Sometimes I visit BlueSky and... it's not that folk on there are bad in any profound way, but I always leave the place with a sort of unquantifiable misanthropy. Something about the place just makes me want to escape to the wilds. I don't know whether it's the omnipresent Americanism or the fact that all posts take the form of a critique on a critique on a critique, but the atmosphere is just crushingly claustrophobic. It seems like everybody is desperate to convince themselves that they're part of some intellectual priesthood. Just exhausting stuff.
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I saw a post on there that was like "Cory Doctorow is bad" and the justification pretty much boiled down to "I don't like how he's imprecise with his terminology in order to appeal to people" and, uh, idk. If you're not willing to entertain that Cory might be on your side I don't think there's really much hope for you. It feels like it's just continuing the worst libertarian habits of old twitter where social interaction is a numbers game and everybody else is a valid target for zero-sum anger.
I can't help but visit it and feel that everybody is being disingenuous. I think it's probably got a far smaller bot population than most of the rest of the web, but in a way it doesn't matter: you're not viewing the thoughts of actual human beings anyway, just a façade that's been constructed with "will saying this help my numbers game?" being the overriding consideration. It makes my nose itch.
@jsbarretto I feel like the fact you CAN use the AtProto protocol (bsky) but you will have an incredibly difficult time getting anyone else to join your Boutique Lil Blog But Also You Can Post Here is missing something. People join blue sky like they join Twitter. There's not a good chance that the non-venture bsky instances will stack up. Fedi has a by-design variety. Local, special interest, etc. not The Big One Good
@jsbarretto I've felt this too. It feels like people are trying to score points off one another. I described it once as 'viral "oh, snap!" engagement.' https://stevendbrewer.com/weirdos-posting-stuff-to-social-media/
@jsbarretto @mastodonmigration It’s all very depressing there. When I check “Discover”, it’s typically just bad news upon more bad news, with a lot of people chiming in with bad news about the bad news.
At least here, there’s much more conversational diversity.
@jsbarretto I also treat BlueSky as write-only. Can't pin it down to the exact things, but I definitely don't feel relaxed when browsing BlueSky (though I do have extensive mute settings here that I don't have on Bluesky)
@lesley I leave feeling like I need some low-grade therapy and I don't really know why. Nobody on there is especially disagreeable or unpleasant. Are you on there for the reach, or?
@jsbarretto Yeah. Many people I know only use bluesky
I like fedi. It is not perfect, and it has its own strains of mad cow disease, but it's also comfortable, like a pair of shoes one has owned for a decade
