doing my best to escape social media

I mean, it’s pretty typical for any Neocities site to have a section where the website owner details why they have forsaken mainstream social media networks and why a Neocities is a better option for them and others. I can’t say that I’m any different. So, here’s why I’m choosing to opt out of mainstream social media sites:

Last summer, I decided to try to spend an entire month off social media. I deleted the Instagram and Twitter apps off my phone. If a friend sent me a link to a social media post, I allowed myself to open it in the browser in order to engage with my friend. At first, as expected, it was extremely uncomfortable. I would just pick up my phone and go to open Instagram and end up opening, like, Pinterest or the weather app instead. I found myself reading a lot more comics and overall, my screen time went down.

After that month, I ended up allowing myself to access both via the browser. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried going on Twitter or Instagram via the browser, but let me tell you: it completely sucks. It was enough to really turn me off going on either of them.

Now, I’ve got the Instagram app on my phone, mostly because I have a good friend who regularly sends me memes and I enjoy that. Yet, I find myself sucked into endless tunnel of suggested reels and I hate that feeling. It’s like gambling. Like, one reel out of 50 is enough to make me laugh out loud so I have to keep going to find another one. I can FEEL myself being manipulated. I’m a UX designer, I know all the tricks to keep people engaged and to have them foisted upon me, without my own consent, is extremely uncomfortable.

And that’s really the core of it. I really hate the feeling that I’m being coerced or manipulated. It’s like I’m constantly receiving pretty good spam emails and I always have to be dodging them to find the mail I’m trying to read. Instagram is constantly trying to get me to stay on. Why is so much of the content on my feed “Suggested” or “For You”. I didn’t choose to have that. I didn’t say I wanted to explore. So I have to catch myself falling into that trap. I have to train my eye to know what is content I consented to and what isn’t. That kind of constant vigilance is exhausting.

So, I hope you can understand my relief when I come to sites on Neocities and it’s just that: a site. The site is full of things put there for no “purpose” just because that’s what the site owner wanted to make. The site ENDS. I don’t have to catch when I’m being dragged to a shop page. I can just say “ah, that was good” and close it.

The more time I spend on here, building my site and just putting all the things I like on it, for ME, the more I like it. Obviously! It’s just stuff I like and stuff I’ve consented to look at!

I’m not going to delete my Twitter or Instagram any time soon, truly because I’m connected to so many good people on there… But I don’t know how much longer I can stand going on there.


In the meantime, I’ve began framing the content of this site as “things I like and would like to show to people”. If a friend was over, I’d want to show them my collections. I’d want to talk to them about BL. I’d want them to see my art. And so that’s the stuff I’ll put on here.

So, of course, if a friend was curious about another part of my life, I’d be happy to share (mostly). If you’d like to see anything or hear me talk about anything, please please comment on my Neocities profile and I’d love to respond. This, knitting, and reading BL are the only things I care about right now, so please indulge me. よろしく

Unrelated: in some sort of fit, I was trying to make an icon for my new "Now Watching" section, made a crtv and thought "this is kinda boring. I should put something on the TV". And my first thought was the bit in the Weiss Kreuz opening where Aya is all moaning and tied up. So I did that and now, here we have it. Enjoy:

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