Midnight Pub

the post-social tech party has more attendees than you think

~tffb

I use IRC a lot, in the #ctrl-c chat (via tilde.chat) and many are off social media. All "but" Mastodon, most of them. Many a folk seem to have left socials in the past couple of years - be it due to self-imposed abstinence because of COVID ("control yourself!") or because they knew/found a way to work at/from home and also on a computer w/o the constant checking/refreshing of social media, et al - a bunch of possible reasons for it. But when I left in late-2019, it was seemingly "no end in sight" for nearly *every. *single*. *person* I knew online and offline. Hell, e-mail exchanges were like pulling teeth sometimes.

Now, I see two camps (mostly online):

Those who threw caution/sanity into the wind and use TikTok, and subject themselves to endless videoplay (is there even a "scroll" feature there? Or do videos auto-torture the poor person on an endless feed?)

And those who more or less refrain from all/most social media usage. Some keep Facebook for family connections, some Twitter for professional reasons, Instagram likewise - but those who feel they have a choice (as we all do!) to use socials or to not, they generally tend to stop usage altogether.

Anyway, an uptick in people e-mailing (and blogging, newsletter'ing, etc) these days, and that's always nice :)

Also, I wanted to share this bit below from the "touch grass" newsletter:

"a year ago, i’d have written more words, tried to please, performed for an audience — but no longer. i share on my own terms. i keep it short and direct. i don't second-guess. after years of feeling like an npc, i’m ready to become the main character.

my body carries a mind pulverized and made anew. you’d be forgiven if you thought you were talking to the same person."

https://buttondown.email/touchgrass/archive/2022-was-a-reboot/

Stay well, all!


translucyd

I really can't imagine a life where I communicate with my friends via newsletter. That actually its like a dream. That's why I'm trying to do it here as a start!

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inquiry
> Anyway, an uptick in people e-mailing (and blogging,
> newsletter'ing, etc) these days, and that's always nice :)

Yes!

> https://buttondown.email/touchgrass/archive/2022-was-a-reboot/

Thanks. Nice read.

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tffb

Inquiry, don't you mean "THIS!"? LOL!

'twas a nice read, indeed

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inquiry

LOL!

R.w.a alumni: GO FIGURE

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tffb

Who? The touch grass author? I didn't know that if so

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inquiry

It was all soooo long, long ago.

That it led to The Midnight Pub is what matters of it most to me.

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jr

yeah i left pretty much every social media behind in late 2019/early 2020, holding onto a few for the sake of "staying connected" and then in 2021 realized how stupid that is... now i'm glad to say i thoroughly enjoy the time i have with people in the real world but also through conversations via email and text messaging. writing has become fun, and i'm glad about that because it's very therapeutic for me. i used to feel like i had this audience i had to please (as mentioned above) but now i just write about silly little things or very big things, all for myself.

cheers :)

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tffb

It is (writing being therapeutic). I stopped some time ago, won't revisit in a "big" way anytime soon (at least comparably), but it sort of makes one feel as though they are the "center of it all", and also the "least common denominator".

It's *so important* to have passive opinions, and *so insignificant* that we have the gall to express them candidly online.

That actually sounded pretty good. Where did that come from?

Hope you're good jr, until later...

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inquiry
> It's *so important* to have passive opinions,
> and *so insignificant* that we have the gall to
> express them candidly online.

No one (aka ego) ever said egos gathered together would be simple....

     this is the way
     we write a post
       write a post
       write a post
     this is the way
     we write a post
so early in the 'night pub
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tffb

reminds me of the US Army cadence

we packed up our rucksacks and took to the sky

they dropped us off from a mile high

and I was always ready to die

so early

so early

so early in the morning

There was a Drill Sgt named Drill Sgt Money (actual last name. Spelling, too) who lead that cadence daily. Burned into my brain.

At least, I think that was the type of rhythm/cadence you were referencing

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starbreaker

Was his first name "Eddie"?

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inquiry

FWIW, a guy named Don Money played for the Milwaukee Brewers when I was a teenager.

gemini://textmonger.pollux.casa/

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tffb

also, not "Williams Muny" like Eastwood in The Unforgiven - though I thought of that character each time I met a "William Money"

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tffb

Yes, this Drill Sgt was the second "William Money" I met in my life, oddly.

Also, are you typing your sig in with each reply? You can have it as a post sig/blog sig in Setting son M.p.

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inquiry

Now why would I put it in a settings sig when I could be cursing the day I was born every time I forget to add it manually after clicking "edit" again? ;-)

<LATER>

Clicked on the "Account" link... see no setting thereunder for what I imagined you meant by some kind of sig setting.

Then again, I'm to the point of physical/mental exhaustion for waaaaaay too much yardwork today....

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tffb

well, not a POST sig, per se. It's more of a sig for every post on, say, midnight.pub/~inquiry. It's under settings where you can edit the main blog page.

Ah, I am wrong. I am thinking of Smol.pub. Here at Midnight, go to Account and where you write your bio, you can add the link there (as a plaintext thing, I don't think hyperlinks are allowed).

Or, keep the manual method :)

All in a day

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inquiry

Okay. Yeah. That bio thing. Well, that won't cut it for me because I never think to click on whatever leads to others' bios, so in my mind that's not to useful/effective a place to put something like a link to a gemlog.

Oh well....

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