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.
Fuck off elon, I'm not going to make an twitter account, I already have fedi.
There's plenty of good and active imageboards, it's just not a perfect and unchanging simulation of 2016 imageboard culture.
>>32071I’ve also tried the alternatives: Mastodon, Lemmy, Nostr, Bluesky, etc.
But I have to be honest: the alternatives are garbage. They’re inferior. Apart from that, all platforms are dictatorships, whether I use X or one of the alternatives. My posts keep getting deleted on leftypol too. I even have the impression that on the smaller platforms I have to self-censor even more strongly to avoid getting banned. I’m not a fan of Elon Musk. But I have to admit that with X he has created a platform that has truly reached a new level of quality. It’s the next evolutionary stage of the internet. It has major drawbacks, but with the right approach you can minimize the disadvantages and maximize the benefits.I’ve tried to love the alternatives. But they’re trash. They’re boring. That’s the bitter truth.
>>32073>all platforms are dictatorshipsAll administrated systems are because dictatorship is when one or more parties have power over something.
The mastodon instance I use has a chill admin which is why I've had a good experience with it, and I could always self-host otherwise.
>But I have to admit that with X he has created a platform that has truly reached a new level of quality.Before I deleted my twitter it seemed like everyone was either crossposting from other platforms or arguing with bots.
>They’re boring.When I get bored I surf. I don't expect one website to quench boredom nor do I trust the situation that would put me in. TikTok quenched my boredom ane when it started to shut down I had to spend so long finding people's linktrees and saving videos before bailing.
>>32074what are your favourite platforms/sites you are using? my internet usage can be boiled down to:
80% X (including Grok), 15% Youtube, 5% leftypol.
the only reason why i still use leftypol, is because i like from time to time to dump some thoughts in a longer text format. and exactly because this is the only place where i can do that.
There's a reason many "oldfags" used Twitter since 2009 onwards, the format wasn't that much different from imageboards. It's still worth it because the people I'm interested in following aren't anywhere else and you can just mute all the retards.
>>32075I'd say:
- 30% mastodon
- 20% neocities and nekoweb
- 20% leftypol, 8chan /gacha/ and recently 4chan /trash/
- 20% random sites I find following links on sites I've bookmarked
- 8% YouTube (unless you count music I've saved with yt-dlp but I'm technically not online when listening to those)
- 2% Loops.video (there's not a lot on there yet but it's quite pleasant to stop by)
I regret ever finding imageboards
I want an identity. Not having one is deeply unhealthy. I should be on furry twitter (or have been there until fascists took over and I left to bsky) and discord. I should have friends and a furaffinity gallery full of art I've made for them. Instead I have what exactly? The temporary aura of authority when telling someone to read a fucking book on leftypol.org? Fuck this.
I'm at the stage in life where I read kiwifarms to look at oddballs getting e-stalked and bullied and live vicariously through them, dreaming of how i could be the sort of unapologetically strange person who invitrs such behavior if only i hadn't wasted my life.
But the trick of imageboards is that even as i recognize this I remain trapped: it's easy to blog these embarrassing facts out and wait for them to disappear, it's too hard to actually hold a conversation elsewhere. The worst you can get on an imageboard is ignored, which is boring. Even hostile replies are still (you)s of no consequence. It's not like that elsewhere, elsewhere you can actually feel the miserable sting of rejection. Being ignored hurts, being actively told to fuck off hurts even more, and accidentally hurting someone else hurts the most of all.
So the slow pain of drifting through life with no sense of self and no friends wins out over putting up with the sustained pain of trying to put myself out there. A dismal digital opioid that gets worse year by year. I hate it and I hate myself.
for months the way i used xitter was a bunch of nitter bookmarks of people i used to follow
>>32080This is not meant to be malicious, but this approach is the product of a long-outdated paradigm.The opponents of Big Tech hate the algorithm, and that's why they try to escape algorithmic platforms. But the algorithm isn't the problem. It's the solution.The algorithm is the tool that digs out the best content from the internet. The algorithm turns the internet into what it should actually be: the best, most interesting stuff delivered straight to your brain.Using Big Tech platforms via bookmarks instead of the algorithm is an extreme limitation. In your specific example: you're missing out on all those accounts that would very likely excite you.
>>32081Or in other words: I think that recommendation algorithms represent the logical consequence of internet usage. The claim that they are addictive and maximize dwell time is correct. And that's precisely what makes them so good.
>>32081The Algorithm is just search engine optimization for non-search engines, and it's doomed to sift for garbage for the same reasons.
>>32082the algorithm is completely at odds with the concept of twitter of providing timely updates. getting a recommended tweet from 10-24 hours ago is super useless. even as a means to engage with "discourse" (which is what xitter power users use it for) it's useless, no point in arriving hours late to a conversation no one cares about anymore. it's always been a tacked on mode.
>>32084Well twitter used to be an RSS feed site. The premise being you could text something to twitter (hence the character limit) and it would post that, which RSS readers would catch and notify.
Now that twitter doesn't even have RSS feeds or the ability to post from SMS it's having an identity crisis.
>>32075you post on youtube?
>>32070>It offers the greatest variety, highest quality, and the best algorithms that filter out the junk<completely smooth, frictionless neoliberal subject consumer experience that filters out humanityOP is shoveling shit in their mouth and making "Mmm!" sounds while looking around at every other liberal in the Starbucks
>provide no lasting value or network effects, essentially parasiticcool story, now talk about your online habits!
>>32073>all platforms are dictatorships,college kid who has read Foucault but isn't class conscious
>I have to self-censor"When you take responsibility, great power will come" - the utopian communist film Madame Web
>with the right approach you can minimize the disadvantages and maximize the benefits"I'm a rebelling from the system by hacking it" - neoliberal subjects who are in fact the perfect expression of capitalist logic, making rational choices to navigate the free marketplace of ideas
>>32081>long-outdated paradigmzero historical materialism radlib scoffs at RSS feeds which actually are empowering people to enjoy their desires
>The opponents of Big Tech hate the algorithm, spoilers: they are all capitalists and the reason they hate algorithmic logic is that sometimes the working class consumes other commodity products which contradict bourgeois propaganda, like anti-Zionism
>turns the internet into what it should actually be: the best, most interesting stuff delivered straight to your braingoogle Goatse
>>32133Okay, and what's your solution? Which platforms do you think I should use?
I'm at least trying to make the best out of the current situation.
You can be glad that X hasn't completely taken over my internet usage and that there are still incentives for me to use leftypol.
The question is, how much longer…