I wrote the below about three years ago and wanted to revisit it again now as I try to restart this blog. I can say now that I did not keep up with posting on any social media platforms, other than a few photos on Instagram. It remains extraordinarily difficult to begin a new account in any social media environment, because the assumption is that if you are not already established, you must have some nefarious purpose for intruding now–or worse, you must be a bot. Alternatively, if you have an established identity, there is pushback for venturing into new territory. (“I followed you for X! Stop posting about Y!”) It is much easier to start writing here; perhaps as I go along, I will start to venture back into more social platforms.

While everyone is either leaving Twitter to set up at new social media sites or hedging their bets and adding new sites in addition to remaining at Twitter, I’ve thought that this would be an ideal time to try again with social media. I’ve never been able to be consistent enough anywhere—except, for a while, Tumblr–to have any real established presence, so my experience has been probably somewhat different than others. I’ve set up new accounts in a few different places and so far have only used Mastodon; it was at least already established, but I’d rather give some time to some of the others to see how they work out. And then there’s others that I think I will have to wait until they are open to all, since at the moment they seem to be for social media professionals only. (No, Post, I can’t “tell you about myself.” I am a person of no particular expertise or significance, with no social media presence.) And, of course, I’m trying to use this site again.

So far, I’ve used Mastodon a very little bit, and Instagram—though I’m being old-fashioned there and just posting pictures, because I am not at all comfortable with video. Luckily, I have new kittens, so I had easy “content” for that site. Mastodon is more difficult and gets into the problem I’ve had with most social media (and blogging before that): having to write something personal. Even casually personal. I don’t really have a professional interest that I could write about, nor am I at this point ready to write about academic interests—except maybe in the sense of writing about classes I’m taking. Tumblr worked for me because I could just write about (or, even easier, post gifsets of) things I enjoyed. It is personal in the sense that it is about things that I like, and you could figure some things out about me by what I enjoy and how I enjoy it, but it is less forwardly “about me.”

I am still figuring out how I will use this blog; I think it will most likely be more long form catch-all. So far Mastodon is for school and probably some related stuff. (I want to complain about Twitter imploding on there, but I feel like people there are either trying to get away from that site, or weren’t interested in it in the first place, so that wouldn’t be appreciated.) Instagram is for the cats, and possibly occasionally some other personal things—especially as Mastodon isn’t really image-friendly. Tumblr will continue to be my fandom site, though I’m also trying to use my “professional” main account for some general personal content. Now I just have to keep up with writing and posting, and this short break between terms is probably ideal…