So, I've decided to finally detach myself from the cesspool of data-wrangling, polarizing politics, and incessant advertisements being flung at my face - more commonly known as "social media."
It was a difficult decision to make to fully remove the profiles, especially for my music and my YouTube channel. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Social media isn't effective for these things in the way it once was (that makes me sound old, since I really don't consider social media to be some kind of relic, but time functions differently since COVID).
I've gathered the contact information for a few people I didn't already have that info for and backed up old pictures I may not have stored locally, and I'm now in the process of formally removing myself from the social web, as it were.
The reasons for this are multifaceted:
For one thing, the data collection aspect has gone from creepy background threat to full-blown dossier compilation of people who are adamantly opposed to fascism and the America Gestapo;
Misinformation has been wildly out of control since Trump took office and his billionaire cronies started taking liberties to control the narratives on their platforms, and it is just plain time-wasting to try to single-handedly instill a sense of critical thinking in a vast majority of online users who are honestly more than likely just Russian AI bots, anyway;
And it will be nice to return to a more zen-like mindset - having spare time to enrich my mind, rather than while away the hours doom-scrolling and getting further dejected by the acceleration of the downward spiral of society.
And so, in doing, I'm hoping to use my website here as a way of keeping people updated on my life, albeit in a far more restricted amount of information than I've previously employed in social media. The damage is already done; I'm under no delusion that the government won't already have a bountiful dossier of my antagonistic attitude toward their fascistic regime. However, why continue to feed their hate machine?
I plan to keep this site, as well as my YouTube channels active. For now.