I loved imageboards for their anonymity and ephemerality: pure focus on content, no identities, no permanent traces. Threads emerge, live briefly, and disappear again.Today, imageboards are dead: almost all users have moved to X. It offers the greatest variety, highest quality, and the best algorithms that filter out the junk. In an endless flood of content, good algorithms are the solution, not the problem.But I don’t want the typical social media downsides (self-presentation, followers, digital footprints). That’s why I use X in a way that simulates a modern, high-quality imageboard experience:
1. I follow no one.
Only the For You tab decides what I see, everything stays random and content-focused.
2. I delete every one of my posts after a maximum of 24 hours.
My profile stays empty, posts are only temporarily visible, like a thread that gets bumped down.
3. I block everyone who follows me.
Systematically and immediately, so no followers or parasocial connections can form.
This way, I get anonymity and ephemerality on the objectively best content platform. I consume and post comments without ever building an “identity.” This method does not violate X’s terms of service. Nevertheless, from the platform’s perspective it is harmful: I maximally exploit the algorithm and infrastructure but provide no lasting value or network effects, essentially parasitic.That’s exactly why I do it this way.
X is too good to avoid entirely, but I don’t want to be a classic social media user. With this approach, I get the best of both worlds.
26 posts and 3 image replies omitted.>>32148That's what art is for.
>>32150 Do you mean like reaction images? I have to strongly disagree. Posting a single image in no way is capable of simulating the dozens of facial signals, eye movements, tone of voice, emotional reactions, etc. that people communicate to each other during conversation. People used to emote much more frequently and with more emotion than we do now, generally it takes drugs or booze now to get people to emote at all. Not even a webcam or facetime is enough to allow us to communicate and feel each other's presence like physically being with someone. In any case I don't think this is making a comeback. Not only do we avoid shared spaces, we also get freaked out by any person who tries talking to us even for practical matters. Talking to people on the internet just feels like spinning so the hamster wheel now. Even if we have a nice chat and find common ground, there's nothing to make us want to keep a conversation going, no reason to stay in touch, because we're all just disposable voices from the void. The internet destroys human connection in favor of a schizotypal tendency to think of a post as just a voice in the dark with no clear identity. Even if you look at a person's posting history, you can easily just cut it up into random posts and nobody can tell that there's any continuity to it beyond a small series on a single subject. If there's a case for humanity becoming a hivemind, this is how it will happen.
>>32151Nah I mean any art. I can gleam more from what someone wearing a mask (like a vtuber) says than a human face can convey face-to-face because when you know someone doesn't have that information you make attempts to make those feelings and ideas explicit by other means.
It's like how people that use face masks for sanitary reasons have more expressive eyes and body language than someone mouth naked would be. Or how kaomoji have more eye focus than emoticons
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ (*´▽`*) (✧ω✧) (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)
:) :( :3 :p
Plus the infosec aspect. The knowledge that someone I'm watching speak into a camera is giving their wholeass biometrics to google or whatever makes any face online trigger the uncanny valley for me because my brain goes "something is wrong and I shouldn't be seeing a face here".
>>32144radlibs are generally good people. wrong, sure, but good people.
those who avoid becoming radlibs are usually broken in some way. most often one that takes them down a reactionary path, rarely one that takes them down the smug elitist "equally wrong but in different ways" leftypol.org path.
if i could do it all over, i'd be a furry radlib.
>>32143I'll try it out.
>>32140Meh, I was excited about Lemmy at first but it's just hugboxes all over again. Honestly, I think upvotes/retweets/likes just ruin the whole thing from the getgo, it just breeds the insufferable "hot take" environment