No more social media!
Hello my name is Nate and welcome to my blog. I really enjoy the sort of "old internet" style design of Bear Blog and decided that I would start using this platform.
My relationship with social media
Social media has been a very large part of my life for as long as I can remember. I learned to use a pc at a very young age, at this time it was primarily a tool for fun. I would play Oddworld Abe's Oddysee, Croc, and many other old classic games. The internet was new and magical, it was a place for information, fun, and discovery, it was cool!
Around 2005 my sister showed me Myspace, I made an account and thought it was okay. I checked my Myspace once or twice a year. I posted very rarely on it. I had a conversation in DMs on there two or three times with family and friends from school. I had a healthy respect and relationship with Myspace. Then one day like it was nothing everyone starting using this "Facebook" website. I thought "Hmm this is just a less customizable version of myspace, but whatever." and I tried it, it was okay. Overtime more and more people started using Facebook and it became bigger and bigger, I met my now fiance through Facebook. Facebook wasn't as cool as Myspace was, but it definitely was a big part of my life.
YouTube was a very large part of my upbringing as well. It was cool and exciting people made funny videos and spoke about their passions, channels were very customizable, you could add whatever flair you wanted to your new internet TV station that's ALL ABOUT WHAT YOU LOVE. Nothing was perfect, but it didn't need to be. Success on YouTube wasn't making money, it was sharing what you enjoyed and having fun doing it. In the 2010s YouTube became more and more and more standardized, channels had very little customization, videos were getting longer, the content was becoming more "corporate" and it lost much of it's soul. I still love YouTube, but it feels like it's no longer a platform for the people by the people.
Between 2020-2023 I tried many different YouTube and Facebook alternative platforms but all of them were either largely politically driven including Twitter. Everyone was so obsessed with politics and arguing about it rather than discussing their passions and what they love. It was very depressing. I hated it. I did during this time Discover Twitch and really enjoyed it. I am a current Twitch affiliate, though I have not streamed in like two years, I actually enjoyed the platform despite it being quite flawed, it's got a large bias towards larger streamers, discover is essentially non-existent, but when you found viewers it felt like old internet times. Talking with friendly strangers over the things you loved.
I took a break from social media in late 2023. I used Twitch, I watched YouTube and wrote articles on my now non-existent website. I hadn't been so happy in a very long time.
NO MORE SOCIAL MEDIA
These days everything is sort of "standardized" on the web. YouTube censors it's users heavily, everyone is always worried more about monetizing their efforts than making something new, fun, and exciting. It's a real problem. I have decided to blog, maybe start a podcast, and stream when I feel like it. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube will become a much smaller part of my life. No more MAJOR social media sites. I think everyone's relationship with the internet has become VERY UNHEALTHY! It's time for a major change! BRING PASSION BACK TO THE WEB!