Time-Wasters

I’m spending WAY too much time on Threads lately. I blame John Scalzi, Louise Penny, Richard Osman and the Boston Public Library. Why? The authors need to WRITE MORE BOOKS NOW and the BPL needs to get more copies of their books because the waiting list is TOO DAMN LONG!

*ahem*
Regarding Threads—there are so many people migrating over from the rapidly expiring bird site. The newbies seem to be suffering from Follower Drop Shock. i.e., on Trump-But-Younger’s close-to-croaked site, folk’s may have had multiple thousands of followers. On Threads? They might start with a handful (IF they were on IG or Facebook first) and *ZOINKS* that seems to have come as a shock. It’s hard starting over again—making new friends and finding a fresh group of like minded buds ain’t easy (even for those of use who aren’t suffering from horrific amounts of social awkwardness—thanks, that’s me). I get it.

In order to find a community/attract influencees/sell art, music, rando merch/market their talents/whatever people are doing a few things:

• Dear Algorithm wish lists—these look, more than anything, like a desperate child’s Xmas wish list. They all start with Dear Algorithm, Please connect me with….

On sites like Facebook and Twitter, targeted ad systems harvest your data and infer specific personal characteristics, reducing you to a list of overlapping categories that marketers can tick off in some back-end campaign manager. Ironically, “Dear Algorithm” posts do much the same thing, decomposing both the poster and her preferred followers into a series of demographics and consumer preferences. (source)

• Five (or six) things about me—bullet pointed brief sentences like you'd put at the top of a résumé

• Making a general, formal intro “Hi, I’m new here.” The poster then writes a few sentences about themselves which may look like this:
  

I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
And I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one
I'm a picker
I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
And I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I get my lovin' on the run
Ooh, whoo, ooh, whoo

Also, a gangster of love.

Okay, I’ve not seen any intros as long as The Steve Miller Band’s self satisfied, masturbatory ode but, well, you get the idea.

What would I write for a Five Things About Me post?

1. I’m older than dirt and that suits me just fine.
2. My best friends are cats and cephalopods.
3. Like my octopus chums, I have three hearts. One regulates my French fry consumption (otherwise I would be unable to stop scarfing them down at the speed of light). The second keeps me from telling annoying assholes to fuck straight-the-fuck off (this feature doesn’t always work as advertised). The third is purely decorative and partial to bright tie dye, paisley and the darker sounds of Nine Inch Nails.
4. My blood is a lovely shade of lavender during the summer months. In autumn it begins to darken into a deep aubergine hue. By the winter solstice my go-juice is as black as Cake.
5. My favoritest thing to do in this whole, big, entire world is nothing. Okay, that and sitting in bed under a warm blanket, reading a ripping yarn.

Yeah, that might not be the most realistic self intro BUT it might bring cat and octo lovers into my feed. Possibly I’d attract hematologists and phlebotomists too. That could be useful.

Also, FUCK realism. I’ve had about all I can take of that shit this week.