beth (defunct)

I get that, sometime I write an heartfelt chost, and no reaction. It sucks. But I also try myself to not like every post someone make, because I don't want to feel obligated to like some things. For a site dedicated to avoid repeating the bad practices of other social media, I wonder why they let choster see that someone liked a chost they made.

On the flip side, I've found that posts one makes on cohost have a shelf life that can be measured with units bigger than minutes; I had a surprise response to a two month old post that was actually pretty insightful about what I posted. I like to think that I tag fairly liberally though, which helps.

It also might help to keep in mind that people are definitely reading what you're saying, especially if they're followers, even if they don't give any kind of flaggable reaction. I've had people refer to posts I made that they didn't necessarily like or share, not necessarily on cohost itself but on discord or something like that.

Basically, you might not be getting the dopamine lights your brain wants, but people wouldn't follow you if they weren't at least a little interested in what you have to say. It's not easy to take solace in an abstract, ephemeral influence that you can't predict the effect of, as opposed to a computer telling you that someone pushed a button. Influencer brain is real, and it's hard to shake it off, especially when all the propaganda out there is really damn good at making people think about other people as numbers instead of people.

(For the record, I got to this post via the #depression tag; kind of a weird thing to bookmark, I know, but I kinda like trying to help other people fight their depression demon if I think I can.)

Yeah… I’m trying to take the approach of “my weird little micro-essays are ok on their own, and I’m happy with them no matter what”. I tell myself that and feel better. 👍