My passion for comics has always made me feel a little bit lonely, as it was practically impossible to find irl people with the same interests as me, unless in a superficial way. At the time of my youth (1990s), this was remedied with pen pals. Buying comics and magazines, there was always a reader's mail corner where anyone looking for friends would have their home address and/or cell phone number posted, and we would send letters to that one guy/gal we thought could be a friend based on common interests (now, perhaps, you will understand why I laugh in your face when you talk about doxxing). Anyway, I had this experience and it was not bad at all, but then ... the Internet came along!

It was like entering a huge, beautiful amusement park. Fan-created sites on which to find any information, even the most in-depth, about one's passions, forums in which to chat, exchange opinions, make friends, knowing that they were starting from a common point: the topic the forum was dedicated to. Each admin decided the specific mode in which the forum should function, the tone, the rules, who could join or not.

But now? What the fuck is this shit?

I mean, explain to me how it can be NORMAL to sign up for social media. With all the love in the world, they can be useful somehow, but... the way they work is completely fucked up.

In the past, when Facebook was still new and fresh, what happened was that you met people in forums, online games and whatever else, and then you added them on Facebook (which gradually replaced the good ol' MSN). The facebook homepage mostly showed you who you followed, and there was an added chat function. All good, right? Groups, too, replaced forums, and pages tentatively replaced personal websites.

Now there seems to be no "outside" to social media anymore. Most people EXCLUSIVELY spend their time on social media, when they are online. And... making friends has become weird. Especially as an adult with an "old internet mentality", it's pretty hard. 

Facebook forces you to have your legal name and surname as a username. Lolnope. People who get to know me personally can know my name, age, and other details; the government definitely can; but corps? Why does zucc need to know my fucking personal data? Nope. Discarded. Also, it makes me vulnerable to people I might know in real life who just "wanna add me", unaware of the fact that, differently to how I present in real life and daily life, I'm a huge nerd and all I'm interested in doing on the internet is being a huge nerd. So nope, all of my nope.

Xitter? Oh yeah, you can be anonymous here. But people there seem to be constantly on crack. A person says something they don't agree with (or LIKES something they don't agree with)? It's time to shame them publicly, and not just that. They actively rile up other people against that one. What the fuck is your business if that person is doing something you don't approve of? If they were breaking the law, and you were an actually good internet denizen, you'd collect data about that person and call the authorities. But, most of the time, they just do it for petty reasons and incredibly shallow motives. What makes me laugh the most is, when this kind of people is on the receiving end of such bullying (let's call it its proper name), they often disappear off the web because, surprise surprise, it feels awful. What about letting other people do whatever the hell they want?

TikTok? Mostly good, it's the ADHD version of YouTube. Remember AMVs? Now they're called edits, and they last 10 seconds tops. Anything more and you lose engagement, you know? Also, you gotta keep clean and corporate or the good shekels from sponsors/TikTok itself won't come. What happened to passion projects? Anyhow, what can I say. If you aggressively tame the algo, it's decent. The bot censoring you even if you say the blandest baddy-bad word is cancer though.

Speaking of all social media in general: WHY THE HELL do social media mix all of us up? Kids belong with kids, adults with adults. Anyone might have good reasons to want to talk only to a selected group of people who share their specific interests, personal issues, and the like. Why do we have to generally talk to the void in the same cauldron as everyone else, hoping hashtags and shit bring us to the right people? You might argue a website is the same, as in, I put this here and anyone can see it. But there's a catch... you have to CHOOSE to come read my site. It won't be in your face as you open your favorite social media site. You will only see it if you bookmark it and willingly come and read it. 
In real life we NEVER talk to everyone at the same time, in a way that's universally good for any person possible on planet Earth (spoiler: it's impossible anyway). What we do is, talk to our family in a certain way, to our friends in another way, to our boss again differently, then to our coworkers in another way yet again etc. Social media though, want you to do that. You have to be perfect, no bad words, possibly not slang. Get up-to-date about any single topic, word, idiom that might have become offensive, because people won't be kind and explain you what you did wrong giving you the benefit of the doubt... if you do something wrong, they'll go scorched earth upon you. 

I also kind of find the widespread use of English pretty asinine. Yeah, sure, I'll reach more people this way, and my friends who don't speak my language will be able to read whatever drivel I decide to write. But still, I will never write as well as I would in my mother language. Am I being inclusive? Am I, really, if what I say is butchered by the fact English is my second language? Am I properly expressing myself? Am I... being included?

All in all, I believe the best thing is to find some friends and make a forum or a group chat or a discord or whatever the fuck. We aren't made to be under constant scrutiny by every single person in the world. 

Oh, another thing. If you are a social media apologist, please, PLEASE, don't cry if people who think differently from you inhabit them too. The ultimate goal of social media is farming engagement and personal data, so the more people fight, the more the owner gains. That's mostly why they're cesspools. Also, they have the same right as you to use social media, even if they're terminally ignorant and stupid, and "chasing them out" only makes them develop a victim complex. Please, PLEASE, make a bubble with your friends and STAY THERE. You'll see how wonderful it will be for your mental health (unless you're surrounded by assholes in your friend group, in which case, oh well). 

Tl;dr: delete social media unless you are selling some shit.