what indie social media do you use (if any). If you do/do not, why?

[GlitchWolf47]

Hi I was just wondering about this

So like for indie social media, whats you opinion it and do you use any and if you do or do not why?

My personal opinion is kinda a matter of i like it a lot, in theory...

Like the deal is, i have accounts for a lot of indie social media like Spacehey or Blips or Vidlii (RIP Bitview) and Hjonk, but I feel like the issue is i will sign up for them and then kinda just not use them

I got through kinda phases of where I like to hang out online, or if I do at all. Right now im getting back into a fairly active phase and active on here,  but for a while ive been in a kinda innactive/only active in very cozy specific places. and like I feel like I have just abandoned a lot of these sites cuz I am way more active on forums and webchats (and my own site) these days so my accounts are just sitting there, and I dont wanna delete them but I also dont know what to do with them.

Like spacehey for example, its cool but I have never really interacted with users a lot so like idk if its worth keeping or not.

Does anyone else feel this way?

[MrsMoe]

Indie social media is a bit weird rn because a lot of them are blatant copies of mainstream sites (mostly Twitter), but lacking in terms of engaging features. I know making these places NOT addictive is part of the point, but the fact that they're watered down versions of something that already exists and has way less people is a massive hurdle for most people.

PI (Perfectly Imperfect) is good though imo! Instead of aping off a pre-existing site, it very much does it's own thing and has a unique gimmick (recommendations and media sharing). I've been using it for months now and haven't gotten tired of it.

[snufkin]

I've looked at several but realized I just don't have it in me to participate meaningfully in online communities or social settings. Forums are okay, and small Discord servers are about the most I can do. I just don't want to be on my computer that much, at least not to talk to other people. Unsure why — I think I have problems feeling a real connection through words only; for a conversation to feel real, I have always needed some level of realtime or face-to-face interaction. This extends to several forays into penpalling. With that said, I'm checking out Perfectly Imperfect and it looks interesting. Maybe it'll change my mind!

[GlitchWolf47]

Indie social media is a bit weird rn because a lot of them are blatant copies of mainstream sites (mostly Twitter), but lacking in terms of engaging features. I know making these places NOT addictive is part of the point, but the fact that they're watered down versions of something that already exists and has way less people is a massive hurdle for most people.

PI (Perfectly Imperfect) is good though imo! Instead of aping off a pre-existing site, it very much does it's own thing and has a unique gimmick (recommendations and media sharing). I've been using it for months now and haven't gotten tired of it.

Ya I know what your saying, thats prob the reason im not staying on there. I have heard of PI before but not researched it a lot (its in my indie social media bookmarks) so I might check it out, but like, idk I think it also just might be a matter (for me) of like, not liking how social media functions in a way?

Like idk, I like forums and SOME webchats, but idk why social media style websites stress me out. Like i think in a weird way its the fact that they call themselves social media. idrk my relationship with social media is complicated. I definitely prefer forums over social media.

but you make a good point, and I agree. Like a lot of the indie social media is either a blatant clone or doesn't have any unique features (and from my experince is also a bit dead :P)

[rolypolyphonic]

I think social media is structured in such a way where it's more about 'content' than people per se. Not even necessarily in a 'capitalistic algoslop' way (though that's how mainstream social media ended up being) but just by the very structure of what social media sites loosely are ie 'a feed aggregating posts from various people'.

As a result, when a social media website doesn't have a lot of people posting stuff on it, it feels very dead and unengaging, because most people don't really go on social media to interact directly with people, they go on it to see Posts.

I feel like this would be a problem with any social media website whether they were copying the layout/'reviving' an old website, or coming up with an entirely new design from the ground up: what the website 'looks' like is secondary to how many people you can get active on it and regularly posting on it.

Forums and chatboxes where the structure is oriented more towards directly engaging with a person instead of having the 'posts' as a filter/medium in between them are thus usually easier to engage with and maintain even with a significantly smaller userbase.

With that said, I also think it highlights a difference (whether in part caused by the website's structure, and in part from the culturally ingrained mindset we have of 'how' to engage with the Internet) in what people expect to 'get out of' a particular website. A lot of people use social media essentially to lurk. Plenty have already made criticisms of social media encouraging doomscrolling et al so I won't bother reiterating those, but from a more neutral perspective, sometimes you just want to go online to look at stuff without necessarily wanting or needing to say something yourself. It's a different matter with forums/chatboxes where saying something yourself is basically the only way to even engage with it.

Because of that, I feel like with social media not only is there a higher expectation for 'how much' activity it needs to thrive, there's a lower incentive to actually contribute to that activity, because social media website (indie or not) will attract a higher population of people who are more likely to view things without posting/creating/speaking themselves compared to forums/chatboxes.

Circling back to the original question, I've given a peek to nearly all of the 'indie' social media of the past several years, both the 'revival' ones and the 'original' ones, and I generally lacked interest in any of them for reasons similar to above. I mostly use social media to look at things other people have made, so ones with a small userbase are hard to remain interested in, and even ones that are relatively active like Spacehey, etc. tend to cater to a specific type of userbase that I don't particularly relate to. It's easier to engage with forums like this one where you're not going there to 'look at posts' in the first place.