It’s been about a year since the latest instance of one of my “I Get Around”-style posts (in which I reflect on how I’ve adjusted my daily personal social media habits), so it’s time for a refresh as we head into 2026!

Here’s my updated state of the union, along with links/advice for anyone looking to make some changes.

The biggest TL;DR takeaway is that it’s absolutely possible (in fact it’s easier than ever before) to build a thriving online presence and overall daily digital diet outside the walls of the problematic big boys. Digital communities remain awesome, so don’t let the past quarter century of “social media” 🤮 leave a sour taste in your month and cause you to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Computers still rule!

Anyway, on with the list…

Services that remain fully deleted:

• X: Any reasonable person has zero excuse to still be on this fascist hellscape.
  
  
• Facebook: Ditto, this company’s very existence has made society worse. Full stop. Your parents/grandparents can just be texted.

Services that I’ve now moved to read-only:

• Instagram and Threads: I keep both of these accounts open just to keep some eyes on the non-nerds in my life (after all, change takes time), but in 2026 I’m moving both to entirely read-only, and I wish both of them the same eventual fate as late-’90s/early-’00s AOL.
  
  
• TikTok: Same with this one, I keep it open for general cultural awareness, but after an insane year, they really couldn’t have landed in worse hands. At least I’ll now be popping up every so often with new food reviews elsewhere, and have archived my past videos. 💪

Active services:

• Mastodon: The Fediverse is still too confusing for most people (though it’s slowly getting better), but Mastodon remains the simplest option for those interested in taking a decentralized stand, and the community I’ve found there remains super active and endlessly curious.
  
  
• Bluesky: They’ve made some questionable moves this year, but the audience is still the closest I’ve found to legacy Twitter, so it remains on my active list, though it’s definitely right on my read-only bubble. If you do spend time there, follow my Mastodon bridge!
  
  
• LinkedIn: Kinda required for the day job, but I’m dialing back most cross-posting there in 2026 since it’s just too depressing overall and makes me lightly mourn humanity.
  
  
• YouTube: Like last year, it’s once again a “too big to fail” situation, and while they’re obviously far from perfect, I again put them in the “least worst” category when it comes to content like short-form vertical videos.
  
  
• Pixelfed: While I continue to wish the service luck (and still post to it from time to time), trying to bring normals over from Instagram is one hell of an uphill battle.
  
  
• Tumblr: Matt went through some stuff last year, but I’m still on team Automattic, and have found the reborn Tumblr to be just what I needed this past year. Weirdos and hardcore fans are the best.

I also recently lit up a firehose site for any maniacs that want to follow my stuff across all of these various services. It can be bookmarked if you’re oldschool, or you can follow updates via RSS or email.

To echo what I wrote last year, everyone has their own lines in the sand, so (aside from X and Facebook proper) truly no judgment from me re: where you decide to remain, but here’s hoping that everyone takes a small amount of time this final week of the year to do some necessary pruning/spinning up of accounts in strange and wild new places.

I’ll see you around!