Escape the Algorithm

charlie

Real Bebopper
I’m making this thread because I’ve decided I’d like to escape the algorithm.

I made my first Facebook account in 2009 or something, and I’ve been making and deleting accounts ever since. Perhaps I’ve always known how destructive the Facebook algorithmo-metaverse is but maybe I’ve never had adequate substitutions or proper mental resolve… so after I spend some time off of instagram or facebook, after a while I just end up making another account.

Now that I’ve been more active on web fora like this one, I have again decided to escape the algorithm, but this time will be different.

Ever since the election, instagram has descended into a /pol/-tier slop feed of india-hate reels, gore, antisemautism and just about everything else you see on /pol/, so now I’m pretty fed up with instagram and whatnot…


So here we are.


Post your experiences with big social media sites!!
Do you use any ? Do you reject them and tell others to do the same?

Are you on any other web fora?
 
I had a twitter account a few years back I mostly used it for finding memes, but something about the site just sucked the life right out of me though not nearly as much as others. i had a similar experience when I was younger and made a instagram account for talking with family from far away, but something made me delete my account and never go back. its more fun to meet and talk in person or via text. also asking a person what they've been up to as opposed to viewing or expecting to have viewed a post provides much more connection.

I find telling people to avoid social media is not the most effective.
telling others I don't have social media is what I like to do because monkey see monkey do. "he doesn't use social media and he's not, not isolated/not engaged" is what i want people to think so they don't fall into the trap.
its pretty effective, I like to shill sleeping on the floor and its gotten many others to try it as well.
 
Used to hang out with those Tumblr-using types from around the web because I thought that they would be welcoming to an autist like myself like they usually claim. I was also a fairly open-minded person who would be kind to anyone and tend to not judge others no matter who they are. Turns out that these people took advantage of my kindness and used it to further their own rhetoric thats been personalized on their feeds as well as using such to just cause petty drama. It got so bad, especially when COVID first surfaced, that I fell into a very bad depression that lasted for months. As soon as I figured that a combination of algorithm personalization and sensationalist material thats promoted to get people angry so they can create more posts and page views on such topics is what’s tainting the centralized web, I knew I had to fucking get out of there. This shit not only made people miserable, but actively motivated people to engage in each other’s misery, and that fucking terrified me.
 
I still have my first and only facebook account but don't really use it. Keeping it just so family members know I'm alive
I deleted my instagram account but made a new one a while back just so I can keep contact with one of my friends (yes just one friend) but I don't really use it for other than that
I've been thinking to delete twitter as well. I just browse it when I have nothing to do but it's really just a big waste of time
I used to waste a lot of time on tiktok during the pandemic a few years back but I deleted it long ago and haven't used it ever since
I admit that I do use pinterest a lot. I find a lot of cool pictures, memes and all my profile pictures I use are from there. But I do think this is the least harmful one from everything I listed so far

Leaving social media seems hard because your brain is so stimulated from it and it's just an addiction at this point that you need to fight like any other addiction. I've been thinking to take a break from the internet in general. I want to use my computer mainly for work and maybe browse some forums from time to time and use my phone mainly for calls and taking photos. Spending time on social media gotta be the biggest waste of your precious time but that's just part of the daily life of most of us now
 
i used to browse those apps every day with the intellectual understanding of the emptiness and destructiveness of it but still i was there every time scrolling

like they hosted something so begging to be seen that would prevent me from falling behind the world or missing out on crucial information- that was the clawing at the back of my head before i opened the app but without fail i came out of the session feeling robbed, without practical benefit and having damaged my spirit

this experience or some variation is absurdly common and everyone just abides by it for one reason or another, it's very evil and intentional and knowing this nature of it often isn't enough to get you out but we do what we can

so i am trying to use web fora more, open to recommendations
 
Ever since the election, instagram has descended into a /pol/-tier slop feed of india-hate reels, gore, antisemautism and just about everything else you see on /pol/, so now I’m pretty fed up with instagram and whatnot…


So here we are.


Post your experiences with big social media sites!!
Do you use any ? Do you reject them and tell others to do the same?
aBSolutely, 100% agree, mainstream (moar liek LAMESTREAM) social media has devolved into the most base aspects, softcore porn, foreign bot networks trying to sew discord, and just general cesspool tier hatred.
It also doesn't help that those are the kinds of websites/apps that everybody commonly uses and there's FOMO that comes with leaving that sort of thing.
I am slowing growing to accept this, our privacy and sanity are worth more. I'm getting myself more and more to accept that i will miss out on some local shows, i will miss out on some shooting matches, and will probably have friends that i'll get cycled out of, but, for a slower paced life; its worth it.

I planning on dropping my sub from google drive, switching over to proton, deleting insta, and then ultimately a divorce from adobe when i make an eventual shift to linux.
 
Used to hang out with those Tumblr-using types ... a fairly open-minded person who would be kind to anyone and tend to not judge others no matter who they are. Turns out that these people...

- I wanted to create new thread, but then, I was bumped this thread in my Mail.
Why not to use this opportunity (to my "profit"), then, and say what was on my mind, be-it this might be the (at best) adjacent place for my at-topic -!
#/ I became part, member of people I hate(d) (as O-Kud "typed" one of their in-group-kind; Comic Book Guy Stereotype; expanded more below.) - 'Just -Politics' Tooters...
What of worse - critique - 'of it all'; yet,- I still - participate (despite my hate for doing so...)? - Why would I "flang myself", do it/this to myself (in the first place)!?

"Thesis" about unwilling ingroups​

"WHY 'ALL I HATE IS [A.I.]', NOW"

I will start with that I have always had problem with how Internet and people "on"[1] it, turned out to be.
We, born near the start and on rise of Millennium, had, as kids and teens, -
- this ideal of "just society", and how "Internet gonna solve all our ailments",[4] we might've inherited from past generations and generalisations in TV and media. (/…But, instead, we got proselytising, purity tests, flying morality relativism, and conflating loud with right and might, a.o. …, [0])
From flying cars (long way to mainstream), to webpunks and else "solving" capitalism (secret: 'it works as intended' - and all those media "dreams" might've just be ploy to get everyone and dog on web (later smartphones - you don't "need" it, yet, it's "became" necessity… [0]) in the first place…), we got bamboozled by stories, fairytales for children; we've been for total fools (they got us where they wanted (…/with it - nuance - dead, on arrival… [0]) - ?; - now they cry wolf: when people tell on them, masks glow, and there isn't much "what can be done now"…)[2] . Ones may say that was plan, others and same tried to warn us of "our immaturity". And rest didn't caught up on until swing swung in front of their faces/shins...[4]
(/)
- Now, enter "groups" (1) and (2) I marked on as "bookmarks". What I meant under "on", phrased like that?
Well, of course - keeping it short - I am talking of (1) "Bla(o)cklist Culture". In broader sense, it is 'practice' of (mainly leftists) ignoring people and groups on basis of ones' bias about them.[4]
/ Example of this might be, on alone, calling things (/-out) in "cyphers",[3] terms without clear distinguishion of meaning - be it from side of "victim", or "abuser" (I, or "con", can be either of those, telling on who you ask/are to one who talks - I can be abuser for not …, and victim of …, and but still be hated at the same time, instead of pity or being told what's "up"…[3]). Oftentimes, as those terms themselves connotes, (they) bear "carriage, load" of long and to outsider, tire(bore)some use-history, that is its' coming from leftist and resistance culture and tradition.[4] -
- <Problems, too, arise, when, for one, (for example) [is] want from (these very particular types of; mainly) leftists, and (vulgar) "SJWs", the "Theory" (particularly Marx - Capital) is in question. What (personally) boggles (me), is how they "whine" when you ask them about "Marx", and they tell you to "Read it!", - when it was You (/them) who told me/us to "(do) not be ignorant!". -
- What is this (for) behaviour? [Can we get rid of it, or at least, get others to come down to ignore it - as them-Marxists do(,) when asked about what got them there and (/mocking) how to "Theory off the paper" (w/o. bloodshed and hierarchy trap, (as) seen in history of the Movement)]>!…
/ Talking of (2) being lied to, told in "lingo of today", - "bait used to be believable". Nowadays, with rise of AI, algorithms being hidden "no more" (being on-nose), "broligarchs/neofeuds" 'telling/calling it how it is' and with overstepping - i.e. masks falling off, - there is no hiding we've been used to, and (we were) held in denial and ignorance before, -- shortly:, - them needing us, not us them; and taxes going back to us, not hiding someone's back (ass)…
/ At (point 3), hiding behind, and behind hiding, lie(s) terms, meanings and phrases - dogwhistles, jargon, learned irony, memetic virology and "canned", [x]-community-only humor for on-which site/social(s), - on-which social group/circle/clique. (Ingroup elitism…(?))[4]
- My personal beef with this type of logic bickers with how I (assume) was raised (which I can't hide on terms it seeps thru and thru in on texts I wrote), meaning I simply can't "let 'normies' die because "they plain-deserve it" [-] for "reasons how society is nowadays 'cause of them". As if people who say things like these, aren't the first and foremost reason (?) people now started to behave this irrational way. (/I get it, and while I try to deny that - there is ring, reason for this, - there; I do --.
Too - without rules, nothing can (not) stand still, whistand time, pressure, norms. In itself, even "no rules" is ontologicaly, rule in itself, and so are so norms, or try of lack thereof. /Chomsky theorem iirc i forgot name of; (it) consisted, iirc, of these such claims…) -- /what I see as "throwing baby with the dirty bathwater", in that "blaming game" can't be stopped by "being (smug) reddit-right/wise" -. To sic-cite classics (saying that hence I forgot name of author, or that I ever knew it, in the first place; Einstein??), "Problem can never be solved with the same type/level of mind that <fought; ??> it."
-- i.e., - "cursed cycle" - to me, it looks like people denying or flat-out stopping doing things because they might just get popular (trope: it is popular — now it sucks!), or when people "jump bandwagon(s)" as of, rather-times "for love (of mankind…)", is done to piss, "own up" someone/something off, cause chaos, attention (e.g. virtue-signaling, pro-profit anticap./pro-social campaign [in socialism theory - decolonization[3], a.o.], good deeds for wrong, grey, not honest reasons…). -
- What might've "feel dishonest" about this,[4] is that, as noted (at least on my side) above ("for love"), is - this happens because of outrage and even sometimes self-inflicted "humiliation ritual" (i.e.e.g. "ownage", backfired) - instead of things rather being done for solidarity, acts of kindness [virtues], for/of need (this can be understood as selfless, even if you think it isn't - we dont act or think in vacuum, so what matters is it don't hurt anyone doing so)…
/ For (4)… AAAAAAAAA - I got point in on my mind, but forgot it - I guess, something on about how Left, got problems with messaging? --- Classic tirade from "Big tent / umbrella" Club Subscriber, talking, a.o., about how Club Starvo (forgot your name)/AOC/Walz is and isn't too radical, leftist, unitary for own good, and how Left need to get Social(ist) (and out from Donor class), but, at the same time, get closer to voter and civil preferences. (Sorry not sorry for Narrative falling, and people going Right, when Left "do these" things it isn't doing enough good to have more solid voter base Right do… - can "we" have cake, and eat it, too? No idea…) --- I guess, I was on-about, too, how Left (again) can't (/?) stop Right and Their Own from "winning" emberassment trophies, with how it defends its' spiral into purity tests, and back - but no nuance in sight [Point (0) - this critique is seen/read thru-out the whole text, - (for) to be proofread and added on, on-post. You (might've) get "it" when done with text XD.]

As you, and myself too, got used, familiar with "this user", it comes to no surprise(,) that despite shear loads of text and thought put in it, author, once again, forgot to re-read the title after themselves.
But I think, from context, that not being the case - more of, title being clickbaity -. Author (myself) tried to write article - thesis, about how (mainly) Left did mistake (was, or wasn't it Feds, dismantling movements? /Remember OWS, COINTELPRO…) listening to its weak(?), - jumping shark head-first - into identity politics, bla(o)cklists, blame and guilt -games, doing reddit…tumblr…4chan politics (in the first place; - this ? is why we cant have nice things - jumping hoops, sharks, on global affairs, but never ever on local matters - is this why ? world looks shit-? - one would thought, age of "Aquarius", technology, information, age of "y2k-reason", connectivity (1) - no- it never was there 👎or free - always but a fairytale [if no, but gone when web went "easy" in '93, thru '00s…], ruse for naïve children…!), -

/* (forgot paragraph this refers to - you might find it, - I had not this luck today (just woke up to that I made wrong assumption - they don't only need to filter their idea of "bad apples" (power of Normies when under Leader /bluntly), -) - (saying,) they are control freaks, too(!). ...

>
 
- reactionary - but, always meant to be? No place for taboos, - too dangerous and important for System, it can't be left unchecked? - First came ads, then "free" spaces, then Normies… 'til you woke up one day, and anonymity is gone, - "mothers know best" - how to spoil fun. Rules of conduct, same both "ways/ -Lines". Obey or die. Always been the way. Nowhere to run nor hide. Enjoy.
We wanted too much. Too many. Too loud. Gap years - and then Hell. Arab spring, OWS, Charlie Hebdo… Freedom before abusing it. Too much of it. Never was meant to be. But was it mistake? Could it be just long game, seeing how far "unchecked thing" can go? Even if so - both had it good, "don't fix what ain't broken." (Fucked up greedy b-sta-ds…) — "Z projektu Obnovy a Odolnosti" - but there was nothing wrong! Are they saying the silent part loud?… Halelujah, Neoliberalism? -
- No other system, no other idea, either Paper theory, or this, too, lead to technofeudalism. Isn't that beautiful? /cyn…
No, were we ever free? Is this what keeps, for "living in society"? But it isn't the same, never was - always changing. Living between shadow thoughts and those, "allowed", ones. Democrature, Egregore, Ontology.

Can we know, or no, because we can't think "past it(self)"? But then, that means, we never did, so how we try, if we shouldn't be able, yet still, this paradox can either destroy our soul, go crazy, accept it, ignore, or just toss dice - we know we know it won't change we are what we experience, but with and without, dices, the burden - do you think it matters? Or because it is as-is, we can't have to even dare - not of God, but that (bluntly) "others were fine", and it won't change dogshit - you can be no matter how smart and still be cretin?! XD

- *That*, being said - (I think,) problem of politics nowadays (within gatekeeping and unknown unknowns), is that one of (I assume), 'personal investment', being emotional -, - phrased with *the model, above* - meaning, we are simply not able to detach emotion or investment of ones' self, from (hopefully) helping others and community!
(But, I got tangled in my thoughts...) Problem, too, being with how talking shit and politics is so easy, when you know next to nothing about it -, a real "no-theme", basically being angry about crux of itself; people denying how much power they have(?)... - see *the summary* - below!:



Tl;dr: And this all, just to say, you play ploy or not, but other do so too, so you can only lead by example/action - therefore, you can't blame others, as we all, beside 1% of rich, and other 1% XD of naive soldlibs, took bait and will fight each other [MAKE ASSUMPTIONS] and yell "All I hate and disagree with me, are nazis/Hitler", when others finally get that it lead them nowhere and "being always right" don't always win, if you are left all alone, all confused, blaming others…!!!
/ “If we can’t think outside our own system — our own language, our own culture — can we ever know what’s real? Or are we trapped inside whatever meanings we’re 'given/learnt/ready-to-use'?”

 
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(one problem of algo, too (also connected to above)) :

i met Left that hate critique, and conflate it/that, with hate. when someone pinpoint how gay-card get abused or making asumptions in social media/articles, they get in the twist and say you are bigot, hateful, nazi. i want to get it, but when met with the hate they "do", it is not easy, and makes their points "moot" to me - it feels like excusing ill people for being angry or doing hurt to others, even we know that dont have to be case and is (needless) conflating - if you suffer, that dont need others have to, too, or that you are in the right to do so! bizzare (and that is being polite...)

/* cant deny i am too, preoccupied with bias/assumptions/unconsc., as anyone - but not as excuse, rather, than the POV we all have - been learned by, our past experiences, etc.

tl;dr: if you DONT care, someone else will (this is, basically, where and why we are, now, as society...) - some tend to say, that if everyone cared about themselves and not others, it would be cared for everyone. but if this does with empathy (which i value)...
/
why people make assumptions, when they good know, that makes everything harder? i can get some rightoid think about how they use intuition, pattern-seeking (not in dogwhistle meaning), unconscious mind - simply "getting" why (sometimes) "might is right", despite fact it seems like Left likes to punish itself and overthink everything?
 
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"Thesis" about unwilling ingroups​

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are you a "righty" porc?

also, what exactly are these "in-groups" unwilling to do? Acknowledge their own hypocrisy ? Acknowledge their own need for the counterparty? (like the joker needs batman)

I think all the sharply political observations of yours ought not to go unnoticed. It almost seemed like people were beginning to have control of their own understanding and thoughts.... but they just missed the train. It began to seem like sovereign entities didn't know how to use all these new tools, but in the last 10 years I think that those entities we (as a large corpus; to a lesser extent self-proclaimed free-thinking individuals like myself ) were so close to freeing ourselves from, have yet again taken the reigns. :pepeglasses:
 
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Post your experiences with big social media sites!!
Terrible
Do you use any ?
- YouTube
- Discord
- Twitter

I may delete my Discord account though, I would prefer isolation over another six years there. Twitter I may delete soon due to low quality posts and my friends on there still getting banned despite Elon's purchase of the website. I have retreated to obscure forums and chatrooms. If these places did not exist, I would isolate myself from everyone. The real world is the fakest place on Earth, social-media is merely an extension of the "real world" in the modern day. That is why I have begun to hate it slowly.
 
*[snip]*
The real world is the fakest place on Earth, social-media is merely an extension of the "real world" in the modern day. That is why I have begun to hate it slowly.
Well said…


I have since been off instagram for like a month now… I’m forgetting people who were “friends”; forgetting names and faces etc. It’s kind of nice to not fill your head with tons of random inconsequential information.
 
to think people were always this simplistic, or that it would always lead here... (i know frutiger aero was fake - but come on!!!...)

addendum: bluesky would be fine, but it cant lend itself off the notion of furry-redditlibs site. on one hand, i think it is right to not want old-guard dems who just lobby to grease their pockets - but yet on another - wanting unicorns is, (sjws-idpol) what got us to this state of mind and existence - "dont make perfect enemy of good"...
 
I have since been off instagram for like a month now… I’m forgetting people who were “friends”; forgetting names and faces etc. It’s kind of nice to not fill your head with tons of random inconsequential information.
Most people are acquaintances rather than friends. I do not get why society has degraded the word "friend" to the point of being meaningless. I know only one person in real life who is a true friend, he is my friend until death. Even online, I have "few" friends by normal standards. Why have a "friend" who I cannot trust? Why pretend to be "friends" with those I never intend to talk with outside of a specific website? Of my "few" friends, all of them I would die or kill for. I cannot say this about acquaintances.
 
Most people are acquaintances rather than friends. I do not get why society has degraded the word "friend" to the point of being meaningless. I know only one person in real life who is a true friend, he is my friend until death. Even online, I have "few" friends by normal standards. Why have a "friend" who I cannot trust? Why pretend to be "friends" with those I never intend to talk with outside of a specific website? Of my "few" friends, all of them I would die or kill for. I cannot say this about acquaintances.
The only way I can refer to you is His Royal Venithian Eminence, friend simply wouldn’t cut it
 
Quickly scrolling past posts cannot undo the fact that your subconscious already registered the advertisement, so I tend to avoid the popular social media altogether, or use them with an ad-blocker. Even then, posts made to look like real, single-person-made posts can be covert ads that are meant to whet your appetite for some product, whether it is a physical object, a subscription or some belief. These things are better to be sought out and researched on your own, the ads do nothing except provide overstimulation. It feels especially bad if you have obsessive-compulsive tendencies. The intrusive posts are to my thoughts what this chap is to the goldfish.

goldfish.webp

Sometimes social media, those that resemble or are true fora, can be useful for seeing how other people talk about concepts or what ideas they have, especially in the field of psychoanalysis. Unlike Freud, Lacan is a little hard to read (intentionally), which means that beside formally published secondary sources, like books and articles, and of course the man's own works, looking at how a bunch of people explain and make examples for concepts helps with getting a feel for it all.

(Other) Social media can provide socialising and entertainment but for these needs I squat on here/in the IRC and watch films. Subway Surfers storytimes and strangers' business are easily forgotten and could never compare.

telling others I don't have social media is what I like to do because monkey see monkey do.

This is the best approach. I go further and mention downloading media or using DVDs and CDs, not necessarily so they also adopt this specific lifestyle but just as a reminder that there are alternatives to surrendering yourself to whatever is picked out for them by an algorithm. People ought to be reminded more of the fact that they are able to make deliberate decisions about what they subject themselves to on a day-to-day basis. :)


Addition: using the apps and sites for offline-known peers is a little painful because you see how their lives are nothing like what they'd like to sell themselves as. It's sad that they feel that they have to. The most humane thing to do is to not watch them do that to themselves. Of course, there are those who use them to stay in touch but you've got direct chats, mail and calls for that.
 
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