I am not entirely sure what this prompt means. I am guessing that it has to do with what social media platforms you use? Let’s go with a general history of my online experience.
I have been online in one form or another since roughly 2002. I started out with a bunch of Yahoo Groups and a Livejournal. From there, I got a Twitter than I almost never used. Then I got two more Twitters that I almost never used. (One for fandom stuff, one for writing stuff then another that was also supposed to be for writing stuff.)
After a while, I ended up moving my fandom blog to Dreamwidth. I decided I wanted a blog for book reviews and “meta” posts, so I created a blog with Blogger/Blogspot. It did not get a lot of traffic! This did not stop me from actually writing though. From there, I eventually got a WordPress blog. Somewhere on either end of that experience I was also trying to monetize my blogs by posting Amazon links and doing some content mill writing. Sadly, this was extremely stressful and I was not able to create an audience or sell anything. Super frustrating!
At some point I axed my Blogspot blog(s). This is largely because I was extremely frustrated with them. The layout had gotten borked and I couldn’t fix the problems. Then the WordPress blog layout also got borked because of some changes in the user interface/user experience. So I ended up axing the WordPress blog as well. While this drama with the borked Blogspot blogs and the borked WordPress blog I was just starting on shifting over to Tumblr. I did not like Tumblr’s UI but I don’t know anyone who likes Tumblr’s UI.
Tumblr fits in very well with my general desire to Lurk. I do a lot of reblogging of art and post my fan fic and also my book reviews and so on. I very occasionally share my various weird plot weasels. (Like a “plotbunny” only carnivorous.) I also share the occasional meta or commentary about something I am reading/watching. I have a main blog and several side blogs on Tumblr.
At some point I ended up getting three Twitter accounts that I did not actually use very often. I think I got the first one in 2009 or earlier? And then two more. I can’t remember if my fandom Twitter was first or my “professional” Twitter. The most recent one was for Catching Shadows, this writing blog. I ended up deleting all of these Twitters because Twitter became X and I wasn’t on it very much anyway.
At some point, due to the freelance writing for a content mill, I ended up on Facebook, failing to network with other freelance writers writing for the content mill. (I don’t know why I thought I could do content writing, my interests are too niche.) I do not like Facebook and only occasionally go on it. I also ended up with a Linked-In account that I also don’t use very often. I have tried to find jobs via Linked-In but I was generally unsuccessful.
My current social media platforms are:
- Mastodon: I can’t quite describe it but the layout/format is somewhere between Tumblr and Twitter. I have had very little difficulties with interacting with other people and it was surprisingly easy to get used to. You can edit posts and they use tags. There is an established writing community and a number of prompt series related to writing.
- Bluesky: Bluesky is more or less a clone of twitter. They don’t seem to support hashtags which is mildly frustrating. They also seem to have a relatively friendly user base with a lot of fannish people and writers.
- Discord: I am on several fandom related servers! The one I’m on the most has a core of Homestuck writers, some of whom are also published authors.
I am not really on:
- Nextdoor. I am not a fan of this “hyper local” social media site. Half the dudes think its a dating app. The other half are aggressively rude. The ladies are basically announcing lost dogs, lost cats, reporting on Suspicious People being Suspicious and telling me that Nextdoor is not the place for my book reviews. (Weirdly, you can set up WordPress to post to Nextdoor. Why, I don’t know.) Also: not that fond of my neighborhood. Or rather, the extremely mean, toxic people in it.
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