internet and belonging

2025-04-12

#internet #anxiety

some places weren't for me in the first place.

and it's not even about centralized, corporate media or similar issues (which you are probably aware of already, yourself). i just had a thought... that the "social media" format isn't for me, and in a neutral way (!). i didn't really need bluesky or fediverse, because i didn't need a replacement in the first place. shocking. no, really.

old ways (2008-2010)

fun fact: remembering of how i used to have fun when i only started to explore internet is helpful. i'm not including the first years when i just used the social aspect of the web to write "let's go outside!" to my friends instead of calling them on the phone. most of the time i was interested in forum chats (with pixel "avatars"), writing posts into my small group (local MySpace-like community), leaving stupid messages on my friends' profiles (often with some kind of "art" or "postcard" lol) and one website for reading/writing (fan)fiction. later i moved to "public channel" type of posting instead of small group after, because the absence of replies seemed like a good feature: only posts are in focus, feedback is secondary and more personal.

so... none of it looks like "microblogging" or similar. back then, i decided to try twitter and instagram because i wanted to reach interesting people and my friends, not to share something mine there. unfortunately, i stayed there for some time. fortunately, not for too long. with no people to read, and with better alternatives like rss, i didn't really need anything like this. wow. wow?

another factor...

this section is partially inspired by Some Thoughts on Suicidism by ballonlea.
trigger warnings: suicide, self-harm and gore art mentioned.

i don't belong in strictly-SFW communities... or, rather, i will never be truly myself there. while strictly-SFW communities make sense, and people deserve to have those, i'll never feel safe there, probably.

turned out, as a person with fucked-up traumatic past, history of self-harm and suicide attempts, my art and expression can't be "light". like, at all. some safe strips of it? yes, maybe. but avoiding "mature" themes means avoiding... too much of me in myslef. if you add violent and gore art as a coping mechanism, the range of communities will became even narrower. though ironically, violent art is more acceptable than severe mental health issues theme.

it was unexpectedly... relieving thing to realize, even if saddening in some sense, because it answered many questions. why i felt so isolated when people's rants were not considered "explicit", while mine... while mine were "promotion of suicide". why i felt so cornered and fake in happy-sfw-mastodon-uwu-servers. why i couldn't write a word in blog platforms. why my gore self-portraits remained in my drawing folder, unpublished. why i was so scared, so anxious.

this is why. because i am "explicit". even if my posts, so far, are not, i want to have this freedom. it doesn't matter if i will never post anything truly heavy, the fact that i can do it - does matter. and the most important question: where am i welcome? with the new information in mind, i would guide myself better.

conclusion (sorta)

turned out, "screaming into the void" form is pretty much ideal for me. not screaming at people directly, but giving people the choice to read or see what i have created, with no obligation to respond or react in any way. it's like a bottle with a letter in the sea, you know? i like the feeling that something of mine is reachable, no matter how old it is, but only if the person actively chooses to reach it.

so yeah. intuitively, i chose to start creating websites even without this realization, but now i feel... more confident, maybe? more grounded. i like this.

Coyote expressed some things better than me here, read eir post too: Twitterlike is a Bad Shape.