Abandoned AmericaThis isn't a knock on the fediverse - I have tremendous respect for the community here, or I wouldn't even post this - but the cratering of social media by oligarchs in the last year or five just makes me so unbelievably sad sometimes. These incredible communities have been destroyed by greed and it makes it so hard to invest emotionally in anything any more. This is particularly hard when you're an introvert & those spaces were a huge support. I wonder how many, like me, just haven't recovered.
I used to want to participate and be a part of online communities and now I just post a photo here and there and dip out because every place I've ever felt a part of burned to the ground. That's not something I like or feel good about, btw, but I also have a really hard time "being myself" anywhere and seeing rich douches torch my home again and again makes it so hard to invest energy in rebuilding. Especially when energy is so hard to come by. The internet is a goddamn mess right now.
You fediverse people are the one bastion of the internet not owned and manipulated by corporate interests at the moment and I am grateful for that. I am glad that you folks are out there. I do feel like too many bloody chunks of my spirit were torn out by the Musks of the world, to the degree that I barely exist online any more, but it warms my cold soul a bit to know that the community here still rocks. Thanks for that.
LAUREN 
@AbandonedAmerica I feel like we are wandering around picking up the pieces and cobbling something together that will look different than what we had. Some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it ugly, but better out from under the tire fire that is the corporate owned town square. I can breathe here.
@noondlyt there's no doubt in my mind that this is better. But I also don't feel like I've recovered emotionally either.
@AbandonedAmerica Walking wounded ❤️🩹
@noondlyt that's me 💔
Arne Babenhauserheide@noondlyt That feels akin to the work of Free Software developers over the past decades:
https://www.draketo.de/english/tale-of-foxes-and-freedom
Singing the songs of Freedom to shed the golden chains of proprietary platforms.
@AbandonedAmerica
A tale of foxes and freedom | Zwillingssterns Weltenwald | 1w6
Mi, 05/23/2007 - 04:16 — Draketo Singing the songs of creation to shape a free world. One day the silver kit asked the grey one: “Who made the light, which brightens our singing place?” The grey one looked at it lovingly and asked the kit to sit with him, for she would tell a story from the old days when the tribe was young. “Once there was a time, when the wo... 1w6
Colin Chick@noondlyt @AbandonedAmerica what's really sad is that that description sounds very similar to a description I gave on the Book of Face site many years ago, of trying to recover from a mental breakdown. Link to a copy and paste of it on my rarely used blog here: https://sleepstarvedandsemisane.blogspot.com/2024/09/picking-up-pieces.html
Matěj Cepl 🇪🇺 🇨🇿 🇺🇦The thing about freedom nobody talks about enough is that it gives wings to both good and arseholes. Still worthy!
ljs@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica As an arsehole I am in this message
See, at least one reason it is not so bad!
That, sir, sounded too dirty for this early morning here!
@AbandonedAmerica @mcepl wow an image of an eagle just flashed before me!
God bless the lost 13 colonies which we gave up willingly because we couldn't be arsed to keep them!
God bless you all!
But like lads, can you please not waste any more tea yeah? Thanks
God bless the lost 13 colonies which we gave up willingly because we couldn't be arsed to keep them!
God bless you all!
But like lads, can you please not waste any more tea yeah? Thanks
Well, they were kind of fighting you as well, that shouldn’t be forgotten.
(Just reading a bit of Edmund Burk, a famous freedom fighter and revolutionary, how those colonies should be let go)
Or one horribly weak tea …
(As a person who got from Dunkin’ Donuts their “regular” coffee expecting a regular cup of coffee, I still haven’t forgiven the drinks they are serving in those colonies).
@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica yeah it's weak enough to be basically treason
@ljs @AbandonedAmerica And there was more cream and more sugar than coffee (I drink my coffee dark without anything added).
@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica but... that's called an... Americano???
No, that’s called the Abomination in the face of the Lord God. Being in Massachusetts, I was thinking that it was the true evil Puritans should be against (Puritans == pure coffee, right?).
@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica in the end we became bestest mates again so I think they realised their mistake
Secret Squirrel@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @ljs Please don't judge us by Dunkin. I had a wonderful espresso here last week that would have been excellent even in Rome. Now if we could just learn the joys of a long black....
@Secret_Squirrel @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica yeah similar to English food being terrible. I mean it is terrible, but you can find some food here that isn't English!
Fish and chips can be really nice in a stodgy kind of way and quality of that varies WILDLY. You basically won't get good fish and chips in the South East.
South West and North of England/Scotland - yes.
Fish and chips can be really nice in a stodgy kind of way and quality of that varies WILDLY. You basically won't get good fish and chips in the South East.
South West and North of England/Scotland - yes.
@ljs @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica I've only been too the UK a couple of times, but I have had some good food there. I'm a sucker for a good meat pie. Perhaps not at Weatherspoons, though.
@Secret_Squirrel @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica yeah you can get some good pies here. You can also get some terrible ones...
Luckily London has loads of non-British cuisine in which you know, helps...
Sadly standards across the country as a whole are low. You can find sandwiches in a standard supermarket that defy human understanding of the word 'edible'.
And people regularly eat food equally so inedible and defend it... we lack a cuisine really. WW2 didn't help but not sure we really ever did...
Luckily London has loads of non-British cuisine in which you know, helps...
Sadly standards across the country as a whole are low. You can find sandwiches in a standard supermarket that defy human understanding of the word 'edible'.
And people regularly eat food equally so inedible and defend it... we lack a cuisine really. WW2 didn't help but not sure we really ever did...
@ljs @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel
I am actually a big fan of SOME English food … not mentioning steaks, which are obviously awesome, I liked steak & kidney pie, and the beef wellington looks like an awesome idea (I haven’t had it yet, and it must be quite pricey, right?). Mint in meat is a horrible idea, though.
@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel problem is a lot of the good versions of these meals are actually very French.
Beef Wellington is very good, steak we can't claim I'd say that's French in origin.
I'm not a huge fan of steak + kidney pie but again the good ones will be in a French style :)
This is something that can sort of hide some of the sins...
Beef Wellington is very good, steak we can't claim I'd say that's French in origin.
I'm not a huge fan of steak + kidney pie but again the good ones will be in a French style :)
This is something that can sort of hide some of the sins...
@ljs @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel
Yes, of course, there is that old saying, that the only good English cuisine is the French one, but I really don’t agree with it completely. Although, the beef bourguignon I got in Oxford was the thing I have very wild dreams till this day, that was absolutely heavenly stuff (and expensive, but that goes without saying for French food).
@mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel it is true lol.
Other than great fish + chips though that's just stodge really
Other than great fish + chips though that's just stodge really
pope of nope 🇺🇦@ljs @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel pardon me, thank who??
🍷
@lkundrak @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel and who is your god? Hail him 🍷
Hail the ANTI RHESUS!
Hail the ANTI RHESUS!
@lkundrak @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel oh opposable rhesus! SAVE US FROM OUR THUMBS!!! 🍷
@ljs @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica @Secret_Squirrel not a fan of kidneys either
they piss me off
Molly Cantrell-Kraig 🇺🇦When I was a teen, I worked at a truck stop. A driver ordered a cup of coffee, regular. When I brought him a fresh cup of black coffee (unadulterated, or to my midwestern POV, “regular”) he said kindly, “Darlin’, a regular coffee is ‘cream, two sugar.’”
I was a broadcast journalism college student at the time; my job at the truck stop was a boon. I learned oodles of regionalisms, pronunciation of names…all sorts of stuff that paid off in post-grad careers.
@mckra1g @mcepl @AbandonedAmerica yeah I think the lesson here is that america is huge and customs and habits differ depending where you are... even in the UK, which is a tiny country, if you were to judge us by something in one part of the country you'd find it differed rather somewhere else...
Except you never, ever put tea in a microwave. This is an abomination.
Except you never, ever put tea in a microwave. This is an abomination.
Oh absolutely. I’m a Yank, and even I know that! 😉
A coworker used to microwave her tea water and also reheat tea using the microwave in the break room. It almost gave me hives to witness it. *shudder*
Roadskater, Ph.D.@AbandonedAmerica Going way, way off on a tangent here. How is Charly dog doing?
@roadskater aw, thanks for that tangent, it really melted my messed up heart. He's sleeping with his snoot on my leg. I love that goofball ❤️
@AbandonedAmerica You cut back on your Mastodon posts for quite a while, and pretty much dropped all the personal stuff. Good to read that el doggo is doing what he's good at.
@roadskater I did cut back, pretty much everywhere. I dunno, being who I am has been a bit of a chore lately, aside from my wife, the fur guys, and walks in the woods. I'm glad I have those things to keep me going
Jeff C. 🇺🇦@AbandonedAmerica For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here.
@jeff aw, thank you Jeff. I am too.
Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️@AbandonedAmerica I love the photos you posted. I also like to take photos in areas that's being torn down, too. (though for some reason I can't post them) 
@Orca thanks so much, and I hope you get it sorted, not sure why you wouldn't be able to?
David S (inactive)@AbandonedAmerica I know what you mean. Every man and his dog setting up an alternative to Twitter has fragmented communities
It reminds me a bit of the end of Quakeworld in the 90s. That was a tight community as it was the only decent online game in the early days of the internet. Then Quake2 came out, Quake3, Counterstrike competing for attention and everyone drifted away
Nothing stays the same (as evidenced by your fine work) but it's still a shame although few mourn the loss of Twitter
@Pionir I suppose that's the passage of time for you. But I guess part of getting older and experiencing that is diminishing enthusiasm for repeatedly engaging in whatever the new thing is.
Paul SuttonThank you for your kind and supportive words
AJSnook@AbandonedAmerica
Speaking to you as someone on the other side of the planet, may I offer you my thanks for the wonderful photographic vignettes you offer up.
I find your presentations wonderful and your locations awe inspiring.
Keep up the great work and don't let the bastards get you down (as they say...)
Speaking to you as someone on the other side of the planet, may I offer you my thanks for the wonderful photographic vignettes you offer up.
I find your presentations wonderful and your locations awe inspiring.
Keep up the great work and don't let the bastards get you down (as they say...)
@AJSnook thanks so much for the kindness. I may have sunk a lot further into my introvert pit than I'd like to have, but I really do value the fediverse as the only non-corporate way to share things with people that's left.