#digital gentrification

[joudama]

Link to Bluesky post.

[millenniayellsatcloud]

Not that anyone gives a damn, but after taking a long break from Tumblr, then returning to find my actual memories gentrified by Gen Z brats who weren't even a twinkle in their daddy's eye who try to main character my past by turning my formative years into a costume or an aesthetic, I decided that Tumblr isn't really my place. Just for once, I want to talk to someone with a fully-developed frontal lobe, and this place ain't it.

[whydontyouhateithere]

Been thinking a lot about gentrifying digital spaces

Mostly because of the upcoming “Migration” from Reddit. And the closest thing I can think of is how it feels for a gay bar to be taken over by straight, cis, women. I appreciate that you’ve heard of us. I am so glad that we’ve made it safe here for you. Nice of you to choose your night out with us. This space wasn’t made for you. To ask this space to accommodate you is valid, but not fair. The people you will bring with you (in the metaphor, straight, cis, men, out of the metaphor the parts of Reddit we stay here to avoid) are welcome too, if they play by the rules of the space the locals have established.

But they won’t. We all know they won’t. This is how gay bars die.

The phrase that keeps going though my head is “If you wanted to use it, you’d be here by now.” This site is not your lifeboat because your community got toxic. 

This culture and space exists because of the people who have been here, in some cases for literal decades. You either need to prepare to acclimate, or back the fuck up. 

[jrmilazzo]

I Helped Pioneer Weird Twitter. I Have a Plan for Elon Musk.

An ode to the days when everything happened so much.

<< Eventually the server issues were fixed, the weirdest edges of Twitter sanded down to make the place more palpable to politicians and celebrities, and the executive dreams of making Twitter something it’s not took over. It’s not as though Jack Dorsey were personally cracking down on @darth’s hijinks. Many of the accounts that made Weird Twitter, well, weird are still around, but the culture of Twitter changed. Tweets about Hollywood drama and D.C. sniping commanded the media attention that Weird Twitter once occupied. On top of that, the technical reins of Twitter were tightened and innovation on the platform became top-down. It mostly failed. (Remember “Fleets”?) The platform stagnated, harassment—always a problem Twitter struggled to keep up with—got worse, and the constant stream of tweets from the former president kept everyone on an uneasy edge for four years. Twitter stopped being fun.

The joy and surprise that Twitter used to regularly bring has largely been replaced with anger, misinformation, and abuse. Aggrieved incels and white nationalists flooded the platform, wanting to make everyone as miserable as they are. Post–Jan. 6 changes to enforcement removed some of the worst accounts from Twitter, but by that point it was clear we were all miserable enough even without them. We wake up in the morning and stare into rectangles that just make us sad. No wonder Twitter’s most active group of users is shrinking. >>

[erainbowd]

Digital Gentrification and Ontological Insecurity

When it became clear to me that my big break in theatre wasn’t coming any time soon, I began to create things in the digital space. If I couldn’t book a gig in a theatre, I could at least, play a song on-line or have some words I wrote get read. While I appreciated the opportunity to share with people around the world, I also felt somewhat banished into that space. The difficulty and expense of…

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