Life without the big 3

Not long after the event at the US Capital, I made the decision to leave the big 3, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram over undue censorship and an atmosphere of vitriol. It was a hard decision to make. I had been on these publishing sites for several years and many of my friends are also there. I decided that no one social network had the right to govern me or my interests anymore. So the big question, how has it been over the past almost 2 months? I can tell you, I do feel like I’m missing out on my friends lives, and yet I really don’t miss the constant attacks on people who have my beliefs. I don’t miss the petty bickering, the “unfriendliness” of real life friends to other real life friends who decide that if I don’t believe the same thing they do, I’m a horrible person and I need to be chewed out and canceled. But here’s the flip side, the noise is gone and not only that but I have found other avenues of social engagement independent of the big 3. In fact I would say I am now wading through 10 times the amount of social interactions due to various other networks I’m on where now THEY have my attention, as long as I let them have it. Instead of constantly checking my Facebook stream or Tweets by people who are just trying to push a totalitarian agenda while silencing any dissenters, I’m seeing current news without a left leaning slant and discussing it with like minded people. On some of the platforms I still see things I disagree with but I don’t feel attacked as I once did. It’s liberating to not be constantly glued to the big 3. I wish the communities I was a part of were more portable, so I could still participate in my prop making group etc. while not having to be exposed or controlled by the MSM influenced garbage. I pray that as these other options grow, new versions of these communities come into being vs. just a political focus. I may have to start some of these myself to get the ball rolling. For now I have basically put those things on hold and letting the dust settle and watching to see which platforms bubble to the surface. All that said, I will never again let a social network have that level of control over my online presence again. Disclaimer: For some things I volunteer with, I need to maintain access to Facebook so I created a new account to facilitate this without connecting to anything else so my feed is very minimal and I don’t actually look at the feed, I just do what I need to and log off. I also maintained my Facebook Messenger account just for connection to people I wanted to keep connected to without dealing with the aforementioned garbage. If you want to connect, you can find me at the various networks listed on this site. Have a great day and I’ll see you out there!