Sharks are cool and comfortable!


Elden Thing | Back & Body Hurts Platinugggggh Rewards Member


Profile pic and banner credits: sharkaeopteryx art by @superkiak! eggbug by eggbug! Mash-up by me!
[Alt-text for pfp: a cute sharkaeopteryx sat on the ground with legs out, wings down, jaw ajar, and hed empty, looking at eggbug and eggbug's enigmatic smile.]
[Alt-text for banner: a Spirit Halloween banner with eggbug and the sharkaeopteryx that Superkiak drew for me looking at it with inscrutable expressions]


I'm a Vietnamese cis woman born and currently living in the U.S. You may know me from Sandwich, from Twitter or Mastodon (same username), or on Twitch as Sharkaeopteryx. I do not have a Discord or Bluesky account.

Ask me about language learning/teaching, cooking/eating food, late diagnosis ADHD, and volunteer small business mentoring. Or don't, I'm not the boss of you.


I think people deserve to be young, make mistakes, and grow without being held to standards they don't know about yet and are still learning. So, if you are under 22, please don't try to strike up a friendship or get involved in discussions on my posts.


Please don't automatically assume I follow/know/co-sign someone just because I reposted something from them—sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Also, if you think being removed as a follower when we're not mutuals is a cardinal sin, please do not follow me.


🐘Mastodon
search for @sharksonaplane@mastodon.sandwich.net and hit follow if you want
Hang out with me on the Auldnoir forum! (you can DM there!)
discourse.auldnoir.org/
Follow me on Twitch
twitch.tv/sharkaeopteryx
Add my RSS feed (not working yet but I'll get to it!)
sharkaeopteryx.neocities.org/rss.xml

alyaza
@alyaza
This page's posts are visible only to users who are logged in.

alyaza
@alyaza
This page's posts are visible only to users who are logged in.

chimerror
@chimerror

This has been an issue in quite a few online lefty spaces I've been in, and for the bigger picture I am in no way able to say why it happens because I myself am usually pretty far from the particular pulse of black culture, online or off. (Not really by choice as much as being too tolerant of being the only black voice in a group...)


There are certain approaches to how discourse often happens online especially due to being driven by white people with the mindset of being for white people (this isn't done consciously always either). I think especially examination of if things are being made to reestablish your own personal comfort over the necessary acceptance of differing view points is probably the biggest thing I'd recommend for white people trying to counteract that, at least to get started.

But I am less interested in making myself seem like some expert that if you listen to me black people will see you're one of the good ones. Because that's very much not a thing I or any other black person can do. First I don't even know fully what set of actions would work here, and second it's not like I have a bunch of black people waiting for me to give the thumbs up that these honkies are ok. It just doesn't work like that even if I did.

About the only thing I can say is that I think it's very well possible that the lack of a sorting algorithm is part of why. The very feature that defines this site, as desirable as it is, is a cause.

When you are running an algorithm to serve ads, the race of the person is one such thing that they want to match on. So if they can figure out you're black they can start targeting you and feeding you other black people.

Here, the real "algorithm" is the social interactions between people and their followers. So any black content rather than being picked up and funnelled to other black people, must instead cross the vast seas of white people to reach the islands of other black people.

If black people on here are even doing "black content", versus similar content to everyone else. Just for me personally, I'm so limited on what I post here because I don't really want this to be a second daily journal or just repeat of what I post on the fediverse. And while I'm writing explicitly about my blackness in my game, it doesn't really come up in my dev posts when my current focus is getting a taffy-based skunk cognitohazard working.

But that isn't to say that I don't want there to be "black content", because quite the opposite I'm starved for confirming and contrasting how other black people deal with being in this demon cracker world. I just don't have much I want to say myself.

Sorry, I'm rambling but mainly because yeah, I do agree it's a problem and I'm similarly desirous to find solutions to it, and like all things the best I can do is give my piece.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @alyaza's post:

It does seem like the chronically recurring issue with every attempt at new social media platforms which nobody has found a solution to that isn’t really patronizing or tokenizing. The only thing that seems to consistently work is to just do mass paid advertising in as many places as possible.

in reply to @chimerror's post:

"But that isn't to say that I don't want there to be "black content'... I just don't have much I want to say myself."
And that's the hard part about creation, isn't it... The whole idea of "create what you want to see more of" is one I believe in and do try to apply to my own works when I can, but also it's a different experience compared to stumbling upon a poster/creative that speaks to you AND you can also relate to their racial/ethnic background!!
I think for me, once I started acknowledging my own identity/intersectionality and realizing "oh I have a unique or at least marginalized point of view, I should make something about it", it was followed by the immediate and debilitating fear that anything I make re: identity won't be relatable or insightful or even good. But then it's like... Am I making this for myself and people like me, or am I making this for general audiences which I know will be mostly English-speaking white 20-somethings?
Much to think about... I do love the topics of identity and representation and how it's represented, but it's such a broad topic that I tend to get off-track with it LOL... But like you said, it's more of giving personal insight on a situation, especially on a smaller site like this.

Yeah! I think one thing I have to keep reminding myself is that I do a lot of the stuff I do for art for me first and if it turns out it works for other people, it's a happy side-effect. (And one that's pretty much guaranteed...)

Like I legit keep getting that same "oh dang growing up essentially white gave me different view of whiteness and Blackness than a lot of people"

So even to hear others think it helps remind me! :3