Social Media Wars

[Rooster_Ties]

The only things I’m on are a couple forums — here, and the Hoffman forums.

And Reddit.  And that’s it.

I don’t even have a Google login, if you even imagine — and never have (or if I ever did, I haven’t used it in 10-15 years).

I do see tweets occasionally, when they’re posted within online news articles and blog posts. And every once in a blue moon (like maybe twice a year), I’ll Google something to find something specific on Twitter (or that I suspect is on Twitter).

And, of course, various Reddit threads link to Twitter, and Instagram — sometimes I can see them without a login, sometimes I can’t.

My wife has a Facebook account that she never (ever) uses — but every once in a while we’ll have to log into it in order to see some Facebook page we can’t see otherwise, usually for some business. Or during the pandemic, there were a few live webcasts of some classical or bluegrass music we could only see thru Facebook.

We are both very disconnected from most social media. I comment a lot on Reddit, but my wife doesn’t even have  Reddit account — and she never comments or posts anywhere, on any platform whatsoever. She’s like a 100% lurker on everything she enjoys online.

[Teasing the Korean]

I have a dummy FB login that I use only to participate in some groups.  I don't maintain a page with posts.

[rostasi]

Have never been on any of these big name social sites
except after discovering the proper structure of Mastodon
... and even then, there's so much going on there that it can
be a bit overwhelming and I don't read it but for a few minutes
a week. I don't see any reasons to post there (and what am
I gonna say that's somehow worthwhile, needed or desired?)

There's ONE Faceplant page that I visit, but I just send emails
to the person that's the head-face there and he'll thank me for
the info and post it even tho I was just sending it to him and not
meaning for it to be for the Facedroids ... but that's the extent of it.

People crow about friends and family that congregate on Facecrook,
so that's why they stay (remember "email," folks?) even if it's a giant
poop stain on social identities and analytical thought.

[Rabshakeh]

1 hour ago, mjazzg said:

Which Jazz insta accounts do you recommend?

These are some that I enjoy:

https://instagram.com/today_in_fat_wax?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://instagram.com/resonant_spaces?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://instagram.com/jazz_peasant?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://instagram.com/merzbo_derek?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://instagram.com/the_analogarchive?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://instagram.com/eriksjazz?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[mjazzg]

Thanks a lot

[Gheorghe]

My only social media is THIS FORUM , and on an austrian Forum about my hobby when not playing jazz: fishing. 

I never knew or tried something else. I don´t have no FB, no Insta, no WhatsApp, no TikTok or what you call ´em. 

I don´t let such things bug me. 

[clifford_thornton]

Used to have FB and Twitter, shut both accounts down -- way too hairy in terms of blow-hardiness and lunacy.

I do use IG quite a lot for gig/project promotion. That is for me its only purpose. I used to post pics of records/etc. but then the vinyl IG deluge started and I could no longer deal. But I am still on there tooting away.

tried Mastodon for a second and could not grasp how to use it, really don't care... and Threads I am avoiding.

[Big Al]

I access Twitter/X thru the Brave web-browser and not the app. I only follow a few accounts. Interestingly, I see quite a bit from both sides of the political aisle in my "For You" feed. If there's any censorship, I haven't noticed. One thing I have noticed is a tendency of posters of a certain political persuasion constantly threatening to leave Twitter, only to stick around and be questioned by their followers why they're still there; OR, they do leave, but then come back and make a big to-do about it.

I'm still on FB but I rarely post. As I've gotten older my interest in keeping up with people I've never met in person, especially when these same people only want to shove their political opinions down my throat, has diminished rapidly. The only thing that has kept me from doing a complete FB-friend mass-delete is my overall laziness and tendency to overthink everything.

Ironically, I have 2 Instagram accounts, a private personal one and a public one that is nothing more than pictures of my records and various musings on said records. Of the 200-or-so followees/followers, I've met less than five in person. And I'm okay with this. The personal IG account gets about as much attention as the FB page.

All this to say, if there's a social media war going on, I haven't noticed. But then, I don't say enough to probably notice it or be noticed by it.

[gvopedz]

"An alien arriving on Earth in the year 2023 might believe social media was created solely for strangers to yell at each other..."

https://thewalrus.ca/the-inescapable-rise-of-moral-superiority/

 

[ejp626]

9 hours ago, gvopedz said:

"An alien arriving on Earth in the year 2023 might believe social media was created solely for strangers to yell at each other..."

https://thewalrus.ca/the-inescapable-rise-of-moral-superiority/

 

Sort of droll, given that this same magazine really stepped into it for promoting cultural appropriation.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/jonathan-kay-steps-down-1.4114691

Maybe that just proves their point that it is essentially impossible to have civilized discourse on the internet, but still kind of a boneheaded move.

[rostasi]

Hmmm, interesting.
So, a guy resigns over six years ago after suggesting that there should be a discussion about (the seriously loaded phrase) “cultural appropriation” and somehow this is connected to a recent opinion piece on social media bickering?

[mhatta]

I'm actively using almost all social networking sites  (X-Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, T2, etc.), and well, they are a waste of time.  And not so many people on them are interested in jazz.

[Rabshakeh]

3 hours ago, mhatta said:

I'm actively using almost all social networking sites  (X-Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, T2, etc.), and well, they are a waste of time.  And not so many people on them are interested in jazz.

They are a huge sink for time.

[Brad]

8 hours ago, mhatta said:

I'm actively using almost all social networking sites  (X-Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, T2, etc.), and well, they are a waste of time.  And not so many people on them are interested in jazz.

IG has quite a few good jazz contributors. One of the best is jazzandcoffee. 

[ghost of miles]

Anybody else here on Bluesky? It's really begun to take off again over the past couple of weeks.  I joined a few days ago (davidbrentjohnson.bsky.social) and am trying to connect with more jazz folks. Mark Stryker's there now, along with Nate Chinen and Ethan Iverson, but I haven't seen a large migration yet of musicians, writers, fans, etc. 

[Rabshakeh]

I am extremely happy not to be on twitter anymore and I don't see a reason to change that. 

[soulpope]

18 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Anybody else here on Bluesky? It's really begun to take off again over the past couple of weeks.  I joined a few days ago (davidbrentjohnson.bsky.social) and am trying to connect with more jazz folks. Mark Stryker's there now, along with Nate Chinen and Ethan Iverson, but I haven't seen a large migration yet of musicians, writers, fans, etc. 

A number of Austrian quality journalists moved over so I'm considering .... btw was never part of "twitter" though ....

[mhatta]

45 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Anybody else here on Bluesky? It's really begun to take off again over the past couple of weeks.  I joined a few days ago (davidbrentjohnson.bsky.social) and am trying to connect with more jazz folks. Mark Stryker's there now, along with Nate Chinen and Ethan Iverson, but I haven't seen a large migration yet of musicians, writers, fans, etc. 

https://bsky.app/profile/mhatta.bsky.social

I gave up on X/Twitter because it was too toxic. It's not a bug, it's a feature.  I usually write in Japanese (and in many cases about my day job), but I'm also using Bluesky. I also write about jazz sometimes. If you comment in English, I'll reply in English.

[clifford_thornton]

Maybe I'll look at Mastodon again. I tried rejoining Twitter and immediately felt it was too gross to mess with, and deleted my account. 

Threads I looked at once and decided to avoid. Bluesky didn't seem great to me either. 

Instagram is a difficult place to have actual conversations and textual content. The ads and pure "junk" have also gotten out of control. Recently I have thought about totally deactivating it -- again, it's also a real time-suck -- but seems necessary on some level for promoting one's activities. @tallswami there if anyone wants to follow.

I signed up for Substack but decided to take a year off from writing, so haven't used it yet. My understanding is that one can monetize one's work there, and it could be a good place to explore posting interviews and articles for a handful of readers. I'm curious if anyone here has any experiences with it to share from the posting/authoring angle.

[mjazzg]

Left Twitter when Musk supported the far right rallies in the UK this summer. Glad to have gone.

Flipping between Threads and Bluesky but not settled on either yet. Bluesky seems difficult to find people/content or they/it aren't there yet.

I enjoy Instagram still but I find I need to be ruthless with the 'not interested' option to clear the feed.

[Rabshakeh]

I like substack a lot and subscribe to many. There is some good quality writing on there, among an awful lot of overconfident and under informed political crap. Substack Notes is pretty weak. 

I liked Twitter when it started and was fun, but I don't really think the app was anything but a negative over the last 9 or so years. Just screaming, and performing, and endless bad faith takes. And endless political takes, all stupider than the last political take. That was before the wave of right wing trolls, murder videos and bots made it completely appalling. But fundamentally, for me what killed Twitter was the shittiness of politics in microblog form, left, right and centre, so the idea of switching to an alternative which is just as negative but for which entrants are pre-sorted along allegiance to partisan political lines does not appeal at all.

Instagram is fine. I just look at album covers and try to ignore the stupid videos that I am not interested in. At least it doesn't send the blood pressure soaring. 

Having said that I hate the politics, one thing that I am interested in is whether Bluesky, as a "liberal Twitter", falls into the same problem that Truth Social, the "right wing Twitter", fell into. Half of political micro blogging is reposting insane views from insane members of the opposite camp so that your followers can ridicule it. Supposedly Truth Social faltered partly because, once posters become siloed by politics, there were no insane members of the opposite camp with which to engage. 

Having said that I hate the politics, one thing that I am interested in is whether Bluesky, as a "liberal Twitter", falls into the same problem that Truth Social, the "right wing Twitter", fell into. Half of political micro blogging is reposting insane views from insane members of the opposite camp so that your followers can ridicule it. Supposedly Truth Social faltered partly because, once posters become siloed by politics, there were no insane members of the opposite camp with which to engage. 

Edit: To be clear, I would not dream of going on Truth Social so this is very much hearsay.

Edited 5 hours ago by Rabshakeh

[ghost of miles]

46 minutes ago, mhatta said:

https://bsky.app/profile/mhatta.bsky.social

I gave up on X/Twitter because it was too toxic. It's not a bug, it's a feature.  I usually write in Japanese (and in many cases about my day job), but I'm also using Bluesky. I also write about jazz sometimes. If you comment in English, I'll reply in English.

Followed you back!

32 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Left Twitter when Musk supported the far right rallies in the UK this summer. Glad to have gone.

Flipping between Threads and Bluesky but not settled on either yet. Bluesky seems difficult to find people/content or they/it aren't there yet.

I enjoy Instagram still but I find I need to be ruthless with the 'not interested' option to clear the feed.

...and you as well, mjazzg.

I'm going to try to put together a Bluesky starter pack for jazz fans, but in the meantime, Nate Chinen has one up.

 

[mjazzg]

8 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Followed you back!

...and you as well, mjazzg.

I'm going to try to put together a Bluesky starter pack for jazz fans, but in the meantime, Nate Chinen has one up.

 

Thanks for the follow and the Chinen link

[rostasi]

Going to Threads or BlueSky seems to be just switching to a different chair on the Titanic. I'll take decentralization and community-driven moderation of the kind that Mastodon provides (for now, anyway).

When I questioned people's current desire to move, en masse, to BlueSky, I was often told that it was because it was the closest to Twitter in its operation. Doesn't surprise that some people often take the simple way rather than using critical thinking concerning their actions. The tribal-like movement (and gotta have those "hits" and "likes", etc) creates a sorry situation that makes one want to completely jump ship when it comes to these online networks.

Edited 2 hours ago by rostasi

[Brad]

I didn’t like Mastodon. Seemed too decentralized. BS looking like Twitter is a plus because people liked Twitter before Musk ruined it.  Twitter, politically, is now on the right whereas BS is on the left. I don’t interact too much with politics on Twitter but sometimes running into the MAGAites is unavoidable.  I’m glad not to have to see them on BS.

FB does have some good jazz groups such as Jazz Vinyl Lovers and Blue Note Spinners, plus Mark Stryker and Allan Lowe have good commentary.  IG also has some good people like Thomas Jordan, What Can Brown (who has a good YT channel, WCB Vinyl) and djpari.