2289 Friendish.

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Okay, let’s youtube this.

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I listen to a lot of youtube videos…

Like, back over a year ago, there was this push to try and get some alternate platforms going to compete with Twitter. I’m sure most of you have heard the… I don’t know even what to call it in reality. “Big Tech Censorship” is the sort of accepted buzzword now. That whole thing has been continually evolving & back when this push happened I started a Minds account. I can’t remember how long I used it but one day it forgot my password & I was like “fuck it” & didn’t log back in. Nobody I knew used it & no one on it seemed to be interested in comics at all, so it was a waste of time really. That was back when the knocking over souther general statues was a thing. Remember that? Yeah that was only, like, a year ago. Not back in 2005 like it feels like.
Anyway, I decided to log back in to minds because a bunch of my mutuals on twitter got banned without being given a reason. It’s a total ghost town. Tim Pool was the only person on my feed & I was not interested in dipping my toes in that Pool ever again… I have no idea what the user base is like but it can’t be very many people. I decided to try posting again just to see what happend & the algorithm, or whatever, forced my stuff into at least 5 people’s feeds, but none of them cared as far as I could tell. Social media doesn’t work very well if you can’t get a lot of people to get in to a platform. Which I suppose is a pretty obvious statement. I’m glad I at least have my own little platform here in case I ever get randomly booted off of Twitter at least. It’s not quite the same kind of happy brain chemical rush of instant contact, but it is still contact & some interaction.

It seems like people are after interaction again but are hesitant to talk on places like twitter unless they have an axe to grind, or however you want to frame it. The comments on the previous page are proof enough of that. My comments section might no be the best place to do that kind of thing, but at least there’s very little chance of you losing your job if someone decides they want to ruin your life over a bad take, or difference of opinion. The user base is a fraction of a fraction of the kind of userbase for a platform like twitter so any maliciousness is very small scale. That’s a good scale for malice.

I dunno. How’s the lockdown treating you all? You get that vaccine yet? I’m, like, third tier because I have at least two factors that make covid a danger to my life, so I can get it before too long. My dad got his first out of all of the family because he’s oldest. Generally he’s not a vaccine guy, but he doesn’t have time to fuck around with being regular sick, so covid sick is right out. Mom didn’t even schedule the appointment. He did it on his own, so that’s how serious he was about it. That may not seem super serious, but for my dad it is.

This whole mess has been a hell of a ride though, huh?

27 Comments

Twitter is probably the worst platform you can use if you’re looking for any kind of reasoned discussion just because the word count limit more or less destroys any chance of nuance. It gets an overinflated sense of importance in news though.

Most of my talking now is on discord channels which have a lot less users but you can have actual conversations.

And facebook is tolerable to me because my friends list is pretty decent. Though I mostly treat it as a way for people to be able to invite me to events.

Indeed. I don’t think there CAN be a “Good version of Twitter” because it’s very design is bad. Most of the time. Twitter is great for when you do just need to spam updates or photos. But for discussion of any kind? Heck no. And on the other hand, it’s very easy to use it to form an angry online mob, or to sift through it to find posts to throw into a news story (or, in fact, make an entire “news story” out of nothing but Tweets). The media loves it and people who like to throw bombs at each other or do the online equivalent of a letter writing campaign love it, but it’s rather repugnant to normal people.

Instead of banning Hate Speech and Negativity, there should be a platform specifically for that kind of thing. Instead of banning or blocking your media, any given platform can just re-position it on the hate platform. If Twitter is where all the psychological sludge goes, censoring it on twitter is just going to funnel it somewhere else anyway. Better to understand that people in general need an outlet for mental/emotional waste as a stress dump, and to know where the flow of that is. This makes me think of why there is a Hell in Christianity. In the Mind of God, there would be the same dynamic of needing a mental/emotional waste and stress dump, so heaven could be a place without those negative feelings. Hell would be like Twitter. If you are on Twitter because you like being on Twitter, then you’ll probably enjoy Hell because you consider it fun to be treated like shit, and to do the same to others.If “Toxic Rick” wanted to make the whole world Toxic, he would have been better off staying in the De-toxifier.

Yeah uh, so, psych studies shows that things like pillow punching in an attempt to “let off stress” don’t actually make people less angry. It makes them MORE angry. It’s basically practicing being angry and reinforcing it.

To actually calm down you need to do something constructive or distract yourself somehow. Or do some introspection.

I don’t know if there’s been any similar studies for screaming at people online, but it seems likely to me that it’s the typing equivalent of pillow punching, and just builds the habit of getting angry more.

sup holmes.

I’m gonna use a different email this time, but it’s still me (Spliced). I have DID, and this helps me express myself.

Tend to pretend I’m not “me” cause trolls. Not that I go around pretending to be anything, just express different interests I have.

I didn’t post in comments last time (and I tend to forget to keep up the discourse like the crazy person I am) but huh. How it’s been….. OK. I am disabled, have been for a couple years, and saw it all coming. Me and my friends are preppers (some better than others, lol) so for us, it’s been OK. I was in Texas for that huge storm that knocked out our everything, but my county was pretty OK, and we were all warm enough (same for the animals) and we could even help out our roommates mom without too much difficulty.

But I haven’t gotten the vaccine. Wouldn’t mind, still trying to figure out how to do that, but I’m in Texas so…. I dunno. I wear a gas mask tho- triple filtered, formed to my face.

Been trying to work out? I can do 45 crunches now and I’m able to bend and touch the floor, so that’s cool. Still working on all of it though. Doesn’t feel like I’m crazy good at it but….

Confessed to the guy I like? Single, tho, at present- trying to be OK with just being friends but….

I don’t wanna think about that it’s sad ^_^;;

Cool about your dad tho. Both my parents have it now, can possibly see them this week? I dunno, it’s a busy schedule now that we (myself and two of my friends) moved into a house and I became “part of the family” (they adopted me into their friend group) and I started really hanging out with the person I liked and started helping out in my neighborhood more

Lockdown has been kinda nice on my end honestly. Job interviews have been non-existent but unemployment keeps coming in so that’s plenty nice to me. Mom is getting plenty of rest due to covid shutting the hotel she works down. Job was killer on her back but now she is doing great and her union protects her job for whenever the hotel is back! Recently bought Loop Hero so thats been taking up my time. Fun game but not for everyone.

I think the problem is that the people who want an alternate platform can’t even agree on what they want; they immediately start complaining about every other option. Well, of course they lack features that Facebook or YouTube have! It’s also not all about censorship; to a large degree, the big social media sites are just finding it easier and more lucrative to copy mainstream media. I read that over half of all views on YouTube are corporate–music videos, clips from late night talk shows, etc. That’s sad, and it is somewhat a self-fulfilling prophecy, but still, I get the appeal of just recycling what you already know is “safe” and “good enough to make money with” instead of taking risk.

But I also think that Patreon and OnlyFans and similar sites play a role; not deliberately, but a side-effect of their existence is the atomization of online media. People don’t even bother trying to reach a mass audience and rely on advertising revenue, like before; just get that small, but loyal and supportive, base on any or all of these subscription sites, and you’re good to go (unless you’re like Belle Delphine and can troll the internet into giving you free publicity). This has some very obvious benefits and I am not saying it’s a bad thing, as constantly trying to appeal to the masses often creates shallow and lame content (e.g. sitcoms and Michael Bay movies), but the opposite can also lead to…like, even more little spheres of people who never interact with others outside their group. Tumblr has long been known for being dominated by leftists, but something like Conservipedia is also known for being full of partisan hacks with no exposure to dissenting opinions. I always wondered if the internet would get us all to talk to each other more or self-segregate more–I guess the jury is still out, but we can see how it’s going currently.

And personally, I passed on the vaccine. They are all probably fine and safe, but I know they (obviously) skipped animal testing and all long-term human testing for safety and effectiveness, so I’m not really in the mood to beta test one. Also, previous vaccines they tried to make for similar viruses tended to, uh, kill the hosts after a little while. Probably not going to happen here, but again, I’d rather risk COVID. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, and all that.

I happily abandoned Twitter back in November. I was getting too bogged down in the torches-and-pitchforks nonsense. What wasn’t angry was horny, and I haven’t had a whole heck of a lot of time or energy for either, for some time. I miss a few folks on there, but I’m largely happier.
My boss and I at the liquor store were talking just the other day about how it’s been about a year since people started taking COVID any kind of serious up here. It was about a couple weeks after a landslide — a literal mountain — did what World War II and several local industries collapsing couldn’t: shutting down Tatsuda’s IGA and the liquor store that shared space with them. Business has been at summer levels for the past year, and it’s only just now slowing back down to what we usually expect around this time of year.
Life on my personal side has remained GENERALLY unchanged, with the exception that I can’t visit my friends and family in person, nor can I easily or safely go out on the few occasions I have the energy to. Conversely, my pals on Discord and Steam occasionally have time for some Minecraft or Deep Rock Galactic, and it’s good enough for the time being.
I intend on catching the vax here in a couple weeks, once I can schedule a time that isn’t specifically set so that retail workers cannot get it. I’m hoping to hold out for the one-and-done shot, because I’m TERRIFIED of needles, but if I have to do the two-poke setup, then so be it.

The evidence isn’t clear, because the trials were done when different covid variants were prevalent, but so far it looks as if the two-jab vaccines may be more effective — if you get both jabs.
But I don’t recommend waiting until the evidence is clear to decide which vaccine to take.
I’m phobic about needles too, but I’m getting vaccinated today, likely with Pfizer.

Got the shot yesterday. It was Pfizer. Now I’m tired and my arm hurts. That’s the expected reaction — my immune system isvrevving up, creating whatever it’ll need if the real virus comes to call.

I’ve never gotten into Twitter, but I tried an alternative to Facebook for a while, and just forgot to go back to it after a few days.

I heard Mastodont was doing OK as an alternative to Twitter but I don’t really know what kind of people are on that.

I think at this point, Mastodon is the most “successful” Twitter alternative. That being said, the user base is still a fraction of Twitter’s. As for the kind of people on Masto, there seems to be a little bit of everything.

I’ve never liked or used twitter; to me the interface is just horrible. Call me old fashioned, but if I want to really get into internet conversations about something I’m interested in, I prefer a good old internet forum: everything’s well organized, well archived, and in a format well suited for having a conversation. But for just casual interaction, I stick to comment sections. They just have the advantage of being right there, under what the comments are relevant to, and with no need to go to any external site. Also, I’m most likely to have something to say in the first place when it’s inspired or prompted by something I just read or watched.

As for how I’m doing, well, I’m one of the lucky ones. I am in a line of work that’s mostly unaffected by the pandemic and it’s really easy to remote into my work computer to do said work. Furthermore, I’m an introvert and spend most of my time alone anyway, and while some of my family members have caught the virus, all of them made a full recovery. I haven’t looked into getting vaccinated yet, not because I don’t want to get it, but more due to a combination of understanding that there are a lot of people that need it far more than me and, well, procrastination.

I’m doing well. I’m COVID-bubbled-up and can freely go see my family because they’re bubbled-up. … most of them… Those who don’t sequester, I don’t see. Since most all of us are sequestered, none of us have gotten it.
Other than family; email and USPS, the comments sections are all I have. So it is grim, but bearable, … I’m hanging in there.
Not much for work, but almost of us’uns have appointments made, I don’t, but I’m looking for one, so while they are waiting, I’m still looking, I am totally Unwilling to drive 100 miles each way to get it, but there aren’t any available closer in the next three days.

It’s starting to warm up here, and with the viscous threat of Spring coming that is buoying my spirits greatly. Spring seems to have winter’s neck in its teeth, and we’re just waiting for that satisfying snap! I’ve even seen flowers, – real, not silk flowers – , hiding in the taller grass. That has made me smile, also. I’m in contact with three lost friends from over 30 years ago, and that has kept me sane.

Hey Jackie! Thanks for asking, but Freddy knows best how I’m doing:
“I’m going slightly mad.
I’m going slightly mad.
It finally happened, I’m slightly mad.”

Been on this train for a few years now dealing with an ex. (4th round custody battle and she’s still picking fights) I am one of the lucky few that Covid barely affects since I’m such a shut-in pile of steaming $#!+ anyways.

Yeah I don’t have anything but a token fb, and that’s just for (very occasional) checking in on distant friends a family I haven’t heard from in a while.

The theory that we should keep Twitter open is interesting. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. What better way to keep tabs on civilization’s enemies than allowing all our loudest louts to broadcast their plans to the world?

First time commenter, feels awkward like raising your hand for the first time after being weeks into a university class(Or years I guess in this case). I am physically doing well, it’s an up and down otherwise.

Covid is a factor yeah but I currently live in Lebanon and if you’ve seen any news about it in the past 2-3 years then things have been going downhill even before the pandemic, being stuck in has not been doing good things to my mental conditions.

However, I am glad that I have things to keep me focused and going forward as well as to help pass the days with something to look forward to such as this comic. I hope that continues to be the case for as long as it can both out of your own enjoyment and volition as well as mine. Simply put, thank you for doing the things you do just for the sake of doing them.

Living by myself in Montreal. My wife died about two years ago.
I’m 74, diabetic, and I figure if I catch this disease I’ll have about a 10% chance of death.
I and am scheduled to get vaccinated at high noon tomorrow. Just one shot. Who knows when Quebec will start the second shot?
So I still won’t be safe, but they may reduce transmissibility somewhat..
All the restaurants are closed except for takeout and delivery. Curfew after 8PM except for essentials.
My entire life is now online.
Hoping things will get better.
At least this year I can attend mathematics seminars all over the world!

It’s been… interesting. I am kind of in the hot seat for dealing with three of my grandparent’s stuff (meals/groceries but also medical appointments, financials, etc). They are of an age where that’s a lot.
Two of them were depression babies and are a little confused about the country’s current response to stuff since they remember a time when the “neighborhood watch” would go out and check for people collapsed on the side of the road from hunger -and would carefully not ask if any corpses brought to the cemetery for burial were corpses when they were found. They all three lived through WWII, one of them is Jewish and had a lot of family from overseas join the US as refugees before the war -but nobody who hadn’t already made it over before the war started made it since. He says the village his father was born in wasn’t even listed on the maps any more starting in 1950 (first time he checked), because the whole thing was gone.
So all the hooplah over this perplexes them. They just don’t see how it’s that big a deal.
Which is an interesting contrast to my work, at a health clinic, where a lot of my coworkers have been panicking since November 2019.

Because I do work in the health field, and because I’m spending so very much time with people in high risk categories, I got the vaccines. I’m still unsure of how I feel about it -I suspect I’ll know in another ten years when we find out if there were any long-term side effects to either getting Covid or getting the vaccine (or both or neither).

Mostly though I’ve been preoccupied with my grandparents. They are at the point when health changes can be sudden, extreme, and very very very time consuming (not to mention risky for them), and at the same time I’m not able to properly deal with it because of all the restrictions. I can’t afford to quit work and just move them all in with me so we’re one household. If I keep working, I can’t afford to move them all in with me because I definitely have been exposed to patients who come in to work and have reported to us that they’ve gotten Covid, and although none of the workers (including me) have gotten it, I really can’t risk bringing that exposure back to my grandparents.
I used to have my retired father also living with me but since this all happened he moved up to my brother (whose work is less problematic in the exposure sense), so that’s a relief.
It’s just been…. well. Life. It has ups, it has downs, it has times of so many things happening you can’t tell if it’s up down or sideways.
I feel like that last one has been the case for about 2 years for me now.

I really really really like your comics, and the quiet reliability and relatability of them. Also that story you were doing whenever it was, that read like an adventure/RPG novel? I lost track of that somewhere along the way, but that was really nice too.

Feels like I should say that.

I should have said it years ago.

Well, better now than never.

Thanks for what you do.

At this point, I would say that it is more worth it to get the shot and have a chance at mitigating this virus than not getting the shot and hoping that we can politicize the virus away. The virus is NOT going to go away regardless of our political stances on it. My dad and I got the shot for the simple reason that it is the responsible thing to do not only for ourselves, but for the sake of others.

As for the toxicity of social media, well, let me say that it’s existed quite well before the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Good old fashioned message boards and newsgroups were subject to their own brand of trolling and belittling depending on whether the moderators were willing to do their job or not and by that same token, not falling in line with the rest of the trolls whose behavior defines the culture of the board itself. There really is no way to win the situation unless the human race is honestly willing to mature itself to the point that they can have mutual understanding of each other on said boards. That being said, I rarely ever post anymore except on select Facebook pages and even then, I have to co-ordinate my arguments carefully lest I want to be run off the page by BOTH members and moderators for my heretical views!

I find the social medium aspect of this site here to be quite pleasant and thoughtful. Perhaps it’s your influence, Jackie, bdcause you set the style by your own lengthy and thoughtful blog entries. Even on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I come here to read the previous day’s comments before getting on to the present day’s comic and blog entry. They seem to set the stage for the new stuff.

Very different from the urgency and simplisticism of Twitter, which I ignore all the time unless I follow a link that leads there.

First time poster, but have been reading for years. I’d like to offer my opinion on the subject, it’s a viewpoint, and it’s not “correct” or necessarily “reality” or the end of the topic, just an observation that I’ve been mulling over for about a decade now:

I think the “flaw” in Twitter (and other amazing things that seem to be ruined now) is people using it today are trying to utilize it outside of it’s original intent.

140 Characters or less, to just say something that is on your mind right now. It was not meant for discourse. The origin and design of the service name even says that.

“…we came across the word ‘twitter’, and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds’. And that’s exactly what the product was.” – Jack Dorsey

The same can be true for things like MySpace and Facebook and most fandoms. The original intent, motivation, and driving factor or those things is normally mostly “pure”. And people who are truly a part of it in it’s origins normally get the service and have no problems in the community. It’s the later comers, the people who are at least “6 degrees of Kevin Bacon” separated from the project which cause it to eventually sour.

Think of it like a socialized game of “Telephone” or “Google Translated”, but instead of words getting morphed from “I bless the rains down in Africa” to “I’m having ice cream” we have people trying to equalize wealth, discuss religion, bring peace in the middle east, and show off the latest artwork on their fridge in 140 characters or less, and then have an emotional reaction when 140 characters doesn’t contain enough tact and nuance to have civilized discussion.

Lockdown has not been too bad, all things considered. I don’t usually go out or do anything but work, and my work has me during in front of a computer all day and not interacting with people except over email and occasionally phone, so really not much changed for me. I’m considered essential, as I work in the electrical industry, so I’ve been more or less business as usual since the start of the pandemic, except I now have the option to sit at my computer at home instead of an office by myself, so that’s nice…

I haven’t gotten the vaccine yet, as I’ve just been isolated and busy, and I figure there’s others ahead of me that need it more. I’ll get it eventually once it’s widely available. My wife has already been vaccinated, but she’s a nurse, and has been talking care of COVID patients almost non-stop since last March, so we’ve gotten good at being careful and decontaminating everything.

It would be nice to go see friends again…

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