A long time ago in high school some kids tried to get me to sit with them at lunch. Now, if these were kids with a reputation for actually caring about the fact I ate by myself, this story wouldn’t be told, but instead these were the type of trolls that knew by doing so, their friends can then pick you apart while they play good cop, until you walk away in shame. That is exactly what happened. I ate the rest of my lunches in the AV room while I surfed the internet (an ancient term) on my laptop until my senior year when I actually had friends to sit with.
So when it comes to social networking, I tried to take a little more of an initiative when it came to friending people. Most of the time it went well, but many cases I added people who I tangentially knew, or went to school with, and it was the equivalent of them telling you that you aren’t USDA choice on their social grill. In other cases, I would comment on someone’s post or tweet, and they’d send back a nasty reply like you insulted their mother. The worst one was a former co-worker from Panera who I got along with really well before, but after getting in good with the popular kids, decided that I wasn’t worth his time and trash-talked me out after disagreeing with some viewpoint about something. I get it dude, you graduated to the senior table in the lunch room, and need to keep up appearances. Regrettable, but this is a uniquely human trait.
But in today’s hyper-charged, especially-political landscape, it’s just difficult to know who is genuine and who is probably an LLM bot trying to debate you so they can train their models to trap more young men into political hellscapes. I’m also just a bit of a coward I guess. So I make people come to me if they’re really interested in riding this ride. Especially since I vomit a lot online as a result of being stuck inside every day, no social life, and no friends. It’s a living.
So my social media policy is:
Facebook: My page is friends-only, there are no public posts. You must make a friend request to me first. If you’re someone I know or have met, you will likely be accepted within the hour. If you’re a friend-of-a-friend, I’ll still probably accept you, but I might ask for character references. If you’re a complete rando, no admittance. Nothing personnel, kid.
I also have a closed-group for discussing politics and more sensitive social issues that is by my invite only. The rules are no racism/sexism/bigotry/etc, no bandwagoning for divisive ideologies/groups (MAGA, ANTIFA, Proud Boys, etc.) and no personal attacks on other members. You don’t have to sip brandy and engage in SOPHISTICATED INTELLECTUAL DISCUSSION, you can be yourself and speak yourself, but it’s also not 8chan /pol/ and other disgusting parts of the darkweb. Inquire to me directly if you’re interested.
Twitter/X: As of February of 2025 I no longer use The Artist Formally Known as Twitter. I do maintain my original account as a redirect, and my weeb account until I decide to move it, just in case some day Musk gets bored and sells it to someone who will take a flamethrower to the shitstains that inhabit that site and Make the Fail Whale Great Again.
Bluesky: I now use Bluesky exclusively for tweet-based activity and it’s been great. Like mid-2010s Twitter without the bullshit, and before the Muskrats, porn bots, and ads. I am pretty open about whomever wants to follow me on Bluesky, but I will likely only follow back if you’re someone I know, or you have something interesting enough to follow.
LinkedIn: I have one, and I kind of don’t want it anymore. It used to be good for references and networking back in the day, but now it’s just spam, unsolicited email, and unwarranted self-importance from people with very bot-like behaviors. It’s also being increasingly used for doxxing and cancel culture by people engaged in culture wars. I won’t advertise mine ever, I barely check it maybe thrice a year, and I may end up deleting it soon.
I have an Instagram that I hardly ever use, so if you find me there, good luck. I have a Signal account for funsies, but unless I get added to some secret strike plans by our idiot SecDef, I am unlikely to look at it. I no longer use Snapchat because no one else does. Finally. I especially do not use TikTok, because I am an adult. SMILE.
Vidya Games: I am a daily user of Discord and both run my own Discord server which is akin to a dying sun at this point, and am part of many servers. Beep me if you know how to reach me. Major gaming services I frequent are Steam, Nintendo, and occasionally PSN. I also have GOG and Epic but they get neglected a lot. I also used to be on Blizzard Battle.net a lot during the Overwatch days but not as much anymore. Finally, I am a frequent Twitch viewer, but not as much of a Twitch streamer as I once was. But occasionally I do fire up the band and play something for zero viewers. But lately, I have been publishing a lot more to Youtube, including gaming LPs and some video trash edits.
I know this is an atypical thing for someone to do, but it’s something I feel that only an internet-boomer would do online to protect himself (even a little) from the ravages of the online big-data ecosystem and the many people who never graduated high school bullying and get their kicks online. But it’s really just a nervous tick of mine in not being able or willing to make unsolicited relationships work with people on-the-fly. I’m perfectly fine with people when they approach me, I just don’t approach others very easily. I won’t get into the weeds though as to why. It’s both an introverted thing, and a neurodivergent thing, to which I am both.