038 - Redaction

I'm not sure what I was smoking when I wrote #036. (Not that I smoke, but still.) Because I've actually decided to get back into Gemini and Mastodon, and they're pretty nice actually? Like, oh gosh, there's a world of difference between Reddit memes about "wow, capitalism sucks, amirite?" and actual articles and essays by people thinking through what gift economies would entail and whatnot.

I just found a bunch of cool things to read on Gemini while I was bored at work. (Oh, yeah, new job, alternates between physical busywork and leaving me at a desk with a vague goal of programming something. It pays well) And I've been checking back into Mastodon and it's not bad, actually.

Let me state the *real* reasons why I was iffy on the subject earlier:

1. Clients kinda suck. I mean, I say this while slogging through web Twitter on a phone, which is the laggiest and least responsive experience I have ever witnessed. Mobile Mastodon is an absolute dream in comparision. This is more directed at the lack of good mobile clients for Gemini. There's Ariane, which has this annoying habit of constantly forgetting what I had open.

2. I use my phone way more than I should. Big, long content is daunting on it, and it's much easier for me to use the super slick piecemeal content from mainstream apps than it is for me to engage with a blog post (or a book for that matter) while on a train or whatnot.

3. Twitter and Reddit both are so large in scale that they have effectively infintie content at all times. It's very difficult to run out of content, and if I do, that's probably a good sign that I should actually start doing something, anything, productive with my day. The small internet, however, can run out, and if I'm stuck with time left to kill, I tend to just fall back on the old reliables. Obviously, the proper solution there would be to meditate in my own thoughts or whatever. That's kind of the Gemini way, isn't it? Writing every few months about how much fun you're having offline. (I jest, but also, am I wrong?)

And yes, it is a bad habit that I reach for the phone in my downtime in the constant need to consume more thoughts, without really giving myself the time to process them. Not that I don't ever let myself do that, I let myelf think pretty often. Like right now, in fact, hah hah. But still. Bad habit, might want to kick, probably won't ever.

4. I get easily overwhelmed when I have too many things to check. Trying to do Gemini, without an RSS reader? (why? because no client has one built in!) Not really happening. Mastodon *and* Twitter? Drop one. Too many Discord servers? Just check the two you're most ingrained with, and leave all the rest on read.

5. Alright yeah it's also because all the artists and non-technical people are on mainstream social media, I wasn't lying about that.

I'm not sure what conclusion I should be drawing from all this, besides that I should probably not give too much criticism for things that I half-remember using a year ago.