social media

Tiktok may be the first electronic drug

Rather than see specificity and device limitations as an inconvenient hurdle to omnipresence, TikTok embeds itself within them—taking advantage of the fact that mobile technology limits how people engage with content and leaning into these constraints (e.g. the user only sees one video at a time and can only proceed linearly to the next video by swiping). This narrow focus enables a “flow state” to open up between the platform and spectator, as attention is entirely channeled to the content at hand.

Source: TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm—It’s Your Phone | WIRED

We’ve experienced this. Tiktok is extremely good at showing you things that will make your mind reach this “flow state” and then you’re just adrift in the current of swipes from one video to another, punctuated with brief stops to write a comment.

This can last for hours upon hours. We currently make it a point to check tiktok once or twice a day for fifteen, twenty minutes at a time. Catch up with the people we follow, check what drama is going on, what went viral, and then quit out of it.

Disabling notifications helps tremendously with this, as tiktok is a very pushy application when it comes to demanding your attention.

Tiktok may be the first electronic drug Read More »

Oh, instagram. Fuck you, by the way

I posted a screenshot a few days ago but… instagram did completely nuke my account. I didn’t post much but I did appreciate the people I talked with.

I guess I’ll create a new account using my fb account but I don’t expect to post on there much. Perhaps 1 post a month? I’m not willing to even attempt to be part of a community if the site will nuke and ban you for using third party clients.

Pictures will keep going to Flickr, as usual.

We need interoperability. I didn’t even get a chance to get my contacts out of there.

Oh, instagram. Fuck you, by the way Read More »

Why would I take LinkedIn seriously anyway?

Every platform has its royalty. On Instagram it’s influencers, foodies, and photographers. Twitter belongs to the founders, journalists, celebrities, and comedians. On LinkedIn, it’s hiring managers, recruiters, and business owners who hold power on the platform and have the ear of the people. The depravity of a platform where HR Managers are the rockstars speaks for itself.

Source: LinkedIn’s Alternate Universe – Divinations

My job listings on LinkedIn:

  • Get yelled at by customers
  • Drink coffee
  • ?????
  • Get yelled at by the boss
  • Boredom

This is a social network for HR and godinez types.

Why would I take LinkedIn seriously anyway? Read More »

Flickr, continued

A’ight so as I was typing before, Flickr has changed some things about how they do things after they got themselves bought by SmugMug. However, for our purposes the big change actually happened years and years ago, when Flickr officially deprecated the MetaWeblogAPI.

However, they did not disable it, as you can see on many posts on this here blargh site. What they did do is hide those URLs that are not longer supported, specifically this one:

Flickr: Your Blogs – https://www.flickr.com/blogs.gne

I’m putting that on it’s own line so it’s obvious where the hell you’re supposed to go. So once you’re on that page be aware you can remove links but you cannot add links. They also took away the ability to configure things on their end (like the size of images, the caption, that kind of shit).

Right now I’m thinking of letting it be since it doesn’t bother me too much, but I’m going to have to be on the lookout for a WP plugin that pulls photos in, as opposed to having Flickr push pictures onto here.

Flickr, continued Read More »

This is annoying: Swarm

I really dislike it when companies do things like this:

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Foursquare the application itself is on the open web, but it is now a shell of its former self after Foursquare the company spun out the check-in abilities into Swarm the app.

An app, not an application. An app that you have to install on your device through its respective app market. Someone sent me an invite to friend them on it but since I don’t have the app I can’t do anything with it. Trying to friend the person on foursquare is a no-go. The functionality doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s a bit sad, really, that they’ve resorted to these tactics to get you to download their app.

This is annoying: Swarm Read More »

Malware you willingly decide to put on your devices, for their benefit

Time passed, Free to Play became a thing. I went from company to company. Each time, every new project became less and less about how we can do cool things, and more about how we can track and target users to get the most whales possible, boost chart position and retain users to shove as many ads on them as possible.

Source: “We Own You” – Confessions of an Anonymous Free to Play Producer | TouchArcade

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