The Worlds of Social Media

...and why I exercise my block button faithfully

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

With the implosion of Twitter, I’ve been exploring differing social media options.

Not that this is a new thing—I’ve been poking at several alternatives for the last few years, based on past experience with Usenet and LiveJournal. I don’t intend to ever be caught scrambling, and as a writer who depends on social media to get the word out about my work, I’m all too aware of how it’s easy to get deplatformed. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories on the subject.

Several questions happen right away. How easy is the user interface? What early glitches are going on that I need to watch out for? Who is hanging out there?

But I’ve added a new metric.

How many assholes are ready and waiting to jump down my throat for the slightest deviance from what they believe?

Oh, this isn’t about electoral politics, though electoral politics can be a factor.

I tried and left the whale app because of the reaction to Romancelandia. It wasn’t just the collection of pearl-clutching church ladies who were absolutely convinced that all romance writers wanted to do was promote themselves posting porn. Before that, I had started to sense that True Believer vibe. Fall into place with accepted beliefs. Uncritical reposting of links from a problematic left source. Scapegoating not just romance writers but people who aren’t cis-het.

Then—the subsequent swarming onto Twitter by whale app proponents who were pretty ugly toward critics of the responses to romance writers was enough for me. I don’t write explicit sex scenes, but I have at least one series where the protagonists swear. A lot.

(and yes, it is my protagonists, because one of the current works-in-progress has minimal swearing)

I can see the same degree of pearl-clutching happening there. And, frankly, I’m reading more romance from people who aren’t cis het, who aren’t pale-hued, and so I’m gonna go where I can find more of that work.

The woolly mammoth turned me off because of the same sort of evangelical fervor about the platform. I am very cautious about evangelical fervor whether it’s religious or secular, just because I don’t like where it leads. Groupthink. Rejection of the odd one—and boy howdy can I ever tell you about being the odd one out. It’s my life.

Anyway. As a result of all this, I’ve gotten pretty aggressive in establishing my boundaries on a new app—which has extended to my existing social media platforms. Oh, I’m friendly to everyone, or at least try to be. But the minute someone starts mansplaining, or takes on a hectoring tone, or something falling into my “behaving badly” classification, I don’t mess around with arguing. Block and move on. I might hesitate if I have a previous connection of some sort.

Otherwise, it’s a block.

On the new Substack Notes, I’ve taken the “one strike and you’re out” approach. Part of that is shaped by past experience with Medium and Twitter, and part of it is shaped by the knowledge of the bad actors already there. Until now, I’ve pretty much just been on the writer side of Substack, with limited politics exposure. Now I get to see much more of the whole place.

Oh, I’m pretty happy, overall. I don’t mind disagreement. But. If you say something racist or bigoted? That’s a block. If you have connections to racist and bigoted publications? That’s a block. Start mansplaining something to me? That’s a block.

Does this limit my outreach? Well, it could, on the one hand. On the other, if I don’t care for what someone is saying, are they really going to like what I write?

I doubt it.

I’ve accepted my likely obscurity. I’m not chasing the almighty algorithm.

And yes, this has been inspired by a couple of recent blocks on Notes. By people who have started “I don’t intend to be mean, but—” and gone on to snipe.

Yes. You intended to be mean. You intended to punch down on me—and I just don’t have time for you.

Welcome to my block file.