Rodney Sanches
Thoughts on Online Social Media
I like my social media like, I like my shopping centres. Pleasant, uneventful places to meet up with friends. Many social spaces come and go: cafes, pubs, record stores, restaurants. The internet has an interesting dynamic of attraction and bunching, like hydrogen in space, without the physical constrains of our bodies and position in space, just our command of language, we gather together fast, in large numbers and with dramatic reaction. This paradoxically more difficult, due to the ease of participation.
Facebook with its onerous terms and conditions was never a nice place to meet. That site, I rejected early for the terrible terms and loathsome conditions became more repellent with every apology and injury to the societies which it inhabits. As I have typed previously, the new venture, Metaverse, is the Gingerbread House that the Wicked Witch is building in the forest to trap children to boil in the cauldron.
Years ago Twitter was a large oasis from the snares of Facebook, but then the engagement efforts brought streams of emotionally charged messages to the forefront and sidestepping the equivalent of dog shit became another task in this previously pleasant public(ish) space. Then the rich car and rocket guy, determined to be ridiculed in all perpetuity set to work on ensuring that the dog shit was larger and more difficult to avoid while honking about American law to an international audience. His stupid proclamations are reminiscent of the days of yore when lead poisoned kings be-knighted frogs and ignorance rolled over the hills like time-lapse clouds. Never one to eave a party because the host has lost his mind, but still.