Tag: social media

I’m Insane

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I’ve spent my life talking to people who don’t exist. No, I don’t mean you, dear readers, who are (to me) digital abstractions of people that could be real, but that point bears touching upon. We spend a great deal of our time online, communicating with other people without knowing much about their personhood—what they look like, or where they live, or how they operate in the moment. These people are bite-sized samples of humans, picked up and tasted in 240 character minipaks or 30-second videos. And yet, I think these fractional-exposure people are far more real than the people…

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Converging Energy and the Blessings of the Hermit

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I’ve been seeing a bunch of posts like this lately: This is widespread across my YouTube subscriptions, and I’ve talked to a few author friends who feel the same way, either about content or just work in general. I’m part of this. Prior to getting sick, I purposely took a step back from YouTube to focus on drafting a new book. I figured it was a natural time because it was summer and, more relevant to this post, I just wasn’t feeling enthusiastic about turning on the camera. That lack of enthusiasm has persisted, and while getting an illness is…

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The Process of Deplatforming

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Having been around, carefully observing the process of “deplatforming” (that is, banning) of so-called “right wing” personalities on social media, I’ve noticed a few patterns. I’ve noticed that the platforms, YouTube in particular, operate in a series of steps, with the final collision of banning across all platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) happening last. Let’s take a look: Phase 1: Shadowban In this step, the offender is identified either manually (that is, by a person) or through new elements added to the algorithms and filters, and is essentially cut off from the normal organic boosts that a social media account will…

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The Dangers of Social Media in 2020 – what you NEED to know as a creator or a user

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Following up on some recent videos and livestreams regarding social media, here is what you NEED to know as either a creator or as just a user (or both) regarding social media platforms in 2020: Terms of Service are a red herring. Each platform represents a technical monopoly with little or no competition The core functionality is severely damaged I’ll expand on these below, but here’s what this basically translates into: There is no behavior pattern that can keep you from getting banned The “alternative” platforms are not alternatives at all The service is set up to NOT give you…

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An Unfortunate Reality

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I’ve lived a medium-length life, but it’s been highly varied. As a musician, I met and befriended many different kids of people… or so I thought. I had a sad realization watching my social media feeds (other than twitter) fill up black squares, or perhaps more of a recognition of what I already knew: The truth is, almost everyone I have known as an adult is a member of, or is highly submissive to, that psychic cadre we call the death cult. The further I get from it, and the closer I get to real people – whether they are…

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Twitter, the Land of Bad Bots

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Before we start, here’s a meme for free: So, you’re an author, or perhaps consider yourself an “aspiring” author (don’t be an “aspiring” anything – read my latest book to find out why). You’ve been told social media is incredibly important, so you make a twitter account. Authors start following you. You follow them back! Some of these accounts have THOUSANDS of followers, maybe even HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. This is how you build a social media following, right? WRONG. Let me give some of you new (not aspiring) authors and creators some critical advice: Success on social media is about…

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