A couple years back I posted about the state of social (then still reeling from Elon’s ongoing Twitter takeover debacle), along with an “I Get Around” post about how I’d adjusted my daily personal account habits.

Given…well, everything…here’s an updated state of the union. TL;DR? I’m trying to go decentralized as much as possible, and where I can’t, I’m at least trying to use the least worst centralized option. 🙃

Fully-deleted services

• X: A honest-to-goodness tragedy

• Facebook: Should really be nuked from orbit, up there as one of the worst inventions of the 21st century

Deactivated (or soon-to-be deactivated) services

• Instagram: Will likely fully delete soon, keeping deactivated for the username and potential DMing if ever needed, but not sure how long I’ll care

• Threads: Ditto here

• TikTok: Still open, but given their recent over-the-top ring kissing and generally sketchier-than-usual recent behavior, I’ll deactivate soon after lighting up my gimmick food video archive here on House of Kyle. I may even do more reviews here and there on my newsletter 🙂

Active services

• Mastodon: Still very earnest and nerdy, but that’s just how I like it, and it’s my favorite place for generally discussing interests (especially technology)

• Bluesky: I liked it more when it was smaller and far more unhinged, but having more normals on it is healthy, and it definitely has old Twitter energy

• LinkedIn: Obviously no sane person really enjoys LinkedIn, but it’s fine for professional stuff, as well as reading wildly out-of-context stuff posted by people who clearly miss Twitter and are wandering in the wilderness

• YouTube: Kind of a “too big to fail” situation, and while (like Apple and their owner Google) they’re obviously not perfect (cough, inauguration attendance), I put them right now in the “least worst” category

• Pixelfed: Just dipping my toes in to see where it leads, but obviously I support the decentralized effort
  
  
• Micro.blog: Spun one up as a little oldschool link blog, love that it federates

• Medium: I mostly read and cross-post, and while I remain wary of building audiences on top of another centralized platform, I really respect the progress that their CEO Tony has been making lately

• Tumblr: Sure Matt is going through some stuff, but like Manton, I’m still on board with Automattic generally

As I recently wrote, everyone has their own lines in the sand, so truly no judgment, but I do hope people take a little time this year to consider your options and adjust/prune where you can.

See you around!