If you spent years "building" a "following" on a corporate attention economy user churning algorithm'd closed walled garden that like any closed corporate thing could vanish or boot you at any second without fostering, training or directing said "followers" to some other meaningful presence or feed you do have control over I'm having a hard time drumming up any feels for ya.

so sick of hearing "but muh followers..."

I have been on a 10 year journey to farm to plate share art while shedding abusive platforms. It has been painful, could I ever make a living again with music in this day and age without being able to be a touring hired gun due to health, definitely not, so I understand the "where the crowd is" argument. It is very hard but not totally unpossible to be an artist or REAL creator in the not making crap just for metrics sense, without submitting to the all around abusive game of riding the corprate clout hound train. It fucks artists and it fucks users and I'm not OK with that nor should anyone be.

In 5 years on various fedi platforms I can maybe count on less than one hand the number of times a crossover "influencer", journalist, "celebrity", scholar, clout hound self-prescribed corporate metrics based very important person on a megaphone taught me something or made me lol.

I have however learnt and lol'd a metric fuck tonne from listening to or having real two-way exchanges with organic, awesome, empathetic, weird and wonderful folk whom I love and no clout hounds will ever replace.

This isn't anti growth, it's just a cautionary tale to not make shit islands based on failed paradigms. Learn about data sovereignty, learn to care about whom you interact with more and be less of a metrics driven firehose. You might find both quality and quantity rather than just numbers. I'd rather be a little bit heard and generate less pain in the world than a lot heard with a lot of pain generated but I'm just a garlic farmer.

#TwitterMigration #BeWeird #BeOrganic