I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how my social media use has changed in ten years. Time was I’d talk about feeling blue, what I was working on, stuff that was bugging me, water-cooler stuff. Now it’s more guarded/performative: pithy one-liners, media reviews, and social commentary.
@jag Not... really, because part of the reason for the change is the need to be careful about my safety and professional image, and that goes for everywhere on the public internet. But also, real/not real isn’t quite the scale, it’s more inside/outside, if you follow?
@andrhia Ah yeah I definitely understand. I'm the same I post general interests, but not very personal things.
I tend to reserve that for 1-on-1 calls / hangouts and I think I like it that way.
@jag It’s not bad, per se, but worth interrogating ^_^
@andrhia Yeah, same here. Though being here on Mastodon (and on a smaller instance) sure feels different. I'm letting _me_ out more.
@andrhia Maybe if you didn't feel so exposed? Like, if you didn't feel like you were on stage? Can't be performative if we're not on stage!
I feel a little more on stage on Masto than I do on IRC.
@JordiGH I am definitely less filtered on some Slacks!
@andrhia Similarly finding myself more guarded with posting. Part of it is the performance aspect. With larger (and more malicious / cynical / angry) audiences, it just stopped being fun.
Then there's the self-doubt: If we're all downing in "content," do I really have something valuable to contribute, or would I just be adding to the cacophony?
@callahad Right? Does anybody really care what I think about anything, etc. etc.
@andrhia I have alts for this reason. I feel like my public-facing stuff has to be...at least a little distant, I guess. It kind of bums me out.
@mishafletch Yeah, it would be nice to have more space to be a little raw sometimes.
@andrhia Are you thinking about going back to the more “real” you back then?