#social media issues

[digitalgirlsthings]

[daisychains334]

i feel like we so often see the world through the lens of social media now.

picturesque becomes “instagrammable” instead of beautiful and captivating.

important debates and conflict? save it for twitter, instead of respectfully discussing and disagreeing in real life.

you want inspiration? look on pinterest, not out in nature or art galleries or just in the simplicity of everyday life.

i’m so tired of feeling like being online is the only way to stay connected and even have simple conversations. this needs to change, and i know it won’t.

[olivescales3]

What's the point of having followers if you don't have fans? 269 followers, but a majority of them probably haven't even read my story, nor seen my art....

I'm grateful for all of my fans! Even if they're just 10 fans, they're the ones who helped me throughout my journey making TFLOC.

[wanderingmind867]

I think I'm glad I only made this social media account when I was 17. Because I realized something in making this account: social media is downright addictive, sometimes. I already knew that, of course. But to realize it firsthand is fascinating. And trust me, at this point I don't think I could bring myself to part with this account. But I still feel like it's fair to criticize social media, and acknowledge the sway it seemingly can have over me. It always baffled me that there were kids in elementary school who had social media. Because up until the moment I made this account in 2021/2022, I disdained social media. I didn't see the appeal, and I didn't get why kids were allowed to have it. Now I get it a bit more, but my own neuroticism does encourage me to believe that there should still be rules and regulations.

Thankfully, tumblr doesn't seem as bad as Twitter or Instagram or Tiktok or so on. My dad uses those, and they seem more addictive. At least on tumblr, the pressure only comes from my own mind. There's nothing on here that explicitly makes me feel bad for not posting. I just make myself feel that anyways, because i'm a super neurotic type of person. So at least this isn't a site that could take my clear neuroticism and make it worse. No, it keeps it stable, if anything. Not helping but not hurting. And although I still consider it addictive, I can at least try to make myself feel better.

[ahopelessprincessreincarnation]

Is it just me, or has other people's Twitter(I am not calling it "X" or whatever the fuck Elongated Msukrat wants it to be named or something no matter what. Lmfaoooo he can suck my fat throbbing and imaginary girl dick)been really...garbage at recommending them tweets and stuff related to what they're actually interested in lately?I know social media algorithms are probably always exploitative and shit because capitalism but maybe I'm just now noticing??I don't know they feel more put of place and negative than usual(To be fair, Twitter is sorta a form of "digital self-harm" or at the very least self-triggering for me but who cares?:P)Its not like I even want to be on the annoying blue bird app anyways but for some reason constantly arguing with people in a morally-righteous way and being upset and scared all the time when I'm on there...it feels really good at the same time??I don't even know anymore sorry if my explanation doesn't make sense, are there any psychological studies on why this happens?(That sounds dumb, sorry for being an idiot but I'm genuinely curious).

[h4vemercy]

Social media these days and people's "online presence" have consumed them at their core.

They barely know if they're posting for themselves anymore or posting just to live up to some intangible aesthetic they've made up in their head.

[universitypenguin]

I just read a fantastic article about how Tiffany Haddish handled cyber bullying. This is the line that really jumped out at me in the piece:

[Haddish] hired a digital forensics analyst when death threats started coming her way. The analyst’s research showed that 75% of these threats were “created by robots in Malaysia and Iran.”

This is something that I need to keep in mind more when I’m on social media. Because how much of what we’re seeing is really people’s opinions? How much is rage bait for profit? What amount stems from political manipulation and foreign influence?

[starlightlamp]

Social media's role in the "loneliness epidemic"

When we think of social media, we usually think of the harmful effects of it since you're little brother and the 10 year old boy you tutor yell "english or spanish" and other brain rot terms at each other, or you remember the time when you were twelve and compared yourself to every girl you saw on instagram. But other times, we think of the online friends we made and the other fun parts of it.

The point is, social media's whole thing is that it connects people from all around the world, but I would argue that lately, it's doing the complete opposite.

We see so many different types of people post the music they like, what shows they watch, what food they enjoy etc. They're interesting and if an influencer is posting these, it's especially eye catching.

We think they're cool, we want to be those things ourselves. We want to stand out, we want to be the next best thing, someone no one has met before, so the gatekeeping ensues. We gatekeep the things we love, because if only we know about it (this thing is usually something mildly to extremely popular), it’s another artificial layer to us that can be hidden to a depth where people can still ask about it. If they do, and they decide they like the thing as well, we get mad, because it's supposed to be only ours.

What no one realises, is that in the process of this, we separate us from our friends and family. Because one, it's annoying as shit, and two, why would people think we're cool if we try to hide and not talk about anything that makes us, us. They'll just think we don't like them.

We do it to be mysterious and interesting, which will automatically lead to friends, but it backfires, because it's fucking stupid.

It’s a paradox. We want to be seen in a world where everyone is seen. We want to stand out where everyone is trying to stand out.

[lifblogs]

Also disgusted by the fact that a sick cat gets sensationalized. I have gained so many social media follows, and have had so much more interaction. I’m honestly sickened. I was posting updates because I wanted to be honest on my accounts about my boy since I know there are quite a few people who really do care about him. I wasn’t trying to sensationalize his pain and fear.

[your-heart-is-a-treasure]

You are that blessed soul who belongs to the garden of paradise.

Is it fair to let yourself fall apart in a shattered house?

You are the bird of happiness in the magic of existence.

What a pity! Why you let yourself be chained and caged?

Break free!

Break free from this dark prison called material world.

Soon you will see you are the sage and the fountain of life.

- Rumi

[olivescales3]

I'm almost at 300 followers, and yet my TFLOC content (which is what my olivescales3 account is about) has barely any support. Not even 10% of my followers interact with my stuff.

[wanderingmind867]

I still don't know how I feel about attention, and it's so hard to explain why. Because I do enjoy when my posts get notes (when my mutuals or people I think I know loosely like my stuff, it feels nice). But...If the note count gets really big, then it's super easy to start feeling some sort of shock and uncertainty. But I think I'm beginning to accept that I seem to get 30+ notes each day nowadays. And I'm still quite thankful that doesn't usually grow to become 100+ each day. Now that? That would definitely be overwhelming. Attention is that thing I both want and struggle with. Is this what social media being addictive is all about? I think it might be.

[itsbaku]

So like I was supposed to be drawing but I wanna say that I'm surprised at how all social media is going to shit.

Twitter hates minors and is becoming unusable due to Elon musk.

Reddit is starting to fail because of the blackout.

Instagram basically requires you to make videos.

YouTube has the worst censorship ever.

Hell, discord gave an update no one liked.

Everything sucks now.

Tumblr is fine because even though we are getting some sucky updates at least we can still function here.

At some point gonna have to just rebuild everything man.

[cafeleningrad]

"You have a fantastic chapter on Trad Moms and an equally fantastic chapter on “Cool” Instagram Moms. Both of these chapters are hilarious, in their way, but also vaguely (or explicitly) terrifying in others. To me, the common point seems to be an emptying of the self, of the experienced life, in all its messy contradiction, in favor of an aesthetic. Can you give a brief description of both and talk about how you think about them in concert? 

YES! That’s so well-put. As an elder millennial, I often think about how effectively aesthetics have been sold to me as a placeholder for personhood. I know I mentioned certainty earlier, and maybe this reveals more about my own desires than anything else, but I think aesthetics do offer the illusion of certainty. They offer people a blueprint for being in a culture which prioritizes rugged individualism and aggressively upward momentum above pretty much all else. Adopting a certain aesthetic (whether it be “cool mom” or “trad mom”) not only takes the guesswork of how to look in the world, it also does the work of communicating how you are in the world.

If you rid your home of plastic, wear only homespun calico dresses, and smear your entire existence in organic everything, maybe you can sleep better at night by thinking that your aesthetic presentation is equivalent to good motherhood, good earth stewardship, good taste, and good consumption.

If you dress yourself in a combo of indie brand names and vintage finds and decorate your home and kids similarly, maybe you can sleep at night believing that motherhood hasn’t erased your personhood, that motherhood hasn’t rendered you uninteresting, that motherhood has actually revealed the essential and unique you-ness of yourself. In both cases, I think the objective is to feel certain of oneself and one’s place in the world. And given mothers’ tenuous position in the US specifically, I very much get it! Our lives and identities are either aggressively attacked or swept under the rug in service of upholding capitalism through our unpaid labor of love.

Aestheticized motherhood is also interesting because it prioritizes static imagery over people’s lived experiences. Mothering is ongoing and ever changing; it resists neat categorization, and no single photograph could really communicate everything it entails. It’s also wildly variable! Motherhood is so beholden to imagery though, and imagery can often conjure up powerful feelings, which can energize all sorts of agendas. What’s more powerful? A list of a mother’s daily activities or a photo of a mother snuggling a newborn captioned by a passionate plea to criminalize abortion? I guess it depends on the viewer or reader, but I think it’s important to understand how imagery operates as an emotional shortcut in many ways. "

Pretty White moms in their Pretty White homes

[classycorekid]

low key might leave tumblr cuz

i’ve gotten multiple rape threats. 😋😋 this isn’t ok, this isn’t it, this isn’t the chill tumblr i’ve been told it was

[andybrawler]

…I feel like I’m on the wrong platform sometimes when I look up what this community thinks and there are some bad apples that want so many things destroyed for LGBTQ (Sorry if I mess that up) and it sickens me to my stomach. I left Twitter for a good reason, not to be told to be silenced again and that my opinions don’t matter because “I’m right and I won’t hear from you because I have a fixed mindset.” To be fair, it’s hard to have a growth mindset and look at the other teams view at times without judging, but I would like to see people stop fighting and understand that some things aren’t for you and respect others.

If you’re hurting good people for a cause, you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it to make an excuse while using them. There are always going to be bad people in every community, I know that, but we need to learn to stop those people from continuing to do it wrong, like for example, Vegans. That community is so nice and kind, yet there is Vegan Teacher and her “Daughter” Vegan Booty. We need them to stop cashing on that community or just simply encouraging people to bully and harm those around you for a community that doesn’t want to do that.

Can I please have news on anything positive about any community, whether it’s one I’m in or not? I just need to feel better today. I only watch TV news for the forecast anyways. Oddly accurate. XD