How Did I get Here?
I love leading questions because there is no real answer. That doesn’t mean I can’t try. There are a couple of ways to interpret this question:
- physically
- mentally
- spiritually
- educationally
- professionally
And there is more but thats the gist. What I have in my mind as I sit down to write this between volleyball matches, here seems to be a combination of several things. Let me explain.
A Long Time Ago
There was a website, hippeelee.com that was a self hosted, custom themed WordPress blog that I started to learn and then became a place to put my thoughts. As time went on and the internet moved forward it became more work to host and there were easier placed to put content as the whole ‘social’ thing became a thing and I opened accounts on the popular platforms. It was ok and I tried to integrate some of the WordPress plugins that auto published posts to the various platforms. Things worked, at first and then the walled gardens made it harder and it became ‘work’ to keep up with all of the updates. Sometimes things just broke and overtime I gave up trying to keep the blog as my primary place to put my thoughts even though I did’t re4ally like the alternatives. More on why in a bit.
I guess I’m Just Not Very ‘Social’
Why didn’t I take to social very much? It isn’t a clear or simple answer but when I reflect on the span from 2007 to roughly 2020 it boils down to the unnaturalness of the design of social networks. I don’t care why their brand slogan was or is, thier user interfaces and experiences were designed to sell ads and there is nothing natural about that. By the time most folks reach maturity they have a pretty intuitive grasp when someone is manipulating them into doing something. Maybe they would have done it on their own, maybe not but most folks when they are being coerced , they realize it on some level of their consciousness.
The social experience was designed for a few things that i’ve never really enjoyed:
Self-promotion
I’ve never taken to the whole, here is what I did, am doing status update cycle that is designed to keep one connected. I mean this isn’t what we do in any context. When at home with my wife I don’t need to tell her that I am making coffee ad then drinking it and that its really good. Sure she can see it if she is around but its not a promoted activity that needs to be highlighted between us to keep us connected. Even when I make two cups of coffee and bring her one its not something I need to tell the world about nor do I need her to. I do it because it’s nice to share something we both enjoy and if we have to post it to the world just to stay connected it seems to me that that just waters it down and makes it less important. Again, i fully recognize that that is a me thing and ymmv.
So much negativity
There has been much written about the human ‘lizard’ brain which is a metaphor for the survival responses our brain has evolved over many, many millennia of survival in a brutal kill or be killed world. It is fight or flight, kill or be killed and for better or worse those responses are hard wired into what makes us human. We have evolved enough that we can choose to respond differently but it is not the natural or the default state of our survival.
Over hundreds of years, modern society built up social mores and ‘etiquette’ around what was and was not socially acceptable. So, for instance, interrupting someone who who is speaking or, changing the topic in the middle of a group discussion is something that most people don’t do because it’s generally looked at as poor behavior. But social networks were designed to remove friction to increase ‘user engagement’ (and vc investment) so there were anti-incentives for them to design controls that would enforce the social mores and etiquette in the real world because that would decrease user interactions and that would decrease ad impressions and that would decrease VC investment and later stock prices.
- lots and lots of negativity
- not actually like a real life conversation
- so much fake affront
- trolls, trolls and more trolls
- I was prolly just doing it wrong
- It was designed for people to spend copious amounts of time, but doing what exactly?
- arguing is not socializing
- agenda-izing is not socializing
- old friends are nice to catch up and say hi to for a bit but its still hard to stay connected, especially when they are posting more about poliics and tribalisim than relationships and connections and their successes in life
