Been having some deep thoughts (deep-ish??) about social media lately. I actually think about it all the time but more as a background thing, but this week I thought about it more front-of-mind. 

I stumbled across are.na and was kind of wondering about it. When users were asked to describe what exactly it was, my favourite things they came up with were:

If Instagram is a mall, are.na is a community park or a library :-)

Pinterest for pseudo-intellectuals

Magic school bus depot

Its like the old Internet 

If the french created the Internet 

It's like the instagram save feature with the option to make your saves public

Research as a leisure activity 

All these ideas really rang my bell, I have to admit. I really miss the old internet and I really love to do "research", and I have so many great instagram saves I would love to share (why don't they let you??).

As you may have read in my About page, I have spent quality time with tumblr, del.icio.us, pinterest, instagram (obviously) and even flickr (to throw it way back). And those platforms were all super fun, until they weren't. 

In this interview with founder with Charles Broskoski, he details how influenced he was by the defunct website del.icio.us. And it reminded me of how much I used to love del.icio.us. 

For those who don't know, del.icio.us was a bookmarking site that had a social dimension. You could post a link to a webpage you found notable for whatever reason, and then see who else had posted that link, and you could also follow people and see what links they posted. So you could see where their thoughts were moving. It was a mind share in the best way.

It eventually got bought out, and taken away, just like flickr had got bought out and then proceeded to just get terrible, just like tumblr got bought out and became terrible. 

Tumblr made me especially sad because I was so, so into it, and I remember someone telling me about pinterest when I was heavy into tumblr and going over there and just thinking - this looks way to nice and clean, and the experience is like flipping through a magazine. So much eye candy but not as many new ideas. It also for whatever reason, really felt like a feminine space, a grown-up lady space, for better or for worse. Tumblr was definitely the domain of the unformed teen, early twenty-something. So much energy, so many loose ideas. 

Tumblr got old for me when the teen energy began to get stronger - maybe just more teens got on there? It got full of embarrassing bad-ass-ery, that I just didn't have the patience for. I was to old! I was closer to 30 and was having babies and the platform just wasn't speaking to me anymore. 

Instagram I don't even need to talk about because everyone knows the deal already. It makes you feel really good, and then really bad, the likes motivate you to go in a direction you maybe don't want and also distract you from your vision, the follows are stressful, it just goes on and on. 

I am having the weirdest time with instagram right now because I used to be so good at it, it came so naturally to me, and now after being off for around 3 years I feel like a boomer. Just awkward making "friends" and "liking" - the terms feel so literal to me! And I never know what to post! 

I keep posting pictures of my orchid blooming and just badly-lit photos of my drawings or images and notes saved on my phone. I am trying to ignore the social aspect and just think of it as a scrapbook - for myself. I would never have done that before. I honestly think I changed in my time away. I am dying to post pics of the kids because I *love* them and they are my greatest project I am always working on, but I really just do not want to expose them to the internets. When they were little it didn't seem so bad, because they were so a part of me, but now that they are older, it's different. 

Wow, so many thoughts! I have more but it's hard to articulate everything. Anyway, I am considering trying are.na. I don't know, maybe it would be fun? I'll let you know if I do. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯