I really wish the Fediverse had more permanence

Sat 10 May 2025

One of the things I hear people on the Fediverse celebrate is its incredible transience. There's no one big central network, so posts have nebulous reach throughout the network, depending on how well-"connected" your instance is, and many people set posts to auto-delete after a set period of time, so that old interactions can become one-sided, depending upon your interlocutor's auto-delete setting.

I'm of the opposite mind. As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I can sometimes struggle with object permanence: I will completely forget to think about friends or to call, unless something external triggers the connection, and I will often remember conversations in vivid detail, except who I was talking to, where, and precisely when.

I've been on the Fediverse since late 2018, and have used it as my main social network since April 2022. I dearly love that space, and it's honestly where I spend most of my time, online-wise.

It is frighteningly ephemeral to me.


The Fediverse is like this really amazing, lively bar. It's not a huge bar, it's not a bougie bar, it's more like a coop bar. There isn't much in the way of bouncers, just leaders of various families trying to keep things on the straight-and-level, and there are always many vivid conversations going on. Corporate social media like Trashbook and Xitter are more like manipulated mobs, hopped up on some kind of algorithmic drugs and constantly stoked to be agitated and angry, or just completely out to lunch in poopposting and digital nihilism/absurdism.

The only thing with this amazing bar is, nobody is checking your ID at the door, and nobody is yelling at you to stay and have another drink. It's very easy to come in, and it's very easy to slip out.

Some of those who have slipped out are completely forgotten.

That makes me sad.

I remember a couple of people I greatly enjoyed talking to that just disappeared, or closed up their self-hosted instance or whatnot, and were just GONE. Poof.
How many more were there that I don't remember, yet really valued talking to and enjoyed?

I was just tonight thinking about some of the doodles I've been sharing under the #DailyDoodle hashtag, and I remembered a friend who used to share sidewalk chalk art that he did that was always quite nice, and I found a renewed appreciation for the effort he put in.

What was his name...? Uhh...

See my problem? (I did remember his userid finally, thankfully, but he hasn't posted anything in a few weeks.)

On the crappy corporate platforms (Trashbook, at least), they're always trying to remind you of old memories to keep you bound to their platform (and feeding their rage farm). Not so on the fediverse. You curate your own experience, manage your own memories.

I do try to use lists to remind me of people I enjoy reading, and bookmarks to remind me of very helpful or interesting threads, but even with those features, there's just so much. Even among favorite (posts and people), you can still lose the forest for the trees.

So, if you're reading this, and we used to speak often in the past, but haven't spoken much recently, please say something. Holler at me. Heck, disagree with me when I'm in the middle of a glorious rant. I love that, seriously!! (If you're making good points, that is. Otherwise watch out! šŸ˜‚)


100 Days to Offload 2025 - Day 28

Category: Life Tagged: 100DaysToOffload ADHD Beauty FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Federated Services Life Linux Loss Non-religious post Non-technical post Philosophy Social Media


Gathering Hashtags from the Fediverse

Thu 08 May 2025

Background

One minor foible of the fediverse instance I'm on is that searching (for accounts or hashtags) can be quite slow. As a workaround for now, I've saved a list of accounts I've followed for easy reference, but I also wanted some way of saving a list of hashtags to …

Category: Tech Tagged: 100DaysToOffload Computing Content Warning Federated Services FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Linux Non-religious post Productivity Social Media

Read More

A Toast to the Prolific ones

Tue 06 May 2025

A screencap of the "toast" scene from The Wolf of Wall Street

I wanted to take some time out today to acknowledge some folks on the fediverse that are remarkably prolific, just for fun.

Prolific blogger — Rubenerd

Oh holy moly. This fella has words. Lots of words. Many very fine words. Just look at bro's output for 2024:

~ $ curl -s https://rubenerd …

Category: Life Tagged: 100DaysToOffload Beauty Computing Entertainment Federated Services FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Hobbies Life Non-religious post Non-technical post Productivity Social Media Writing

Read More

The Case for AVIF

Thu 13 February 2025
Disclaimer: Right off the bat, I am NOT an imaging expert, a compression expert, or really an anything expert. I'm just speaking from my own experiences as a relatively ordinary user of image formats.

When I was a young-un in the early, early 90s, PICT was the day-to-day image format …

Category: Tech Tagged: 100DaysToOffload Computing Federated Services FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Linux Non-religious post Philosophy Productivity Retrocomputing Social Media

Read More

Loops is... interesting

Sun 02 February 2025

I, like many, have taken an interest in Daniel Supernault's new Loops video service.

Unlike many, I'm not so much interested in a FOSS, Federated clone of TikTok, YT Shorts, or Vine. I honestly don't care for that kind of media. I don't object to the format (other than …

Category: Entertainment Tagged: 100DaysToOffload Computing Entertainment Federated Services FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Non-religious post Non-technical post Social Media Video

Read More

My Every Day Carry, Part V: What's on My Phone?

Sun 24 November 2024

In Part IV, I discussed wristwatches. In this article, I'm jumping back into my pocket, so to speak, with a look at what's on my phone itself.

This was a rather exhausting article to write, because I have a lot of apps on my phone. I have even been ridiculed …

Category: Tech Tagged: Computing Ethics Federated Services FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Non-religious post PeerTube Productivity Translation WritingMonth

Read More
Page 1 of 2

Next »