The big news this morning is about Twitter, Elon Musk, and Musk’s competition Zuckerberg, along with the failure of Metaverse under Zuckerberg’s command. Most of which doesn’t even compute for me.

Last night I cancelled my Twitter account.  I only joined so I could read the Balloon Juice front pagers and quickly discovered what a time and energy sink it was after I read their posts.  I learned nothing of import although I did occasionally enjoy and/or laugh at some of the animal posts.  Musk’s purchase of Twitter made it easy to leave.

Twenty or more years ago I was on Facebook for three months.  At two months and three weeks I realized Facebook took me right back to being 15 years old, in high school.  I literally felt the same way I remember feeling almost every minute I was on the high school campus: not pretty enough, not busty enough, not popular, not well-dressed enough, not to mention that I was so self-centered in my misery, I assumed that any laughter I heard from any direction, was at my expense.

Looking at photos from that time I see that I was actually cute/pretty, my clothes looked like everyone else’s, and I didn’t have big boobs which became an advantage as an adult because clothes look better on women with small breasts.

So, whatever it was on Facebook that took me back to some of the most unhappy years of my life, I decided I did not need in my early old age. That was my experience of social media until 2020.  In June that year I took an online photography course and the instructor set up an Instagram account where we could post our photos.  I signed up for an account which I made private so people have to get my permission to follow me. I only have about 30 followers and we all post photographs of our pets, our families, and interesting photos we take of anything and everything.  No influencers in the people I follow or who follow me.

My default photo is the sky scape out my front door.  I live in a walkout basement apartment facing due west, overlooking ranch land, foothills, a swath of the central valley, the coastal range and that huge ever-changing sky. Next come cats, flowers, trees, books I particularly enjoyed reading.  Nothing is important, only half the photos are composed and deliberate, posted for the two or three people still there from the photography class. 

Almost all the requests I get from people who want to follow me are from influencers, sellers of fake money, life coaches, all manner of people I would never talk to in real life and have no time for in virtual life.

I don’t know what category blogs fall into.  I still read them, mainly Balloon Juice which I read first thing every day and check on throughout the day until I shut down the computer early evening.  It’s a full service blog—politics, pets, cooking, travel, music, you name it, there has been a post about it. It keeps me informed about politics, as well as introducing me to books, movies, TV, and other blogs I might enjoy. Commenters live in many countries on several continents although I confess that I don’t read many of the threads of comments because I’m a slow reader and don’t have the time.

More than you ever wanted to know about my life online.