Well, I finally did it. I went through and deleted my accounts on both Gab and Minds. What once looked like a decent experiment, it failed miserably, at least for the things that I was looking for in a social media site. Anyone looking for me there, don’t bother. I’m not going back.As anyone who has hung around here for any time at all knows, I hate social media. The idea is interesting, the execution, everywhere, is awful. I was never one of those people who ran over to Gab and Minds because I was afraid I’d get kicked off of other platforms. In fact, I deleted my Twitter and Facebook accounts years ago. Those are just as bad. I’m not worried that I’m going to be deleted from YouTube. I have some backup accounts, one of which I very well might delete, just in case something ever happened but the idea that someone on YouTube is going to ban my channel is virtually unthinkable.
I just went over to Gab and Minds, back when they were brand new, because I both respected the idea of a free-speech platform and, I was sick and damn tired with the endless far-left liberal screeds that every other platform was filled with. I wanted to talk to some intelligent people and I had my fingers crossed that I’d be able to do it there.
No such luck.
Unfortunately, while I was trying to get away from the ultra-far-left, I just walked into the ultra-far-right and I don’t want to be around them either. Minds, in particular, would up being a bunch of anti-Semitic pro-Nazi sympathizers, racists that screamed about the future of the white race, etc. Fuck that. The extremes on both sides are terrible and it’s hard to find a site that caters mostly to the moderate middle.
It isn’t like I’d logged onto either site for a very, very long time. I’ve just let both accounts sit fallow for close to a year. I might have jumped on, once or twice, because I was bored but there was nothing there that I wanted to see. I slowly deleted anyone that I was following because they were all getting too extreme for me. A couple of months ago, I deleted the links out of my YouTube accounts because I figured if anyone went there, there would be nothing to see and if anyone sent me a message there, I would never see it.
If that’s the case, why bother at all? Therefore, today, I logged on for the very last time and deleted both accounts and that’s the last time I’ll ever try. There’s just nothing for me there.
The real problem, I think, is that I am a contradiction. Most social media skews young and I am most certainly not. Any time I go looking for atheist content, it comes, invariably, along with a lot of far-left rhetoric and I don’t want that. Every time I go looking for conservative content, invariably I wander into the middle of a religious clusterfuck and I don’t want that either. There seems to be no middle ground. I’m just screwed.
There doesn’t seem to be a place out there for someone like me. Even on Reddit, the main atheist subreddit is a liberal wonderland where anyone who even suggests they don’t hold to all of the far-left talking points, they get banned out of hand because it hurts the feelings of the rest of the tribe. Fuck that.
It’s why I’m slowly carving out a small circle of people that I can tolerate, mostly on YouTube. It’s the only place that I can go where the majority of them actually agree with me or are willing to have intelligent conversations. That’s all I’ve ever wanted and since I’m in charge of it, for the most part, I’m not worried that anyone is going to go ban-happy because their fee-fees got injured. It’s a nice community. I like it.
Yet the more I look out there, the less happy that I get. It’s really hard in the modern world to just find people capable of having an intelligent, adult conversation without their emotions intruding at every turn. I am ever so sick of people who wear their feelings on their sleeves and can’t look beyond their own constant happiness. You people need to grow up. You really do.
Therefore, I just wanted to explain why my accounts are gone, if anyone ever noticed that they were. That’s doubtful because, as I said, I hadn’t been on for a year or so and anyone still following me after all that time, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m moving on from there and if there was anywhere worth moving to, I would. I just don’t think that there is. The spaces for actual mature adults online seem non-existent. If anyone has any ideas, be sure to let me know. I certainly can’t find anything worthwhile.
Kind of sad isn’t it?