyes. This was what YouTube was, for me, when I started in 2013. But like I said, I don’t know what I’ll be doing with these channels.

Only time will tell.

Ray

In the meantime, follow me on other social media @rayliur

Most recent vlog: https://youtu.be/lkgOtK1aDQY

RayARCH Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNJsyqexaFYHAQTKsEYWDww