Pardon me for stepping away from my normal subject matter to comment on a current event but it’s been weighing on my mind for months and I need to express some thoughts.
I wrote a bit of a rant where I was going to go into detail about my thoughts and feelings about what’s happening with Twitter. You can get a much much better analysis elsewhere of what’s going on there now that Elon Musk has acquired the site and is in the process of changing it from a publicly traded company to a privately held business.
I’ve decided to not publish that rant at this time because it’s a developing situation. But I am not encouraged by what I’m seeing and reading. Who knows what will happen? At any rate I am mentally resigning myself to leaving a website and community that I’ve mostly enjoyed for the past 15 years because I think it’s going to be run into the ground and/or become a much worse cesspool than it may already be.
I thought I’d take the opportunity to list some of my other social media outposts in case you want to follow me there.
By social media outposts I mean those places where I have a social media presence. In addition to general communication and sharing I can use these places to talk about How About This and share links to the newsletter there. They have been very useful in spreading the word about this lil’ newsletter over the past six months. They can also be good places to discover new topics to write about!
By default if you look for markdykeman or Mark Dykeman on most social sites you’ll find me, here are some key ones:
EDITED: Mastodon: @markdykeman@mastodon.online (this is a new account I’ve created on Mastodon, you should be able to reference this (markdykeman) on any Mastodon server)
Reddit: thatmarkdykeman - I’m occasionally active in subReddits like commonplacebook or notebooks.
Instagram: howaboutthispubs (yes, there is an Instagram account for this newsletter! it even has some content!)
For Facebook I do maintain a personal account there. I am considering creating a Facebook Page for How About This but I’m not sure when and if I’ll take this step. If I do you’ll be among the first to know.
I’m also a Discord user (again, look for my name). Maybe I could do more there.
As for Twitter… I might deactivate my account any day now. If only I could export some of the people - that’s much more valuable to me than any data I’ve put into the site. Some of you reading this newsletter first “met” me through Twitter.
EDIT: I deactivated my Twitter account on Nov. 2/22 and it will be deleted within 30 days, I believe. I have already heard that someone wants to use the MarkDykeman handle so if you see someone with that username on Twitter in December it won’t be me!
Substack is becoming a key social network for me as well although it’s really more of a publishing platform. But the Substack team facilitates and supports enough of what I like through various means that I’m enjoying it.
Over to you. How is your social media usage these days? Are any sites particularly enjoyable… or unenjoyable? Feel free to share your social media details in the Comments if you like!
My most enjoyable interactions with strangers all happen on Substack. Well wait, they happen out on walks ...
We all should do what's best for ourselves where social media is concerned, no doubt. Sorry to see you go, but I'll see you around these parts :)