i have a problem with bluesky
i made an account pretty much soon after twitter went to shit a couple years ago, but to be honest, i haven't been using it at all.
don't get me wrong, i like the lack of advertisements and shit bot responses, and having complete control without algorithmic intervention. but something about bluesky feels so... sterile to me. like it's too much of an empty space. which makes sense, because it should feel like a blank slate after years on twitter.
but it's also just... so much decorum. if that makes sense. there is a more insightful deep dive into this feeling by a couple of guys who actually spend their time on bluesky, so maybe that'll paint a better picture.
it just feels to me like bluesky is burdened by a growing need for people to migrate from the grokhole twitter has become, and by willingly and eagerly taking that spot, it becomes this online space that maybe fears the slightest noise or loudness.
look, i get it. in regards to being loud or noisy, twitter is a hellscape of a point of comparison. but even amidst the gpt-generated twitter replies, porn bot accounts, and right-wing ai tech bro artists, what's left of the niche of sensible people on twitter still have fun and are loud about it. memes, commentary, discourse.
i get that bluesky is new and young, but i've noticed that it just doesn't have that.
it feels like, in trying to not be twitter (or what twitter has become), bluesky walks on eggshells and refuses to adopt the little positive behaviors on twitter that made it such a fun digital space in the first place (before it all turned to shit).
i may be biased. i'm one of the oldest twitter users on there, probably, and the only reason i haven't deleted my account despite hating every single minute i still spend on the app is that i have a four-letter username and now you can't even make four-letter usernames on twitter. it was a post-elon rule they introduced, and i can't remember why.
but my time spent on twitter meant that i went through the okay-ish pre-elon days and saw the literal downfall of many online communities of artists, activists, and hobbyists on the site. and through it all, i appreciate the dash of color. the occasional in-fighting, the discourse, the arguing. hell, even the memes.
i don't know how to explain this exactly. am i saying that bluesky is too wholesome for me — an old-time internet dweller who's seen it all?
because then i have a problem with more than just bluesky, i probably have a problem with myself too. i shouldn't dislike a space for being too wholesome. what does that make me? i like good people. i view myself as a good person.
i don't know.
it just feels like, where twitter has lost its soul and humanity to grok queries and hateful conservative engagement farms, bluesky has yet to show me its soul and humanity because everyone is scared of accidentally turning the space into twitter, whether through funny or satirical posts (skeets?) or socialist commentary that may be deemed too radical.
to be honest, i don't think bluesky needs to fear that, as i think you would need an elon-like incident to happen to cause a post-elon social media.
or maybe i'm just using bluesky wrong. i'm trying to get back into it because being on twitter makes me angry or sad most of the time. it also doesn't help that most of the people i want to follow either don't have a bluesky or have an account but aren't active. i don't know. maybe bluesky isn't the problem. maybe it's me.