Hey, I just got here!
Arriving late and leaving early
Artful Wobbler
Artful Wobbler joined this platform late enough it was already a cliché and it’ll be leaving early. Like many, I’m looking to switch. I joined this space because it met my most basic needs – super simple and free to all. Artful Wobbler is a transactionless space, it won’t take anything from you it’s just happy to share. But in the guise of giving (Free speech! Journalism defence!) the platform undermines my intentions.
Freedom of expression/speech is a big topic with lots of thorns and rocks and jagged parts. Banned books, erased history and people buried under the banner of freedom is an example of how unhinged such a serious topic can be from real lives, especially those not deemed worthy of freedom which is such a whole lot of lives, are we supposed to not notice?
Anyway, recent tech unburdening of fact-checks and hate policies and cozying up to dictators of the moment isn’t toadying or cravenness so much as a return to base. This is how it always was and if we could all just stop pretending, we know approximately enough how it ends. History is a seismograph of bloodshed and peace, an intermittent volcano. We can’t or don’t resist our own narratives, greed or hubris for long. Do we expect people to set to against delirious algorithms and policies made to incite, delude and overwhelm? Just join in the party, everyone’s welcome as the party sets fire to everything. Well, there’s always Mars.
Others rely on various platforms for audience or income, I’m not here to judge. But I can decide what I support and what I sustain. No one knows me anyway, I haven’t built a large loyal audience and I’m not trying to. I’ll just look for some other platform I can reasonably figure out, that’s easy and accessible for anyone who might want to read it and doesn’t send the equivalent of press releases bragging about how much more awful they intend to become.
I know leaving means there’s more that stuff and less other stuff on here. Abandoning sites with audiences and readers just trying to get by to the equivalent of fight club with assault rifles doesn’t feel great. Some see it as leaving a battlefield in a crucial fight. And maybe in the end all platforms are more or less the same. Running to stand still is the current way. But after receiving the excited news of this platform’s commitment to their version of free speech I felt another current way, sad and a little sick. It lingered like a hard seed, which is what it is. What grows is the thing you water and feed. I want to feed and water one kind of thing in a space that wants to feed and water something else. No matter what I intend for this space, it will be affected by the ground it’s planted in.
So, I’ll be on the move. Not sure to where or exactly when, but I’ll be sure to let you know. Suggestions welcome.