Notices by Anil Dash (anildash@me.dm)

@jwz all platforms will expand until they get a killfile 😭

@fahrni @lylo there’s definitely an aspect of tall poppy-ism to it sometimes.

@NatureMC @beep @michaelcoyote yeah a big part of the imbalance for me here is that it also lacks a lot of the stuff (uhhh… people of color, pop culture, immediacy) that enable me to have *fun* online. Nobody is riffing on the NBA finals and the NYC elections and Olivia Rodrigo’s album here in ways that are legible to me. So that lack of joy alongside an abundance of scolding is… tiring.

@tomhead you are right about this; I think it’s true most of the time. And in the abstract, I have empathy for it. But the net effect of being the target of it for a whole bunch of dudes is pretty dehumanizing. They aren’t actually responding to me as a person, I’m just a concept they’re using to launch into a performance they already had cued up. When that’s the most immediate and reliable reaction, a platform becomes unbearable.

@claudius @jackwilliambell yeah I think that’s the issue, I’m not *trying* to be an “influencer”. I _like_ talking to people and hanging out online. These kinds of behaviors I’m describing just make that impossible, because they won’t engage with me in a normal way. That’s the cause of the frustration.

@draNgNon yeah I think they mean well most of the time, it’s just… a pretty broken way of interacting with strangers. Some of what is so off-putting is that they’re clearly responding for the purpose of performing for others, not because they’re replying to *me*. That’s really dehumanizing.

@RobeeShepherd yeah it may well be a problem I’m privileged to have, which is why I’ve refrained from mentioning it for a long time. But I want things to get better because I want to invest more time and effort here! (And yeah, this new release has some great tracks!)

@lkanies yeah I think that’s a good way to put it, there’s a lot of nannying. Even when it’s about things I agree with (maybe *especially* then!) it’s exhausting.

@mhoye it was not the inspiration, alas.

@tsupasat I know how to do these things, I’m just talking about the weird cultural aspect.

(Friends, I’ve been on social media for 30 years; I’m well aware that I can block or mute. I’m reflecting more on a peculiarity of culture here that’s specific to this platform vs others. It’s worth pointing out because maybe it can be addressed, or is an artifact of some design choices or social norms.)

@ml I’m aware of the options, but if you have to do it all the time, it becomes fatiguing, and then you just don’t feel like using the platform. Which is what I was describing.

The biggest reason I don’t use Mastodon nearly as often as I’d like to is because, unlike other platforms, too many of the people who act like asses here are people who *follow me*. It’s really weird, because every platform has assholes or whatever, but usually it’s due to context collapse from strangers. Here, it’s usually a tiny minority that wants to scold or police over (often contrived!) objections, and it’s just… exhausting. Takes the fun out of hanging out online. Not sure how to fix it.

@ehler it’s mostly just a static Eleventy blog with Markdown files that I write locally, but I do use Sveltia to edit posts sometimes, and to put stuff live and commit to git https://sveltiacms.app/

@silverwizard @metagrrrl It's just true, and it's obvious in contrast to people who just act *normal*. Plenty of folks have said, "Hey, have you considered this" and shared critical feedback, and I've reflected and agreed with their criticism or changed the way I was moving or thinking about things. But people who lead with fanfic they've made up about me aren't acting in good faith, and are lashing out at an imagined enemy; it's never useful to indulge that, so I don't.

@a @kottke I've been endorsed on LinkedIn for "LinkedIn usage"

@cell911 @imdavidpierce @gruber 🫡

@silverwizard @metagrrrl you seem to be objecting when someone makes an untrue assertion about you. Can you see why maybe you shouldn’t make assertions about others that aren’t true? You could engage me like I’m a person, and have a conversation. But instead, your own insecurity compelled you to engage with me through the lens of your resentment, so you treated me like an object. You wouldn’t talk to an actual person like this. Why the fuck should I indulge you?

@togdon @gruber I don’t think we could have done Aaron justice in that short window of time, but I did cover Aaron in my piece that I linked to.

@fartnuggets @gruber 🫡