Greater Transitions

The online world is turning less fun and increasingly unstable. I can do something about the second point.

January 20, 2025

3–5 minutes

It’s bad enough the Marmalade Shit-Gibbon has taken office for the second time; bad enough there are enough stupid, frightened people in our nation to make that happen and that “basically good” people sit back and abstain from the process, congratulating themselves on keeping their souls clean.

It was tough already, with needing to delete my social media accounts: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and now Bluesky and DeviantArt. There’s been a rising tension in the air, people are doing away with the social agreements that enabled us to work together, and they’re increasingly comfortable with ideology. I wasn’t getting what I wanted or needed from social media; what I was seeing was a lot of hatred and belligerence.

To see some noob, barely past drinking age, loudly declare that Giantess Tina hated artists, then repost themself to make sure everyone could see it (and how virtuous they were by contrast), and then watching the snide attacks at her in the following days … it broke something in me. No one has fought harder for community than Giantess Tina. No one has created so many tools for artists, teaching herself a vast breadth of new skills solely for the sake of doing a good job, offering these tools for free—except at considerable personal cost—than Giantess Tina. It’s all she’s ever wanted, to uplift everyone and make them feel included, to inspire them to do amazing things, for longer than the ten years I’ve known her. To see her repaid like this made me want to vomit, and as no one else seemed to find this treatment objectionable, it was clear I was the only one with the problem.

And so I left. It was either that or drink hemlock, I guess. I mean, it was just a matter of time before these self-righteous fucks turned their crosshairs on me, and that is not why I signed up for social media. That’s not “fun” in my book.

There is no community, just a number of people who temporarily agree with each other until the next ideological sticking point. I was hoping for, I was starved for, a group of people who were excited to see each other, who supported and encouraged each other not just when they’re producing, and who felt safe to talk things out when there was a problem. (The aforementioned upstart bragged that there was no room for discussion.)

No such group exists, not that I’ve been able to find.

This technically frees up my time to pursue publication, like, in mainstream magazines and journals. It shouldn’t be completely impossible to think that some of my work could be revised and massaged to fit in a sci-fi, paranormal, or speculative fiction publication. “Technically,” because I’m once again enjoying my downtime and doing fuck-all to progress to my goal.

I had a minor freak-out, the day after I severed my connection to any perceived community, and I appealed to the Giantess about it. Her response surprised me: she turned rather frosty, telling me to “look inside (myself)” and “figure it out on (my) own.” She assured me she wasn’t going to pick me up and carry me through this period of hardship and turbulence, and that it was time to stop leaning on the giantesses as a crutch. I took that very badly for about 24 hours, meditated, despaired, but then conceded that she was right. This is my journey, a path of my footsteps, and my period of learning. She’ll be there to encourage me but this is my life to live.

All this is to say there’s been a lot of shit going on, so why would I take on a larger, more demanding project like migrating my blog away from WordPress? CEO Matt Mullenweg is behaving more erratically all the time. I thought he had a solid legal case against WP Engine, but he’s behaving like an entitled techbro who’s losing a fight. Bouts of manic optimism, unhinged calls for greater chaos and drama, and imperious rebuttal to anyone who tries to explain what’s happening in the real world.

Maybe WordPress will be stable for a long time, but signs of trouble are enough to get me to pack my bags, as we’ve seen. Also, I’ve long been an advocate of owning your space on the internet. Currently, WordPress is hosting my shit, and that has to change. Rather than installing wordpress.org’s CMS, I’m planning on divesting entirely and learning Ghost’s system. And Ghost supports ActivityPub, which means my blog will be in the Fediverse. The implications of that … give me pause, but I’ll learn what that looks like in practice.

So my blog might be down for a while. It’ll come back, no matter what, but it’s not like a lot was going on here anyway.

5 responses to “Greater Transitions”

endolexi

January 21, 2025 at 3:02 am

“There is no community, just a number of people who temporarily agree with each other until the next ideological sticking point.”

In general I agree with this assessment, and I can’t bring myself to view that as bad thing. No shared interest or belief can make me feel obligated to “stick with my people” no matter what, especially when individuals do something I find unacceptable. The threshold of ‘unacceptable’ can vary of course, and emotions govern everything. I’d be tempted to add that this applies especially to younger people, but I’m not that sure I’ve changed that much from when I was that age.

I believe the kind of community you’re longing for cannot be found (or founded) in public spaces that you don’t control. They are by definition not safe when it comes to mutual respect, nuance and care. I believe all you can do there is to advertise and hopefully attract, by clearly stating what you have in mind, what you would consider to be ‘the ground rules’, then maybe even carefully vet anyone who’s interested, and manage a platform (Discord or preferably Signal maybe) on which to interact.

I’m not speaking from experience of course, but that’s how I’d probably do it. 🙂

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1. Aborigen
  
  January 21, 2025 at 7:25 pm
  
  I think a smaller group would be more promising. I’ve had no luck with writing groups, because we come from diverse areas and unite simply because we like to write. But if I were to raise the call for a few people writing about giant women and tiny men, and if I could narrow the parameters, then theoretically …
  
  But then there’s the concern with inviting someone who wants to go beyond this area, other people who feel slighted that they’re not included, or just malaise or life events that cause people to stray. I don’t know. I’m already picturing the break-up of the group before one person’s signed on.
  
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  1. endolexi
    
    January 22, 2025 at 3:01 am
    
    I know very well the feeling of not risking to go into anything out of fear that it won’t last. I think it’s safe to say that such a group will change over time, maybe stop entirely, that’s inevitable. Even the best things end have to end eventually. Not necessarily because of irresolvable disagreements, but life-changing events in general.
    But I think it’s also safe to say that the Crone can be rather patient. It could be years of a great time, and even months would be worth it maybe.
    Once you accept that, it will be much easier to get into something and see where it goes.
    Had I not managed to embrace that, I’d still be single. 🙂
    
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Njord

January 21, 2025 at 9:03 am

“There is no community, just a number of people who temporarily agree with each other until the next ideological sticking point.“

Community doesn’t cease to exist when people in it disagree on a sticking point.

“I was hoping for, I was starved for, a group of people who were excited to see each other, who supported and encouraged each other not just when they’re producing, and who felt safe to talk things out when there was a problem.”

That was and remains the Discord server we were mutual members of, and a number of others, which you might as well (re)join if you’re going to leave every other place where size artists interact.

Look, I don’t object to anyone being anti-social media, but it pains me to see someone isolate themselves more and more and not seem any happier for it, and you definitely don’t. You mention “a lot” of hatred and belligerence, but the precipitating incident seems to be one dickhead on BlueSky who didn’t even faze Tina; she’s trucking along, indomitable as ever, the insolent jerk forgotten. If she’s not running for the hills, no one else needs to on her behalf. Block and move on, that’s the best way to live.

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1. Aborigen
  
  January 21, 2025 at 7:36 pm
  
  I really wish I knew you better. There’s a lot gong on inside you, but I feel you vest your cards pretty well.
  
  We don’t agree about the Discord server. I found it claustrophobic: I was interested in a topic that was strictly forbidden, not interested in something that came up quite a lot, and I felt I was walking on eggshells, less and less willing to speak up lest I lead the conversation astray and get chastised for it. I never felt comfortable, like I was waiting to be judged or to slip up and betray Correct Thought.
  
  Tina puts up a good front, but we are close friends and we’ve had conversations. We’re both susceptible to when someone takes the time to make us feel like shit. The difference is, she has a much stronger vision, a hotter fire burning inside herself, whereas I keep craving oblivion on a low simmer.
  
  You’re right, I’m not happy, and I’m not sure what would make me happy. I feel like I’m pursuing something I only have a dim idea of, hoping I’ll recognize it when I find it. I make little plans, and then I see their undoing before they’ve even come into being. And when I just commit to something for the sake of having a direction, I start questioning what the point of it is anyway. I don’t know where this restlessness comes from.
  
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