Thinking more people are going to engage with you on mainstream social media “because everyone’s there” is like thinking people at a stadium concert are there to listen to you. It‘s only true if you’re one of the ones on stage. Not so much when you’re huddled in the nosebleeds.
Forget the numbers. Forget about “going viral” (leave it to the psychopaths in Silicon Valley to make virus-like behaviour aspirational). Embrace the joy of interacting with one another on a human scale.
@aral I totally hear what you're saying and agree wholeheartedly.
But as I reeducate my social media reflexes here, and revaluating my engagement on Twitter - I'm wondering whether it would be better to export new behaviours back into that world rather than turn away? Lots of internal conflict about this concept...
At 4am in NYC I wake up to catch the early bus. When I'd look at twitter at that hour it was totally filled with all these students and scientists and nurses from Nigeria-- They are already at work and in class and taking about the news, papers, jokes. And I made friends that way too. I learned new things.
That's the power of a network with 100s of millions of people.
@futurebird @aral yeah I have Twitter connections in Nigeria, iNaturalist connections in Australia, and Facebook connections in remote areas of Colombia and Peru. LinkedIn has let me connect with corporate leaders in Chile and El Salvador. Corporate social media is bad on many ways but it's also a miracle.
Maybe your job doesn't require constant global outreach. But don't preach at me about thinking small.
@stevenbodzin No one’s preaching at you, Steven. You’re doing the online equivalent of coming into my home (my mentions, on my instance) and telling me to shut up.
I can speak my mind on my own fediverse instance as I like. If you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, don’t follow me, mute me, block me, or block my whole instance if that makes you feel better.
The day I come into your mentions and start telling you what you can or cannot do then you can accuse me of preaching.
Aral Balkan
Daniel Yeo
myrmepropagandist
S Bodzin, Real American 🇺🇸