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in reply to @PolyWolf's post:
I only read the TL;DR, because yeah, that is too long, but if I were the cohost staff and I just wanted to get paid, I'd work in big tech and make way more money, and if I just wanted to coast, I'd Just Simply Make My Social Media Site Sustainable so I'd get to coast for longer. And also I wouldn't do something as obviously stress-inducing as having a prominent personal presence as staff. Seems questionable.
i read through the thread, and the prominent personal presence is something op points out specifically as not great. and tbh, i'm in agreement there, i don't think it's especially responsible to cultivate any sort of parasocial relationship with your users. great way to be put on a pedestal and then torn down when you post something half-asleep that comes across Not As Intended. or to get people to start digging up old posts on other social media that maybe you'd prefer not to be associated with you anymore (as you see happen with internet microcelebrities). and then the morality of "no really we're friends ;)" is a little sketchy to me but ehhh.
that said, it's a solid way to keep people on your side and wanting to support you and your product/service, so i don't blame them for going that route. artists and authors tend to do this too, at least on a smaller scale, and in general seems the way of The Current Internet.
I think it's also just normal to want to use something you've made and be seen as a person, and if they didn't have a personal presence, the OP would instead be saying that they're secretive and untrustworthy because they're obviously hiding something. You can make anything sound sketchy if you want to. I think it's at least fair to say that staff could be doing a lot more to cultivate parasocial relationships if that's something they wanted to do.
(I agree that there is a hazard to them being personal on here, which is part of why I don't follow any of them, for the record.)
i think the problem is more that there is no separation between personal and professional with staff. i think its perfectly fine for them all to have personal blogs and just Be Users but even their official channels of communication can be pretty personal. im also of the opinion tho that staff isnt malicious at all; at worst theyre guilty of biting off more than they can chew. theyre certainly not grifters, and i feel its a little unfair of op to even bring that term into the conversation
counterpoint: ever since this place started, our main criticism has been "this place seems to be consciously created by and for white queer techies to be making a site for them and people like them to hang out on, and so like all such spaces it will eventually develop a culture that excludes anyone who is insufficiently compliant with whiteness".
yeah i think youre definitely correct that this place is Exceptionally White, but i dont think that would be changed or improved by staff being less personal on, or entirely absent as users from, the site. unless thats not what you're saying? sorry if ive misunderstood
well, no, it wouldn't help, the only thing that would help here is white people actually putting in the effort towards developing the kind of skills that let them work productively with people who aren't white, but i've been around the white queer tech scene trying to get this conversation going for 13+ years and it is an uphill battle that results in all the white people telling us that it's our fault and we need to provide all the insight and do all the work
"I think it's also just normal to want to use something you've made and be seen as a person, and if they didn't have a personal presence, the OP would instead be saying that they're secretive and untrustworthy because they're obviously hiding something. "
As the OP, no I wouldn't. I'm a firm believer in people like this having private lives separate from their business persona.
interesting is certainly a word one could use to describe this
oh shoot sorry I should've checked to see if you had an account here. would you like me to credit you in the post?
nah it'd probably just make more people yell at me if a lot of the comments i've seen are anything to go off of. i'm not really worried about it either but i don't need extra probably lol. obviously posting criticism of a site ON said site is going to ruffle some feathers, it's fine.
in reply to @Ackart's post:
kinda seems like someone with an axe to grind crafting a narrative that leaps to some serious conclusions/accusations that do not appear to be particularly well founded by the evidence provided