Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Blog, Internet resources, online reading groups, articles and interviews, Illuminatus! info.

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Social media update

The logo for Mastodon. It's a social network I like, but I wish a few more people would go over there. 

Social media is connected to running a blog; I (and other bloggers, of course) use social media to promote my blog posts, and social media in turn generates news and story ideas for me.

If anyone is interested, I am currently active on Facebook, on X (@jacksontom), on Bluesky (@jacksontom.bsky.social) and on Mastodon (@jacksontom@liberdon.com).

I never "got" Instagram and I hated Threads when I tried it. 

I like Mastodon, but it doesn't seem to be catching on. I like its friendly vibe and decentralized structure, so I am sticking it out hoping for the best. It could be great, it just doesn't have enough people (or active RAW fans). Bluesky seems to be picking up momentum and has come out of beta, i.e. anyone can join, an invitation from a current member is not needed anymore.

I am less enthusiastic about Facebook and X, but that's where the people are, and I don't think I can give them up. Facebook has many fan groups devoted to Robert Anton Wilson. X has many people I am interested in who haven't migrated to Mastodon or Bluesky. If you want to try X, and if you read this blog, you may want to consider following @RAWilson23, @RAWSemantics, @TheRAWTrust and @RAWarchives, and maybe me, too. If you do try X (or you want to improve your experience), I suggest using curated lists of accounts and following those lists, rather than relying on X to tell  you what to read.

John Scalzi has a recent post on social media that is worth reading, although I do still find X more useful than he does. Mike Masnick has an article out on why he is excited about recent developments at Bluesky, i.e. users can choose options on content moderation and can choose from various algorithms. 

As as I do like Mastodon, here is a useful guide for beginners. And also, here is the official website. 





1 comment:

Doctor Richard Waterloo said...

My social media presence has fallen off over the last few years. I tried to make X work, and I got some followers that were interested in my project, and got to make connections with people I find interesting, but I'm kinda allergic to hot takes and gossip, so it really doesn't do it for me. I was off FB for a while but had to join for a project this year. That place hasn't changed and it's not appealing to me at all. Discord servers, when people participate, are excellent for creating tight nit groups, and that's where I tend to hang. It feels less public and I can have a different name or persona for each server, which interests me. I guess my interest in social media isn't there anymore. News or info aggregates like yours tend to get rid of the use of social media. Dunno... none of them do it for me like Discord and texting.