I grew up without internet. We had it for a bit back when AOL sent some floppies out and when I was a very young teen, I had a Surf Monkey chat account.
I never had AOL messenger, but I did have Yahoo.
I used Yahoo messenger and remember flirting using the MySpace top 8 in college.
I signed up for Facebook when they required a college email and connected with some other students in the area, and found some to hang out with on weekends when none of us went home and were stuck bored.
Since then, I’ve constantly had a Facebook. Myspace is long gone and other social accounts have come and gone; but Facebook has been the one constant social in my life.
On Facebook, I’m connected to friends, old friends, family and the parents of my kids’ friends.
I’ve had other socials. I started Bethcessories Designs years ago to deal with boredom when my eldest (now 15) was in the NICU one state over and I was alone in the Ronald McDonald House and hospital while my family and husband were working back home.
It’s evolved along with my attempts at enjoying and creating social media accounts to promote it.
I’ve run into influencer circles since I’m also a blogger. I’ve tried. Even saying “social media” makes me feel old and out of touch.
I watch the mindless posts- and get stuck in political loops. The political posts end up being my full algorithm despite how sick current events make me feel. I try to avoid those posts, end up interacting with them and end up with them filling my feed.
I loved Twitter. My best friend (ex best friend, now) got me to sign up when I was 21. We had fun tagging and posting to each other. I took that account later and grew it as a writer account to over 2.5k followers and chatted in spaces. I sold one or two copies of my dream journal and otherwise, it really wasn’t much help, just took time.
When Twitter was bought out, I stopped using it as much. I stopped taking profiles seriously and one day I saw Christian nationalist post after post. I scrolled and barely even saw the 2k people I was following, it was becoming a cess pool. I made the decision to delete it. Even though it was propping up my Get Blogged profile, I didn’t want my newage/liberal Pagan self associated with a site with that type of advertising and posting.
I tried Threads. I saw so many posts begging algorithm gods to send these particular people to them.
I saw tons of random men and women conversing with nothing, trying to find dates mocking and annoyed by the ones trying to find dates and found barely anything of substance. I tried setting an algorithm and it became a huge joke with a friend that my Threads feed was a dating site for desperate older men.
I went on a block spree and blocked a bunch of random troll accounts and Threads blocked my account until I sent my license to prove I’m human. It was the last time I ever went on that site.
I’ve tried Blue sky and found the same issues as I did with Threads. Too many people begging for followers without showing quality. I’m not on social media to have my mind changed politically, to change minds, debate, discuss opposing views or even entertain opposing views (some views, OK I’ll listen but moral views… I won’t entertain)
I ended up leaving BlueSky.
I’ve attempted to enjoy Reddit but I’m afraid of posting anything because of how toxic the people are so I’ve never kept an account.
Instagram used to be decent, but Facebook bought it, it became Meta, Tiktok happened, Instagram is competing with the Tok now and if you post a product photo, you’re lucky if you get a few views. You use hash tags, still doesn’t work.
I was reading about Instagram marketing and read they basically ding you for photos and not using reels.
I tried scrolling, the reels are boring, pictures half the time aren’t the type of content I want to see and most of the feed ends up being coaches, influencers and “content creators” not bloggers nor writers.
I tried recently recreating an account. I opened it about five times, found nothing interesting and it’s set for deletion again.
TikTok is missed.
I liked the short snippit news videos from a few select creators. I follow them on Youtube now.
When they were banned in the US, I set mine up to delete. They came back, I tried. I posted a few random comments and the AI removed the comments. I kept having to fight for them to be put back up (and they were)
I reported countless comments for downright hate speech and violence. One video was replying to a (nonthreatening) comment by screaming and asking the person where she lived, what her address was and that he would fight (worse) her.
That was not against the new Trump Tok’s TOS.
Now that they have been bought out and I’ve read what is required (citizenship status and gender identity to name a few very personal bits of info they want). That itself is enough to keep me from going back to see if I could start to see similar momentum.
I’m keeping Youtube and Facebook for now.
Both are starting to irritate me with the ads. I used to be able to skip Facebook Reel ads by reporting the ad but too many of us discovered it and they closed the loophole that helped. I was reading about another way some people got around the ads using the comment section, the comment section gets me stuck in ad loops. Some of the ads are longer than the videos themselves.
I’m currently taking a break from Facebook and trying to severe the ties I have left.
I’m working on learning SEO and testing the waters with Substack, which seems to be a typical social media site just like the others.
Right now, Etsy SEO and images are what I’m focused on.
I’m rebranding because I’m seeing social media works for the young and attractive and major businesses that already have a following.
Did anyone else have a similar experience with any of those sites?