So forgive me if this is not a good idea, but if it would help to have a landing place to maintain people's connections over the next year or two, I would volunteer to run a life-raft discord for whomever would use it. All eggbug-appreciators welcome, and that way as people find other online spaces, they can share those links somewhere that people can see. That way, folks can keep in touch better with their smaller communities that were fostered here on Cohost.

Some of you are really cool! I'll try to follow you where I can!

BUT

But if you think I am an interesting person to keep in touch please catch me at either

• my itch (on my profile)
• discord .aekae
• mastodon @crabbitslater@sunny.garden

Cohost is the only place on the internet where I was able be myself and post just about anything I want, without feeling closed in by decades of internet baggage. Every interaction here was meaningful, and I learned way more from one random like or comment than I did from dozens of "viral" notifications elsewhere, and I felt like people who followed me were actually interested in what I said and did.

Even though this has probably been inevitable for a while. (The default end result for a new social media site is "Total failure". And what would have been this site's big notable financial moonshot had to be caveated with "America Only sorry! <3" long before it was finally canned.) It's still incredibly depressing to see it go. I had expected the site to circle the drain for a bit longer.

I'm not sure where I'll end up posting. I lost track of a lot of people I followed via the slow demise of Twitter. Additionally, I don't feel like I will be able to express myself or my work in the same way anywhere else.

I'd also like to mark this occasion by dabbling in the forbidden tags for their intended purpose: "Hating"

There's a small, but dedicated, cohort of pathetic and wretched villainy here. Whose main objection seemed to be that they had the tools to ruin Cohost for other people taken away from them.

In this case, it's refreshing to know that Cohost was doomed from the start. And that these people achieved nothing but their own misery. I wish them nothing but ill will.

Another great thing about Cohost is that (aside from the inexplicably huge preview window) it was pretty much the best site to just post something and share with other people elsewhere on the internet.