I never imagined in a million years that Twitter could be brought to its knees by someone who is incredibly rich and purports to be a genius. But here we are, and after a week of using Mastodon, I can honestly say that Twitter is fading into the distance like an old friend bidding farewell before moving to another country, or a memory that is fading fast, too fast for your synapses to re-trigger it.
12 years - that's how long I stayed. A lot has happened in 12 years. My little girl is now a bright, conversational and super-smart teenager. The book blog has come and gone, and the success of it (at the time it was running) was largely due to engagement through Twitter, no doubt about it. I made a lot of friends there, even met some of them - and reconnected with good buddies I once knew on Eurogamer.
At this point no one really knows what the future holds for this once mighty social network. It's becoming more ad-riddled as Elon desperately tries to claw back some revenue from his hideously expensive spend (looking at the cost of the new Eden Project that's just had planning approval up in Morecambe, Elon could have bought 400 of them and spread them across the country for what Twitter cost him, that's a wow figure if ever you needed one).
Some folk have pitched up on Mastodon, treating it more like "Twitter's side chick" than an actual daily ongoing concern. I have to say that when things are all shiny and new, and everyone's playing the "Let's do it all over again, but this time be NICE to people" it feels pretty wonderful. Like those first faltering steps you take when you get a new piece of tech for your home before it gets taken for granted, and just becomes part of the furniture.
I must admit that I check Mastodon more than Twitter currently, because I've always had a massive problem with any social media network, not just Twitter.
Engagement.
It wasn't such a problem when we had the book blog because we had a reason to exist. People would read our reviews. Some would even retweet them or link to them from their own blogs and facebook pages. We got a lot of engagement back then but as soon as the book blog disappeared, the level of engagement did too.
The truth is I'm just not interesting enough, and I guess I'm also not committed enough to tweeting every single minutiae of my life on social media for clicks and likes and retweets. Sometimes folk do engage, and I'm always grateful for that, but I think social media is for folk who are infinitely more interesting, attractive and talented than I.
Mastodon is cosy enough, and I've had some great engagement there by 'finding my peeps' - ie looking for folk who truly do have common or similar interests to mine (yeah there's a lot of knitters and crocheters there which is nice to see and a great number of retrogaming fans too). You get these flurries of activity and replies to toots, something that rarely happens on Twitter but eventually I can imagine there'll be the same end result. Being 'successful' on Social Media takes a lot of time and effort and energy that I guess I'd prefer to be putting into other things.
Part of it is down to my broken brain. I used to be sociable, I used to really like people, in fact I look back at pub crawl photos from my 20s and I can barely believe that the same scruffy little sod in those photos is the same 50-something I have to greet in the mirror every day.
My wife says COVID changed me, that I became more withdrawn and less inclined to get out of the house even after lockdown finished, and I hate to say she does have a point - yet I live for weekends when we all get out into the countryside or go visit somewhere interesting, so thankfully that at least isn't permanent.
The other part of why I'm crap in social situations is my anxiety and self-doubt has risen to colossal levels over the last few years. If I get into a social situation, a conversation, meeting people, I always feel like my mouth is running away with me and I'm scaring people off. I play conversations back in my head and cringe inwardly when I realise I've said or done something stupid.
I guess the point of this post is just to say "thanks" to those who did engage via Twitter, and thanks to those new folk on Mastodon who've followed me or liked / reblogged my posts. It means a lot, even the tiniest moments that folk might think are insignificant mean a hell of a lot, and they always have.
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