Bluesky is alive. But there is no real usage case for it that will allow it to exceed Twitter.
Of course, alles kann immer anders sein. The reality of which I speak could always turn out to be different. We must always remember the guy who said the Internet wouldn’t really take off; and I myself hate Bluesky’s atmosphere with a passion that I do not intend on really articulating. So I know that I am biased. But this is how I feel; this is what I predict, and this is what is (more than likely) going to come to pass.
Bluesky will succeed as a protocol, similar to how the Internet has ‘succeeded’. But it will eventually ‘morph’ to the point that it will be considered to be the ‘gopher’ protocol equivalent to what eventually turns out to be the http(s) protocol equivalent of social media. When we look back in time, will we really be so enamored with Mosaic that we’ll be singing its praises as we’re on version 1,000 of Google Chrome? Mosaic was but a stepping stone; and so Bluesky is. And perhaps that is an achievement worthy of praise, and admiration.
But Bluesky, itself, as a website, is dead. It is a ghost town. It is Mastodon: the second coming of nothing. And one of the people who runs it, is actually fucking sick and tired of the people who predominantly make up the ‘power users’ of the website. Not that anyone can blame them; just as people from Something Awful’s worst forums made up the power users portion of Twitter for most of its useful life (before petering out and eventually just kind of retiring to Bluesky, a sort of ‘elder millennial retirement home’ kind of dealio), so have the Internet’s worst posters joined Bluesky, in some attempt to, I don’t know, have themselves an Arcadium Refugees experience.
When I was a kid, there was a social media network that is now lost to time. Not even I remember its name; but, before that, there was Arcadium. And when Arcadium inevitably failed (trolling; hacking; and a generally, genuinely awful userbase, entirely made-up of gamers), an offshoot was made: Arcadium Refugees. The tone was very haughty; the people behind it were absolutely up their own ass about the entire thing, and they completely forgot what made Arcadium so much damn fun.
Sound familiar?
Arcadium is to Arcadium Refugees, as Twitter is to Bluesky.
Bluesky is just Twitter Refugees.
And it sucks just as bad.
I don’t intend on convincing you.
The vast majority of my writing is intended to be read by myself, to quiet my own damned mind. So that I can lay a mental matter to rest, and move on to the next.
When I use Twitter, I am delighted. My ‘For You’ feed is heavenly. I have not felt bad opening Twitter in the past year. I actively have to go looking for bad things on Twitter— which is a design feature that I have not taken for granted.
Bluesky’s Discover tab is nothing but the finest and sickest furry bullshit I’ve ever seen. People engaging in fetishes so niche and unique that they can hardly even be called sexual anymore. The things I’ve seen on Bluesky’s Discover tab in the past fucking year has been like trying to mainline /b/ during its heydey. That’s not a good thing.
The latest (and, regrettably, it will not be the last) nontroversy to hit Bluesky is that some of the people working on it have decided to reply “WAFFLES” to what people feel are genuine criticisms of how the website is run. The people running Bluesky have made noises claiming that they feel a certain push, through the ‘community’s bullying, to force their hand in moderating how they, the ‘community’, wants them to.
And they’re right. Bluesky is predominantly made up of shitty fucking bullies who have no lives, are probably unemployed (given that they fit all the signifiers for what the previous version of what they are, actually were, on Twitter), and use all of their free time (which they have copious amounts of, due to certain circumstances that I will soon go into) to try to feel powerful online.
Twitter’s pathetic Internet Bully ecosystem was predominantly made up of people who were unemployed, sometimes also disabled, who tried to control the online environment, because they could not control their real-world environment. That is not to say that unemployed and/or disabled people are like this: this is to say that’s what the weird fuckers on Twitter predominantly were. They were stuck in their houses and they decided that the only outlet they had to the outside world would be used by they to send death and rape threats to people; that they would try to get people to kill themselves, in order to try to ‘carve out’ some sort of electronic ‘niche’ that only they could provide, after they scared everyone else away.
Similarly, the people on Bluesky who are trying to control the people controlling Bluesky, self-identify as being basically unemployable due to certain factors, some of which they cannot control; some of which they refuse to do anything about (for example: some refuse to get, seek out, or even accept the help that they need, to overcome simple problems like having to get a driver’s license so they can get to a job), and sometimes, they just plain give up.
These are people who pretend, whether they are aware of it or not (I believe that they are aware of it: they seem to be malignant narcissists who use a form of permanent victimhood to control others through fear and shame), to be ‘vulnerable’. Then, in the next fucking breath, they claim that they have all the power; that you must obey them; and if you don’t, you are hurting them.
It’s crybully bullshit and it’s plainly obvious to anyone who’s set foot outside their house for more than a certain spell of time. Unfortunately, due to how the Internet works, the only people who would even dream of using Bluesky are so terminally-online that they do not know what normal really looks like. They are so fed on the bullshit they see online that they have ensconced themselves in a shell of permanent victimhood through the notion that everyone in the real world hates their fucking guts, and thus, why should they even try?
A year ago, after my mother went into the hospital for sepsis, I decided I needed a change. I, too, bought the bullshit that the world was a cold, dark, and creepy place, and it was horrible, and everyone would want to hang my black ass from a tree because I was trans.
It has been a year, and I have many real-world friends, something that I have not really experienced in over twenty years. And nobody gets at me for being trans; I have female friends in their 50s and 60s who have started using female pronouns for me, without asking. I am genuinely liked, respected, admired, and, dare I say this— yes, I am loved.
But the people on Bluesky are from a world they themselves have created, a world of fear and pain and suffering, where they think that the only way that they can possibly survive is to bully others online. They think that the entire world hates them, and hates what they are, and what they’re like— when, in fact, no. Even in a country-ass part of this horrible fucking country, I, trans, mixed, and gay, have been accepted.
The reality is that the vast majority of people don’t hate you for what you are, and who you are. They dislike you extremely, and loathe your very presence, because you treat people like they’re your servants.
The fact of the matter is, the people who made Bluesky never seemed to realize that the sort of people who would use Bluesky the most, and demand the most from the people who run Bluesky, are maladapted narcissists who think that the only way out is through. They think that the only way they can survive is to hurt others, bullying them into submission— and, I want to tell you, the idea of adults bullying other adults online is so fucking pathetic that it’s hard to articulate the depths of that stupidity.
But that’s what they do.
And that’s what they’re like.
And never the twain shall meet. Never will Bluesky have the normal userbase that its creators seem to crave; never will the platform be ‘nice’, or have some sort of stable and coherent userbase of people who don’t have worms in their brains.
This is it, Luigi. This is all that’s left of the Internet. The real world is waiting— it’s time to touch grass.
And it’s time to decide if this is what you want to do with your lifeforce.
Do you want to be ‘criticized’ day and night for saying ‘WAFFLES’?
Do you want to have every word you say dogged by people who will never, ever be your friend?
Do you want to become Lowtax?
Because that’s what this shit does to you.
There is no end of this path that is not Lowtax.
The path on which you walk has no fruits growing beside it but the creamy, tangy mangosteen.
Make your choice or don’t; I don’t give a shit.
Once upon a time I had a friend who had a girlfriend. His(?) girlfriend was pretty fuckin’ wild. I really liked her. Great personality. Loved her verve.
One day he decided that he didn’t want to moderate the place he was moderating anymore. He had seen the light: it wasn’t worth it. The people he was helping were assholes, and he wanted to go home, live the quiet life, and just fuck the living shit out of his girlfriend.
And so he did.
He escaped becoming Lowtax.
There is no end to the Internet, my dear friends. There is only suffering. Suffering and perseverating that lasts for as long as you allow yourself to think that this place is anything but Hell.
The real world awaits you. Where the grass is green, and the sun shines warm upon your skin.
The real blue sky is worth seeing. And keeping clear— and protecting. For future generations to enjoy.
This one is nothing but torment. Torment for the people who have created it; who have the burden of maintaining it; and will have their reputations drenched not with the meanings of their words and actions, but by the bad-faith interpretations of their good-willed actions. Stories of people who tried their best, viewed through the lenses and frames of people who, absolutely, positively, would not engage them as what they are: people.
People expect the people who maintain Bluesky to be perfect.
But not even a saint could put up with these assholes.
I feel so sorry for them.