Tag: internet

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Me and the internet currently have a love/hate relationship. I used to call myself an internet addict, and found I thrived in the digital world, That is no longer the case. As people’s dependency on social media and mobile phone applications increases, people get brave. Or, they act brave, which is easy when you wear a mask of anonymity to hide yourself from any accountability. Sometimes, every comment that you put online is subject to negativity and anger. Something, that I have never understood, as most of my experience of doing things online have been positive experiences.

It is why I am taking more time away from social media and such things. The world exists outside of the internet, and it always will. The internet has done some awesome things. It is so much easier to find music you want to listen to, or the answers to any question you may have. I think the 2010s were peak internet, where everything felt so much more accessible. That our world was getting smaller.

That has changed a bit. People are realising that the albums, book, and games, that they purchase are only digital licenses to access the material. And, the material itself can be removed by online stores at any point. We had a time where movies, such as 28 Days Later and Dogma, were available in physical media only, and even then, the DVDs were no longer in print. So, the movies were not available on the standard market. Flappy Bird, that popular viral game from 2013, which was removed by 2014, and no longer available for downloading. The game stopped updating and eventually stopped working.

This whole scenario is leading people back to more legacy media, DVDs, CDs, vinyl albums, and paperback books. People want to own the items they spend their hard earned cash on. Especially when streaming platforms are known for having poor royalty schemes for music artists, so an artist does get more from a physical purchase. I can’t tell you the last time I bought a DVD or Blu-ray, but I do frequently buy books, CDs, and vinyl. I never really moved away from it. I mean, I pay for Apple Music, but I will always buy the physical albums of bands I like.

Digital is still handy. I am always watching some point of the Gilmore Girls, and I like having that on my devices to watch whenever I need to relax. But then, I watch more YouTube creators over anything else. Motorsport, football, ‘slice of life’, theme parks, and various video essays. I watch a variety of content, but it is this wide variety that keeps me tuned. I find myself cancelling more and more streaming options.

I guess, I am one of the people, who did love having everything online. But, especially as things become more oppressive against creatives, though AI initiatives or trolls in the comment section, I find myself wanting to disconnect more. This is why I think that this year has been one of the more challenging years, when doing things such as keeping a blog active. Sometimes, I think having a break from things will help. But, it honestly doesn’t.

Online spaces, which became a comfort for many whose real life was unbearable, is now longer a place of comfort. In fact, for many, the internet is worse than reality. Which is why it is important to have hobbies outside. Sport, crafting, anything that gets you to ignore your phone and social media. It’ll still be there when you get back.

No Niche

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Since I started spending my time online, over 20 years ago, it has been clear that people who gained popularity, were those who focused their attention on a particular topic. Something that I have never been able to do. Even when I used to do my homework at school, I couldn’t just focus on one subject. To work best, I would spent half an hour or so on one subject, then switch to another.

If you take a dander over my blog, you will see this lack of focus, as I write about what is in my head at the time. It could be health related, news related, or just what I have read or watched. I like having a place where I can document things, and I enjoy reading through my previous posts. I like to see what I was doing a few years ago, and normally I will have a wee laugh at my own expense. Which is normal. As you get older, and experience new things, meet new people, your perspective on things can change. What matters to you today, may not be so important in a few years’ time.

Maybe that’s why I tend to ignore the advice from so-called experts, that everyone needs to find their own ‘niche’, and make their content about that. I like to have ways to document my life, a place to put my thoughts, no matter what the topic is. Maybe it is because, that is the kind of content I like best. It feels personal, without a person having the need to give every aspect of their life away.

Is Social media done?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

If you use any social media, you will probably be aware of the news regarding various platforms, and various information on ownership, and the like. It’s wound up with a lot of people being angry, and a lot of discussions on things like censorship. A conversation that started over the last few years on Twitter (X). Where abuse and death threats became the norm.

It seems as if a lot of the users of social media platforms are just coming to the realisation that we users are not the customers. The customers are the shareholders, the advertisers, the marketing teams, the ones who pay money to access the data of the users. That is where the money is. Not the photograph you took for dinner, but the information of where you bought that food, what bank you used, what shop, what brand of product did you buy. A lot of these things are simply things that your smart phone picks up. And that ‘stuff’ is what marketing companies want. That is how the social media companies make money, by showing you advertising that is targeted to you. As social media oligarchs make changes that benefit the money side of the company, but alienates huge portions of their user base.

I use TikTok a lot. I like watching different videos, and I have found a lot of really informative content on it. I like the whole video diary idea, and follow a lot of people who create daily videos in this way. However, different agencies have come out that TikTok is too liberal leaning, that it attacks the more conservative viewpoints. So there came this statement where the US government was going to close TikTok down, with the app actually closing their US app down. For 14 hours. For 14 hours, the rest of the world could access TikTok, and more local content rather than the US stuff. But after that 14 hours US users were welcomed back with a message thanking new US President Donald Trump.

The thing is, when the US users came back online, they noticed some changes. Various hashtags regarding the inauguration of Donald Trump, or LGBTQ+ things were unusable . With users being told that the topic couldn’t be referenced to for the ‘good’ of the TikTok community. People found that LGBTQ+ user pics were removed, with no indication from TikTok as to why. I, in fact ran a trial of my own after discussing the TikTok ban on my own profile, and found it go hardly any views, where as me asking whether people preferred kittens or puppies got my normal views, This, to me, proved that TikTok wasn’t sharing opinions that were negative in anyway about the TikTok ban. In fact, some users reported their videos just disappearing, without any warning or notification from TikTok themselves. This has lead to people talking about censorship, and try and understand why certain voices are being silenced.

The counter-argument was, that nobody cared when conservative voices were being silenced. But the truth is, they weren’t silenced. They maybe had accounts removed from social media, but that tended to be for threatening violence, spreading misinformation, and breaking the platforms terms and conditions. When Elon Musk purchased twitter in 2023, and renamed it X, he also reactivated a lot of the accounts which had been removed due to abuse. These people came back with gusto, as if nobody could stop them. The abuse they sent was awful. As a user who spoke up against them, I didn’t get a discussion, or even blocked, I got death threats. Every day. I didn’t even have a big account, with only a few hundred followers, but the site was rendered unusable. I closed my account in the wake of this, and ended up floating over to Meta’s Threads. Where I made a lot of bookish and formula 1 friends. And I saw the positives of social media again.

It looks like TikTok is going to be in US hands, when its CEO was trained by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. And I sit and wonder if this social media ‘fight’ has all been a ruse to make each platform more money, and whittle away the usability for us, the user. I mean, my Facebook and Instagram are currently unusable due to AI, and irrelevant US made bigoted content. What will these big tech billionaires do, if their platforms do become examples of the Dead Internet Theory? Will they simply just buy something else, or stick with their sinking ships? I mean, advertisers won’t pay for things human eye’s don’t actually see.

And then, today, I read the revelation that blogging is back. That people are going to divert away from social media and curate their own online spaces. It’s proof, to me, that if you keep at something long enough, it will eventually come back into fashion again. Look at me, ahead of the trend.

Problems with fandom

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Ever since I first got access to the internet, way back in the High School library, I would look up the bands I loved. A lot of band sites, would have their own forums, where you could speak to fans from all over the world. Disecting albums, and lyrics, comparing collections of scrapbooks and merchandise. It was so much fun. Then MySpace, where you became ‘friends’ with bands, and even learned coding to make your profile look cool.

Over the years, social media has become such a huge part of most of our lives. Musicians, actors, tv presenters, politicians, you can be ‘friends’ with them all. Doesn’t even need to be a person, companies send messages to followers, and build up a familiarity. So, people feel connected with people they’ll never meet, and companies feel like friends. Sometimes people need a reminder that they don’t actually know these people they may chat to on social media, as they begin to feel personally involved.

My time on social media at the moment, seems to circle around Formula 1. It is a sport I have loved since I was a child, where the only contact you had with the teams and drivers was through magazines and the TV show around the race. The content we had to consume, then, was nothing compared to what we have these days. And social media is a massive part of that. As said before, connections are forged between fans and their favourite drivers and teams, and these connections can feel very personal. Which is all great, fantastic for advertising, and often creates great promotion for the sport. The communities are filled with people disecting races, and press conferences, talking about livery releases. It can be a lot of fun. Until it is not.

Because people feel so personally connected and affected by the goings ons and offs around the track, things can get a little tense. People can take it upon themselves to ‘defend’ their hero, and do so by attacking other fans and drivers. Doesn’t sound too bad, folk say, ‘just click off social media’, ‘go outside’. But it can escalate very fast. It becomes less about a person defending their favourite driver, and more attacking the drivers they don’t like. Which starts creating whole other problems.

Lance Stroll from Aston Martin, is a driver which attracts a lot of negativity. His father owns the team, and helps keep his son’s position in Formula 1. And whilst drivers have maintained positions on teams in similar circumstances, some fans have taken to heavily dislike Lance. The issue isn’t people throwing comments into the obyss of the internet, it is people sending Lance fans abuse. Sending death threats. Inundating people with abuse. Last season, a Lance Stroll fan I was friends with over on Twitter, attempted to take their life, because people were sending so much abuse. I don’t know on what planet that is okay. Ever.

It’s like, whilst the lines have blurred, and people are closer to their heroes than ever before, they are also so close it’s become abstract. We are so close that nothing seems real, and people have no attachment with what they say and who they are saying it to. It is not just fan on other fan crimes, either. Earlier this season, French driver, Esteban Ocon, had to release a statement about abuse that was sent to him, his team, and his family. It got so bad, that the hashtag of his name, has been banned from TikTok, due to risk of abuse. There has been racist abuse angled at Yuki Tsunoda and Zhou Guanyu. Lando Norris has had abuse sent to him and his team, including his esports team Quadrant. Last season Max Verstappen and his partner recieved a lot of abuse. Sky sports presenter, Karun Chandhok, has had racist abuse sent to his social media, as well as sent to Sky Sports socials.

Criticism about driving and opinions is one thing, abuse is another. It is not just restricted to formula 1. K-pop bands, movie franchises, boybands, tv series, there are fandoms for almost anything. Situations like the ones I have mention above happen others. Actors and actresses leaving TV shows due to abuse, because the fandom didn’t like their character. Someone speaks poorly about a certain band member, they’d better not sign online.

The point I want to make is that behind every account, whether it be a famous personality or a business, there is a person. A person with feelings and a life. A few years ago someone told me that if I was angry, write down the negativity, if on social media write the comment and save it to drafts. Then, go do something else. Come back in at least 30 minute, 95% of the time, you will simply delete whatever you have written. I find that it stops any angry over-reactions.

Scheduled it

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

If this post is online, it means I have not got round to posting today. When I decided to post every day, I wrote up a few backups for if I had a day where I struggled. Either I am busy, or my health has got in the way. The reason I decided to post a backup to schedule in, is because sometimes it’s okay to make plans so that you are still moving forward towards your goals.

So this is a wee message to keep going. Get some backups going for days life isn’t going to plan. Means that things can keep ticking over, whilst you get yourself back together. We got this.

Subscribed

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

See when apps like Netflix launched and allowed us to stream our favourite TV shows, it was revolutionary. Finally, we weren’t stuck watching shows at inconvenient times, we could watch what we wanted, when we wanted. And over the years, more services came online, and we had more choice than ever. It was a viewers market.

Until it wasn’t.

I can only speak for myself, but if you want to view all the content you may want, you can easily pay for 6-7 different streaming services at once. Which, considering streaming was originally a cheaper option to Satellite/cable, is now getting more and more expensive. The thing is, if people really use a service, and get their moneys worth, it’s fine. But, I find that most people don’t use their subscribed streaming services to their value.

I can only speak from my experience, and I think that there is too much stuff, spread across too many providers. I am a very indecisive person and really struggle with choosing to watch something new. It is why I am watching Gilmore Girls for the thousandth time on Netflix. It is also why I decided to shut my Disney+ account. I have an option activated across my devices, where they automatically ‘offload’ apps I haven’t used in like a month or so. Disney+ had been removed across all my devices. So I just cancelled my subscription.

The thing is, I am a huge Disney fan. I have so many of the movies on DVD still. I was trying to collect the whole animated classics series of films. But then, DVDs became harder to find, and people streamed instead. And when I was faced with all my favourite animated movies and tv shows, as well as new series and films and documentaries, I just got overwhelmed. I don’t know what it is about Disney+, but I just did not like the app’s layout at all. Don’t really know why. But I’d just open the app, look at the homepage, close the app, go into Netflix and put Gilmore Girls on.

I know terrestrial TV is struggling, as advertising money is shrinking. People don’t watch scheduled tv anymore. They prefer to watch 2-3 episodes of the same show in a row. Programs that make it to standard tv, has more chance of being renewed. Netflix and Disney are very good at cancelling shows after one season. And, if you look at things like Netflix’s Wednesday, by the time season 2 launches it will be 3 years since the first season premiered. That would never happen with traditional TV. For me, it means I have no intention of watching till I find out if the series is going any further, and that is a growing opinion amongst people. People aren’t going to invest their time and heart into a show that isn’t going to deliver in length or content.

It’s all a bit crazy.

Going Down

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

One day last week, for a few hours, Meta went down. Meta is the collective name for the services under the Facebook umbrella. So, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads. All down. Considering I message most people on Messenger, and chat all things F1 on Threads, I felt like I had lost an arm.

It’s not unusual, to be honest. Not these days. We have become so attached to our phones, that social media has become a major part of our social lives. And during the pandemic it became many people’s only way to socialise with people outwith their household. Something that has stuck, apart from the Zoom quizzes, thankfully they are mostly gone. I like a quiz, but when people are picking questions, it is a reminder that what is well known trivia for one person, isn’t always that for all people.

I have always had a connection online, I remember going on band forums to chat to people about music. Even when you had arguments with people, you closed your computer, and that was that till the following day. So, you had a natural break before you would go back, and usually by then, things had de-escalated. Everyone was friends again. But now, you are never really off-line, or I certainly am not. There is no escape for things when they do escalate.

Which made me think. Maybe the social networks need to crash more often.

To find a niche?

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

I have been writing on many personal blogs over the years. They are places where I can write, a thing I love to do, but a thing I am incredibly subpar at. In spite of that, I have continued to use blogging to help relieve any stress I feel about my day to day life. Something that is beneficial to a person’s well-being. However, I have hit a rut over the last few years, due to finding it difficult to post, as I feel, like most people at the moment, that I complain about the same things. And, who wants to read that.

So, I search for advice on how to make things more exciting. Mostly, because I don’t want to bore the few people who do read this blog when I post. And, what is the advice? Find a niche, your audience. Make your site profitable. Honestly, I didn’t start this blog to make money, it never even popped into my mind. When I started up, I was studying digital design, and this blog was supposed to be a way for documenting my journey, as a designer. Something that went incredibly well, as my current job in a warehouse proves.

I think that is where I am different from a lot of people who keep blogs, especially these days. Everything some writers do is about making money. It’s about sponsored posts, how many clicks the links on your pages get, more than about the actual content. I have spoken to other creators, and when I tell them my blog is over 10 years old, they don’t understand why I’d do it for myself and not money. It has happened so often, that I find myself questioning if it is me who has the wrong grasp of things.

I like to write about myself. About my mental health problems. About things I like. About my arthritis. About experiences I have. It’s maybe not exciting enough to make me money, but it does my brain the world of good. Personally, I prefer to read blogs that are personal, ones that don’t feel like a constant advertisement for products no one needs. I like to follow someone’s journey through life. I’d like to think that my blog is like that. Well, at least a little bit, although it seems I am simply complaining all the time.

Stuck To A Stop

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

2020 has proven to be a very challenging year for everyone. And, as a person who uses her creativity a lot, be it writing, scrapbooking, or drawing, I have found it suffocating. Which is why this blog has been rather quiet, compared to other years.

The things that I see and do, are what helps get my brain ticking over on what I should create. At the moment, for most of 2020, I have been working, going to the supermarket, and then going home. There are only so many interesting things one can get out of the monotony of it all. I try to be productive, try to think about what media I am consuming. So, I try to think about the programme I watch on the TV, or the computer game I am playing.

It’s not working though.

I feel like I am stuck in a cycle. I think and write about the same things all the time. It is not on purpose, but my thoughts seem to retread the same steps because I am not seeing anything else. It’s hard not to talk about masks or COVID restrictions, everywhere you go. Because that is everywhere, and it is something that worries me a lot. This feeling that the governments of the world are dealing with something unprecedented is not a nice one.

Sometimes, though, I think about what matters most. And I suppose it’s honesty. Talk about what I experience, as it is important. You see, I think I do that already, but it is focused around my mental health. So, the picture of me, that this site holds, is not a complete picture, it shows only a side of me.

So, I am going to try and make this more fun. Going to still talk about my mental health, because (unfortunately) it is the biggest thing in my life. But going to try and write about things I like, the music, the shows, the games, and the books. I am not the most articulate of people, but i want to write about more. I’d say it’ll be a ‘lifestyle blog’ more, but I see that and I see lots of things I am not. So, I will simply say that it will be more varied.

Anything is better than this continual bashing of my head against an imaginary brick wall.

Role Model

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

A few years ago, I remember reading something (can’t remember where), which stated that a person’s personality was created by what they see around them. I thought this was interesting, as it was something I hadn’t thought of before.

The more I thought about it, the more I noticed it. I became aware of picking up phrases or mannerisms from people I liked. And if anyone had unfavourable qualities, I would stop myself from doing the behaviours I didn’t like. And people can do that automatically, based on some kind of instinct.

Then, I come on to the subject of role models. How many times have you opened a website, or a newspaper, to see headlines proclaiming that some pop star is ‘an awful role model to young girls’. People don’t ask to be role models, it is something that just happens. The image portrayed through media, often tries to show a person in a positive light. This positive light, is what can influence the behaviour of others. A lot of the time, there is very little conscious fault involved on either side.

It isn’t just kids who are influenced by the behaviours of people they admire. Everyone is. If you watch a tv show, about a person who adores baking cakes, you may see that joy in that person and think, ‘I’ll bake a cake too’. If you see someone, in your actual life, or on TV, who is motivated and works hard, it could push you to work harder towards your own goals.

And if someone, anyone, can encourage you to be a better person, there can’t be anything wrong than that.