Three days in a row – not bad. Hopefully the streak will continue. I am, however, going to go back to my old rule of taking the weekends off – too many things to do and scheduled breaks are good.
A later start today – mainly because the Chinese food truck comes to my small town but is usually sold out within a couple hours so they close up early and leave – but also because of what happened on the way. So there I was, in my Jeep on my way down the hill (I live a couple miles up a dirt and gravel road at the top of a ridge) to enjoy a succulent Chinese meal when I heard a noise and suddenly lost power steering. I managed to get back home to swap vehicles and managed to make it back to town before it was sold out, and stopped off at my local mechanic who said he could squeeze it in this afternoon. Long story short, it’s likely just a belt but it was a bit of a pain in the ass and threw my schedule off today.
I know I’ve mostly been bitching about social media, but that only because it’s most prevalent in my thoughts right now – rest assured, other topics are coming.
But not right now.
Something I have been contemplating is how social media seems to foster parasocial thinking, that is people think they have more of a relationship with an online personality when none really exists. You can see it everywhere – people adding “followed by so-and-so” or “retweeted by some-guy” to their bios like a sense of accomplishment. It happens to me as well – some famous musician or band liked a response I made or something of the sort, or when John Cena followed my Twatter account – I couldn’t help but feel a bit good. But the reality is that there’s no real relationship there – if I sat down next to John Cena at a bar, he’d have no idea who the fuck I was, nor that he was even following my account.
It’s easy to acknowledge things like this with “celebrities” but it happens with other types as well. Accounts with a larger following, streamers, or other niche-celebrities – you could interact with them daily, but they aren’t really someone you consider a “friend.” Now, I’m speaking in generalities – there are circles that make it a point to have events and actually meet face to face for a particular activity or hang out for one reason or another. I’m not belittling the connections one can make with others, but if the platform shut down tomorrow, how many of them would you still be in touch with?
That mentality also opens us up to scams and grifters. Fake or hacked accounts are used to prey on the parasocial mindset, and frankly, it seems like it works or the scammers wouldn’t be putting the time and effort into it. Hell, I would average being followed by an account purporting to be Elon Musk a couple times a week until I stopped following his real account. Not long ago, Mike Portnoy’s actual Twatter account engaged me in conversation, but it turned out to be hacked and was being used to push a crypto scam.
There was one platform that I quite enjoyed because it seemed to be designed to foster communication and connection – the now-defunct Google+. In fact, when G+ launched in 2011, that was the last time I logged into Facebook – just long enough to put up a “Moved to Google+” image, and I never looked back. When it started out, it was really good at connecting people with similar interests and promoting discussion. I had conversations with Wil Wheaton about homebrewing, Shooter Jennings about old-school BBS door games and his BBS Wicked Wolf (he now runs BCR Game Server), and chatted with venture capitalists about what they look for in proposals and pitches. It was a great format in the beginning but when leadership changed, so did the direction of the platform and IMHO that heralded it’s demise.
Anyhow, just more of my thoughts on why I don’t care much for social media these days.
Interesting Tidbits
Is Pope Leo XIV the first black pope?
The Road to Serfdom has a fast lane – and we’re in it. “Separation of powers isn’t a bureaucratic inconvenience – it’s a wall between liberty and coercion. When we bypass the measured legislative process for the rapid decisiveness of the ‘strong man,’ we invite authoritarian rule.” Always remember, if we freely give up authority in emergencies, emergencies will always be manufactured.
A Soviet-era Venus lander is about to crash back to Earth after being caught by Earth’s gravity 53 years ago – right now looking like it will be somewhere off the coast of India.
Drumming is in our DNA – don’t let your drummer know, their ego is already likely out of control.
Parasitic snails? The lesson, don’t swim in gross water.
Autopsy suggests South Carolina botched firing squad execution – I saw some people on Twatter suggesting this was a good outcome because he was a convicted cop killer, I, however, think that if the state is going to claim authority to take life then they really need to get their shit together. In general I oppose the death penalty, not because some people don’t deserve it, but because I feel the state having that authority is a threat to our own personal liberty – and the government fucks things up so often that there is a non-zero chance that an innocent person could be executed.
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