what social medias do you consider to be "usable"?

[Numberedpaws]

I use Buzzly, a DeviantArt alternative, too. It's very nice as well, I think, the community's a lot smaller though. I also sometimes reply to/update people on the Neocities feed (which I don't really like for a myriad of reasons).

I remember Buzzly when it first opened. Super promising site, and I loved it a lot. Until it got completely ruined by drama and the entire original team left. Still have no idea what really happened there.

[starbreaker]

I'm a big fan of Mastodon. The character limit is in the thousands, which is amazing in my book.

What instance are you using? Most of the instances I've seen stick with the default post length limit of 500 characters.

[devils]

I remember Buzzly when it first opened. Super promising site, and I loved it a lot. Until it got completely ruined by drama and the entire original team left. Still have no idea what really happened there.

It's super chill now. No real drama going on, at least for now. The drama was originally about fandom wank but it devolved into mod abuse real fast. The new team seems to be alright, and I've yet to see real drama (at worst it's about off-site events).

What instance are you using? Most of the instances I've seen stick with the default post length limit of 500 characters.

I'm on denden.world. 5000 character limit there.

[Grimlock]

i have to agree with tumblr being usable even though it hasn't really gotten better everything (including itself) has just gotten way worse. but the thing is when you have a QoL extension like x-kit that no other site has its kind of difficult to jump ship, especially for sites that exactly emulate twitter. it just feels slower to use

[pencilz]

I use Tumblr regularly (I'm one of those people who've been on it since I was a young teenager LOL), and it's really the only social media site I actually scroll through. I use it to post art and it does pretty well over there, so it's "usable" to me in that sense.

Instagram is a bit too much for me but I still use it to share art. By "too much" I mean the way content is just stacked all over and constantly rolling in and everything's gotta be a video now.

I've never really considered Discord to be social media, but I pretty much only use it to talk with close friends.

Unfortunately as an artist these days, if you really want to get your work out there it seems like you kind of need to use big social platforms. :/ It sucks but I don't really see the masses jumping ship and joining old school forums again, unless of course all these big places sink and people are forced to.

[Memory]

For the time being I'm only active on Mastodon, but it isn't sin-free either. The problem is the independent admins/moderators getting into drama, blocking instances etc. You can see what is happening to mastodon.art, which I used to be a member of for many years. The plus is you can quickly switch instances with all your followers and follows.

It's mostly used by IT geeks and nerds, but people are moving to it from twitter (heh) every day.

[PurpleHello98]

The only site I use that I think is properly social media is Tumblr, which I use mainly because my best friends are there. I also use it to find fanfiction. I suppose Reddit, which I also use semi-regularly, could count, though I think it's half social media and half forums in a weird way if y'all get what I mean. Personally, I consider Discord less as social media and more as a chat client, like a combination of AIM and AOL chatrooms. I'd rather use other platforms, but my friends don't agree, and some (slightly frustratingly) even reply to me with a Discord message when I send them e-mails. Besides that, I'm probably too much of a YouTube junkie, but I don't really consider that social media, more a video-sharing vehicle. I do wish everyone would have their own site and share videos there instead of YouTube, but like so many of my fever dreams about technology, like everyone ditching smartphones for Nokias, it's hardly possible these days.

Edit: I also use Pinterest, and though I don't know how social that is, I'll still include it. It's pretty usable as well!

i have to agree with tumblr being usable even though it hasn't really gotten better everything (including itself) has just gotten way worse. but the thing is when you have a QoL extension like x-kit that no other site has its kind of difficult to jump ship, especially for sites that exactly emulate twitter. it just feels slower to use

What are some of those extensions? I use Tumblr sometimes with some friends (Tumblr and Discord are all they really use) but I don't know of any QoL extensions besides Missing E. (Is that even still around?)

Instagram is a bit too much for me but I still use it to share art. By "too much" I mean the way content is just stacked all over and constantly rolling in and everything's gotta be a video now.

I've noticed this! I wonder if it's because of Tik Tok, since now everyone and their mother seems to be jumping at any chance to get some of its popularity by imitation. YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, whatever ripoffs Twitter and Snapchat probably have... I already can't stand Tik Tok and its culture for the most part, so this is just destroying the other sites even further for me. I wonder what the next big format trend could be?

(I almost hope not personal sites, in a strange way, unless people are genuinely going to stick to them and have changes of hearts, because otherwise we'd just be overrun with code-and-runners and I feel like we'd lose our community spirit somewhat, almost like a small town being turned into a tourist destination.)

[DiffydaDude]

The only site I use that I think is properly social media is Tumblr, which I use mainly because my best friends are there. I also use it to find fanfiction. I suppose Reddit, which I also use semi-regularly, could count, though I think it's half social media and half forums in a weird way if y'all get what I mean. Personally, I consider Discord less as social media and more as a chat client, like a combination of AIM and AOL chatrooms. I'd rather use other platforms, but my friends don't agree, and some (slightly frustratingly) even reply to me with a Discord message when I send them e-mails. Besides that, I'm probably too much of a YouTube junkie, but I don't really consider that social media, more a video-sharing vehicle. I do wish everyone would have their own site and share videos there instead of YouTube, but like so many of my fever dreams about technology, like everyone ditching smartphones for Nokias, it's hardly possible these days.

It's probably just the convenience factor, and the fact that Discord covers all of their IM and VC needs, and they dont have the same problems you do with the site, so they wouldnt have much of a reason to switch over. The email thing sounds hella annoying tho, i hate when you text someone and they message back in a different way. Reminds me of when i was trying to explain to someone on Discord why email should be used instead of using Twitter, and they said that email was "too formal" and that twitter was the only way to talk to big companies on a surface level, and that someone would have to send an email to all their followers every time they wanted to put out a message, like have they NEVER heard of newsletters?