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

kylelabriola
@kylelabriola

Cohost is shutting down.

It’s sad, because I really liked using it.

While my two years of using it were brief, they also happened to land at the moment where I needed it most. These two years have kind of been the crossroads of two different impulses pulling at me:

  1. The impulse to post, scroll, and be seen online
  2. The desire to want to pull back and retreat from social media, metrics, timelines, and algorithms

Not only do these two things contradict each other, like a terminally-online tug-of-war, but they were also both complicated for me personally over these two years.


I think it would be fair to call Cohost “one of my favorite online platforms”, especially if we’re considering the design and feature set. It fit really nicely into my routine.

On the other hand, I can’t say much about the community, personally. I don’t know anything about the staff, and I almost never surfed around the tags. I stuck mostly to my own little bubble, and only browsed the “gamedev” tag and “indie game” tag to find posts to signal-boost on my alt account, Indie Games of Cohost.

I’ve heard stories of arguments, targeted harassment, defensiveness, toxicity, racial bias, and white privilege expressed across the platform. I believe all of those things 100%. And while I have nearly endless sympathy for small development teams, it’s still frustrating to see failures in properly preventing people from being exposed to that on the site.

It sadly doesn’t surprise me. Not in the sense that “we should accept these things as inevitable when people talk online” but rather that it seems that nearly every attempt to make a social media platform has failed to build in the proper level of diversity of staffing, precaution, and moderation that would be necessary to prevent things like that from festering.

The next time someone attempts to make an online space like this, I hope that they’ll take note of those failures and do better. I wish everyone could have had the same positive experience that I had, even though that clearly didn’t come to pass for a lot of people.

As I said, the feature set and general design was very much up my alley. Cohost was pitched by many as “social media with less metrics”, and thus with more space to be yourself, act like yourself, and breathe. There are subtle differences that have a lot of impact: no “Likes” metric on posts, no “Followers” metric at all, no “Follows you” badge to know whether people were your mutuals or not.

It wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine. It had a lot of the convenience of a social media platform (optional comment sections, optional reblogs/shares, the ability to see everything displayed in a handy timeline you can scroll down) without a lot of the aspects that I’ve found detrimental to my focus, confidence, and mental health.

As a bonus, Cohost let you use CSS within your posts. This led to people (with better coding knowledge and patience than me) making some really creative posts that “broke the mold” of what you’d expect to see. It was refreshing because most online platforms have a pretty firm grip on what your “piece of content” is allowed to look like, aesthetically and structurally. There’s been a big drive to try to iron out what posts look like and make them consistent, such as having everything on a platform use the same font or be the same size. It was nice to have a place that didn’t play by those rules.

It was essentially more like a blogging platform, before LiveJournal and Tumblr became bloated with a bunch of more grabby features. It was a place for experimental and long-form posting, as opposed to the machine gun fire of sites like Twitter, TikTok, etc.

It also felt like, at least on my own personal timeline, that it was more about posting stuff than about reblogging an endless stream of stuff. Which is huge for me. There is something about the concept of the retweet/reblog/share that kind of opens the flood gates on most people, letting out an endless stream of “content” that is impossible to ever fully digest. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan. I like hearing from people individually, rather than always seeing posts passed along from strangers.

I think a large part of why these things appealed to me specifically is because of my shifting relationship with using the internet.

My impulse to post, scroll, and be seen online

I started posting on the internet when I was around 10 years old.

I went to message boards, webcomic hosting sites, and browser-based online RPGs.

After a few years of that, I found my way onto deviantArt. A few years after…Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. A few years after…Discord.

For better or worse, “posting” and “scrolling” became central to my identity. I word it that way not out of pride but mostly just to be blunt. If you’re a very indoor internet kind of person, you can probably relate.

When it comes to the question of “Why do I spend time online?”, there’s always been two strands of my DNA. One was built on socializing, being myself, and meeting new people to talk to. The other was built on creative hobbies like drawing, animating, and writing.

So, in a sense, posting and scrolling had always felt foundational to how I lived my life. It felt like a necessary part of connecting with others and discovering who I want to be. Likewise, it felt like a necessary part of expressing myself, learning to draw, learning to animate, learning to make games.

From a purely skill + career standpoint…posting and scrolling are directly responsible for me learning to draw, learning different image/video software, getting commission work, and getting jobs and opportunities.

So in that way, that impulse has been beneficial to me. That’s…probably true? Mostly.

But I have more reservations about it now than ever before.

I’m particularly unsure about the 10-year span stretching from 2010 to 2020, where I was most immersed in Twitter and Tumblr.

On one hand, I’m proud of what I did, directly as a result of my impulse to post and be seen.

  • I created a webcomic, Soul Symphony, that ran for 5 years and 450 pages, telling a story from beginning to end
  • From around 2015-2017 I was posting 4 or 5 new drawings to Tumblr per month, usually in full-color. My skills, confidence, and follower numbers were quickly climbing as a result of that consistency.
  • I ran a charity fanart zine that helped me connect with a bunch of really cool artists and helped raise money for clean water
  • Posting stuff to Twitter and Tumblr was kind of my creative outlet even outside of college (where I majored in Illustration and Animation) where I could truly do what I wanted to do without worrying about what professors would think
  • I made new friends and mutuals with different people who clicked with me

All of this was born out of a desire to get attention on the internet. It was driven by an engine of posting and scrolling. It was, for better or worse, driven by the fuel of social media metrics.

As proud as I am of those things, and as much as I know they made me who I am…there is a voice in the back of my head.

“What would life had been like if you’d logged off more?”

That’s probably dramatic, but it’s something I wonder. Would things had been any different if I had played outside with the neighbors more? Or stayed after school more? Or joined clubs in college?

Maybe I could’ve made different connections, or learned different things. Maybe I’d be better at making friends and keeping them. Or maybe my motivation to be creative simply for creativity’s sake, as opposed to getting obsessed with online metrics, would’ve lasted a few years longer.

Maybe I wouldn’t have burnt out.

Even as I get older and think more about "hanging out with people IRL" as the solution for all of these thoughts...the pandemic came along and made that complicated. It's hard to feel confident and safe going to a local board game shop to learn a TCG, or throw a bunch of get-togethers, when COVID hangs over it all as a potential outcome.

It’s sad, almost funny, to see my pattern of art-posting since the pandemic started. Every time I’d sign up for a new platform (restarting on deviantart, or Misskey, artfol, Bluesky, other platforms I’m probably forgetting, even Cohost itself) I’d do the same thing. I’d start posting some of my favorite drawings, to help get myself set up and see if people would start following. Inevitably, these favorite drawings would be from like 2016-2019, what felt like my “heyday” of constantly growing and experimenting. I’d throw them out into the void, get a few Likes, get a few followers, and then…I’d just feel empty.

For lack of a better phrase, my mind had become too poisoned by the metrics over time. I had slacked off on actually drawing, for its own fun and for improving. I kept hoping that by porting my archive of old art over, it would bring in a flood of followers and reignite my passion for drawing.

It hasn’t really worked.

I’ve been burnt out on drawing, and short dopamine boosts from online strangers has barely put a dent in bringing me back. If anything, the experience of just sending my PNGs to a couple of personal friends and them responding with “cool!” has been more motivating.

If you’ve ever had interest or experience in being a freelancer artist online, you’ve probably internalized a lot of rules for posting.

  1. Post consistently and often
  2. Re-post and bump your post a few times so that people see it in different timezones
  3. Write good captions on your pieces that capture your persona or encourage people to share or comment below
  4. Be smart about tagging
  5. Jump on trends, draw fanart of popular franchises, do memes
  6. Build up your follower count, and then try to see if you convert any of those followers into commissions, merch sales, or Patreon subs

There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing any of those things. But they definitely don’t have any correlation with “getting better at the craft” or “enjoying yourself and fulfilling yourself.” They’re a necessary social-media strategy. It’s tips on running a business.

Though if I’m being honest…there WAS something fun about being in the thick of it.

There was something energizing and electric about pumping out fanart and shotgun-blasting my work onto social media. There was something satisfying about getting commission requests. I think a big part of it was also that I ENJOYED using Tumblr and Twitter at this time. Yeah it was annoying sometimes, and yeah there was weird people on there sometimes, and yeah you had to kind of dodge through “weird discourse” and “overwhelming re-iteration of US politics” and all sorts of stuff, but the thrill on being on there and being a part of it all was fun and intoxicating.

I kind of miss those days.

But I don’t know whether I have the stomach or interest for all of that anymore.

The desire to retreat from social media

As I get older, social media is starting to taste a little weird.

It just doesn’t taste right anymore.

It doesn’t feel “fun” and “exciting.” If anything, it’s like getting a jolt of energy and attention. It’s like hooking myself up to a validation machine, or a convenient way to scroll through endless distraction.

I don’t know if it’s because social media changed, or if it’s because I’ve changed. Maybe this was the reality all along, and the people who stayed off social media from 2010 onwards were the smart ones. Maybe it’s all fine and I’m just too grumpy and sensitive now. Who knows.

Regardless of the reason, there’s a flashing light in my brain that goes off every time I find myself scrolling one of the major platforms. It’s telling me “get out of here, get out of here, this isn’t a good use of your time and energy, this might be bad for you.”

By losing my interest in major platforms like Twitter and Tumblr, it has also changed my style of posting. And by changing my style of posting, I’ve also changed what I get out of the internet and what I use it for.

Which has meant a sharp decline in me sharing art and a sharp decline in me drawing, period.

During my time on Cohost (and starting this blog), I’ve made a pivot towards writing as my outlet. It’s been a nice change of pace compared to drawing, animating, or making comics. Because of the souring taste of Twitter, I’ve also gravitated more towards long-form writing instead of little thoughts shot into the timeline.

That’s been fun, though it also comes hand-in-hand with an expectation that “less people are going to take the time to read this.” It provides less boosts to my ego and motivation, which is hard to adjust to. But on the flip-side, there are benefits. By being longer and slightly less convenient to stumble on, it kind of guarantees that anyone who took the time to read the whole post really digested and gave you benefit of the doubt.

I think that difference is worth keeping in mind, when putting stuff online. There’s a big trade-off between “This is easy for people to discover, comment on, and share” and “This is more off the beaten path, but the people who do look at it will maybe appreciate it or give it more thought.”

I’m at the risk of repeating myself, as I’ve already written my thoughts on the importance of solitude, minimizing distracting technology in my day-to-day, and being mindful of my time and decisions. I want to reform my habits, and go touch grass, so that my time online feels more enriching and interesting rather than the sludge between every idle minute.

All of that to say is that Cohost was a fitting transition period for me, as I’ve been more mindful of online platforms and how they affect me. Cohost gave me something between my previous 10-year phase (hooked straight into Twitter and Tumblr on a daily basis) and wherever I go next (reading blogs via RSS feed, browsing Neocities and Nekoweb, and continuing my blog site.)

I always feel like I'm rambling and sounding crazy, because I'm way too online for the offline normal folks, and I'm way too anti-social media for the folks who are super online. That said, I've noticed something surprising after it was announced that Cohost was being shut down. While some people on my timeline are linking to places where you can follow them next (like Bluesky or Mastodon), I've also seen a number of people who are like..."I'm not sure if there's going to be a place where you can follow me going forward. I'm not sure if I'm interested in trying ANY social media again. I may make a blog or a personal site, but if I don't...I just won't be online in the same way anymore."

Never before, when I've seen posts of people saying they're leaving an online platform, have I seen so many people say that there might not be a fitting place to jump to anymore. This might just be the end of the road for posting and scrolling for them.


It goes without saying that the sites and apps we use help shape our habits.

I used to dutifully check message boards each day after school at a desktop computer. Eventually I got into a habit of posting drawings onto deviantArt, and checking for new drawings from the people I liked following one-by-one. The web was something to sort of dive into, a place to explore and express myself and discover something interesting.

After Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr came along…a lot of our habits changed. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. It changed our capacity to find and connect with other people, at the cost of encouraging constant scrolling and constant posting. As much as I hate the companies that create those platforms, it’s also on us to reflect on these changes and talk about them, and be responsible for our own behavior.

Every site and app has the potential to shape our behavior and our expectations. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. 

For me, my impulse to want to scroll and post over and over is something within me. It’s not tied to any particular site or platform, it was there all along. It’s something I have to get over, or find a way to control so that it doesn’t control me.

The idea of not posting, not scrolling, not being seen online constantly…it feels like oblivion to me. It feels like a loss of identity and purpose and…existence? It’s like a tree falling in the middle of the woods with no one around to hear it. Does it matter if I’m an “artist” if nobody sees it and acknowledges it? Posting is a desperate way to reaffirm that I exist, you exist, we see each other.

That doesn’t need to be a fact of life, it’s just a quirk of my own perception. Something that I need to reflect on, and pick apart.

I hope on whatever sites we end up on next…I’ll feel seen, and you’ll feel seen too. Even if our metrics stop being in the “hundreds”, and drop down to being in the “severals.”

You can find this post and many more like it on my blog. Feel free to bookmark or subscribe via RSS. It's been fun, Cohost.


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in reply to @kylelabriola's post:

Thanks for the thoughtful reflections. A lot of it resonates with me. I grew up on message boards. I was obsessed with videogames as an art form, and no one irl thought about them like I did. So I found my community online.

Thankfully I haven’t had the kind of career that necessitated a social media presence, but.. I’ve been there. I was puttering around on twitter since 2007, reddit since 2009. Shitposting and discoursing and all that jazz.

Recently I got a bunch of followers here, and it brought back a lot of the old adrenaline and anxiety from my forum days. The excitement of attention, the fear of being misinterpreted or coming off like an asshole.

There’s a project to launch a post-cohost message board. It’s got decent momentum. Over 100 members. I guess there’s a lot of folks like me who think there was something special about the structure of the traditional web forum, the kind of community that can arise there. In theory it should excite me.

But.. I dunno if that’s what I really want anymore. Another website to check all day every day whenever I have an idle minute? Another place where I can labor over a post for hours, fine-tune and draft and then do more edits after hitting submit? There’s only so much time in the day.

My irl friends seem to be on an events & parties wavelength. They’re experimenting with different kinds of shindigs they can host in their homes. I think that’s where I’d rather put my energy. Into building irl community.

Thank you for the thoughtful response!

Yeah, I always need to remind myself that the biggest boon of the internet is "My interests are XYZ...and I can't find a single person in my family, school, or town who feels that way too." It was a game-changer!

I'm dipping my toe into some message boards lately but yeah it's definitely not going to change my life or anything. Like you said, the attitude and life-balance you have with checking the message board and obsessing over posts still kind of determines everything.

I think you have the right idea! I would trade away every social media account in exchange for having the type of "weekly friend hang-outs" that I see in TV shows.

god so all the ppl being like “lmao catch me nowhere!! bye bitches!!” isn’t just me, it really is pervasive here i think, which is fascinating. i’ve just sketched out most of my own farewell post before going down and reading this and yeah there are some similar conclusions reached here i feel. it sounds like we’ve had similar online journeys, right down to at what point in our lives we used which websites, so this was an interesting read for me in that respect.

one thing this has helped me enunciate is like. i’ve never been able to settle down into a specific community long‐term, i’ve always been more free‐floating. so i think i just tend to prefer one‐on‐one interactions than large group settings. (is this what people really mean by “extrovert” and “introvert”, i wonder…) Discord servers and message boards have never really been my thing as such. but cohost’s comments were great for starting conversations or even just small funny exchanges. i guess people tried to make the large group settings work here with “global feed” tags and such? but that’s always felt very “round peg and square hole” to me here. i suppose the features and modes of propagation on a social media site end up determining what type of interactions it promotes or best facilitates, and that cohost had a more “personable” slant to it as such. which was neat! i’d say this had a bigger impact on cohost being like, the “anti‐tiktok” than a lack of numbers. but there are also other design decisions i didn’t like so much. hm i’ll have to better organize these thoughts into my blog posts later. there’s another one i want to do about cohost’s design and features which this tangent has started diving into.