Parody of a Neil Young album cover, posted on Twitter of course by Mondo 2000.
I got some interesting comments on my Friday post about the Modern Jazz Quartet, including this unrelated aside from Spookah: "Tom, as a side note, it seems that Twitter finally made the last step and for those of us without an account, even just reading a post isn't a possibility any longer. It's now basically get an account or get away."
Twitter has been important for communications among RAW fandom, so maybe it's OK for me to do a blog post on the topic.
Some of Elon Musk's worst moves have only been temporary, so I guess we'll have to see if what Spookah mentioned is a permanent step to make the site less useful. Twitter could not be accessed for much of the day Saturday by registered users, for system maintenance reasons I don't really understand.
Some of Musk's moves make sense to me, many of them don't. One that I particularly take issue with is restricting links to Substack, an odd move for a free speech advocate.
As I've mentioned before, I responded to the changes at Twitter by creating a Mastodon account. But relatively few people also did so, and many people who set up an account quit posting when they realized there was almost no audience for them at Mastodon. I haven't done a post lately at Mastodon, and Prop Anon's last post is dated Jan. 19. And again, Prop's decision is correct. He has a book to promote!
Because so few people went to Mastodon, I have had to limit my time there, since most of my Mastodon activity is a waste of time. I can't resist pointing out that if many of the people who complain about Musk had migrated to Mastodon, it might have become a useful site. Prop and I tried to move, and it hasn't worked out. Remember when Mastodon got press coverage? I don't see many articles about it anymore. I thought Mastodon's decentralized structure was really interesting, but I guess many people didn't see the point, even as Musk has turned Twitter into a cult of personality.
I remain at Twitter because it remains useful for me to keep up news about the world of RAW fandom, and about other news I'm interested in. (Mastodon is useless for following news about my favorite baseball team, for example). Maybe Twitter will survive Musk, and maybe a useful alternative will become available. I guess we'll see.
3 comments:
Tweetdeck, the app I use to manage the @RAWilson23 account, has been broken all day. So it goes!
The Maybe Logic Subreddit is showing some small signs of life, though is currently just aggregating this blog.
https://www.reddit.com/r/maybelogic/
The Only Maybe Arts Lab Discord is similarly starting to gain members, even if things remain a bit slow, there's potential for some action.
Invite link: https://discord.gg/upH8GUTRgW
I just discovered that Tumblr has had a bit of a bounce back since its death spiral some years ago. It was actually pretty decent for finding new/rare RAW novelties. So I'll fire this one up again:
https://rawilson23.tumblr.com/
No such thing as a failed experiment :)))
I've found myself using twitter less often too, which is probably good. I like to manage my info-addiction and Musk seems to be doing the job for me through rate-limiting and amplifying shit content.
I'm very active on Discord in a few small channels. Maybe Arts Lab has potential, but I think it needs some more folders (?) within the channel to encourage content sharing and community building. Discord seems more underground as well, which encourages more personal sharing and more open dialogue. It doesn't feel so much like the Twitter public square, but a back alley of creatives, subversives, and weirdos.
I'm down for discussing ways to increase discourse and content-sharing on the Maybe Arts Lab. HMU on the Discord. :)
Thanks for airing what I've been thinking about, it's getting lonely out there on the interwebs (these days) like admitting a mistake, or defeat in some sense, the recent decline of Twitter hurts. As you say, Twitter has been important for comms among RAW heads, even without much real traction or viral re-posts, for the most part, the steady flow of seeing Raw related but not explicit--posts--by those you follow, and liking and sometimes commenting in the supportive, positive mode. That was how I recall Twitter before the corned-beef knight rider arrived, and the current cess pit of alt-right populist psycrap circles spiraled further into dust.
I commend you, and all who set up a Mastodon account, and all writing at Substack, and the few other remaining digital islands of independence, and a tad more sanity and integrity. The people, the writers, they are all still out there but urgently in need of a new digital space? Is it, us discordians stick apart, or do we go in for one more once, another attempt at building some...kind...of global village digital community of tolerant and for the most part kind and compassionate. It sounds so corny writing it out like that. But there it is. And props to Bobby for responding in the affirmative with links to Reddit and Discord, bot of which I've joined.
Some reading this will recall the Maybe Logic Academy, which for me was the utopian vision of the positive attributes and possibilities of networked individuals...cussing and discussing all kinds of different stuff. Stuff from the RAW universe, and with the man himself dropping in to lead classes and keep up communications. There was all the seeding-edge classes and on-line courses, leading the way in high quality, bullshit free, alternative education. Damn, looking back, the naughties was an exciting decade. All that said, sometimes you want to chat, post, or comment about completely unrelated topics...nothing to do with RAW at all, at all. Yet...the beauty and sanity of those attempting courtesy through communications (refined by some RAW study) oozes into every discussion and cussion'(Burp) this was what I enjoyed most about MLA and why I remain cautious about RAW Facebook Groups... and now Twitter has tipped over into an outright alt-right shit show.
I patiently await the alternative to Twitter that somehow can - transfer all my followers and those I follow - to another platform. Challenging coding required.
Okay, enough moaning from me. Let's build.
--Fly
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