liking things online
the internet was once full of forums and websites dedicated to all sorts of stuff, hosted by folks who were deeply passionate about those topics. they didn't really care too much about making money or getting popular, they just wanted to share their love and foster community. social media sites existed, but they were sites like livejournal or geocities or myspace where everything was very customizable and algorithms weren't really a thing yet. people could express their individuality and creativity in any way they wanted. they could share content without being worried about posting it at a certain time or with certain captions or hashtags. you could just put it on a website and everyone visiting that website would see it. but now we have... this. we have twitter, facebook, tik tok, and instagram. we have dull, boring, lifeless, uncreative social media, filled with toxicity, algorithms, corporate pandering, and parasocial heirarchies.
i spent a lot of time on social media in my teens and early twenties, and let me tell you, it has become more and more abysmal and miserable every single year. my most recent foray into social media was an account solely dedicated to formula one, in a community known as f1twt. things were fine at first. i would retweet memes, listen to people's thoughts and opinions, and maybe share my own from time to time. but as time went on, the negative aspects of the community began to shine through. people begging for likes and retweets. people tearing others apart for simple opinions on things that didn't really matter. people replying to official driver/team tweets begging to be noticed and then reposting screenshots of a simple like or one word response. online friends weren't friends, they were "moots." i constantly felt like i wasn't "cool enough", i wasn't using the right slang, had the right things in my bio, a profile picture that looked cool. i had FIVE HUNDRED followers and i would barely get 2 likes on any of my tweets. everyone seemed to be constantly on the verge of attacking each other, in a state of perpetual negativity. it seemed like a lot of people were just looking for reasons to be mad. i realized that every single time i went on twitter i would just get mad or frustrated.