Usually, my own thoughts are the only ones that matter to me. The exception is the rare occasion when I actually create a post or comment asking a question. That’s when I want to know about what you think. Otherwise, buzz off.
Yeah, it’s very similar, but at home in the US I can think of a few situations where it might be ok to say it looks bad from my personal life.
It’s not really transactional. It’s just a situation where you got left out of the birthday and happened to go out to the same place where the birthday is being celebrated. However, it’s interesting to note that there is no such thing as a surprise birthday party. The birthday boy or girl is the one that throws the party because of the reciprocity aspect. You wouldn’t be caught dead attending a birthday without a present for the person whose birthday it is. You also wouldn’t be caught dead letting people bring you birthday presents AND buying you dinner. It’s more like “tit for tat” than “transactional.”
In the USA, the birthday thing is the best thing about the USA. It’s all about being selfless (I’m American btw, been living in Spain for so long I’m a citizen) and it’s actually something that creates conflict in interpersonal relationships between natives of Spain and the friends they make that are not from here. It is a huge drama that somebody needs to make a documentary film about now. This birthday thing has no age. It could be a 20th birthday or a 100th birthday. You ain’t invited, you didn’t know, you didn’t bring the presents, you just keep to yourself in the public venue. It’s harsh. It’s harsh because you were excluded and you don’t care, because you’re American, you just want to be nice and wish them a happy birthday. Spanish people are all nope on that shit. It’s all about the presents and who bought you the drinks and food.
It’s more like after they bought the new clothes. Like, your friend bought new clothes and wants to show you what they bought. It could be a friend, a brother, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, anybody. While shopping for clothes, before they buy the clothes, is the right time to criticize. It’s perfectly acceptable, and desired, to be out shopping and trying on clothes before buying them, to say whatever you like. “That makes your ass look huge, don’t buy that!” is desired, not discouraged. Never trust the salesperson. The employee of the store is going to tell you it all looks good so you buy it, even if it looks bad. They even try to sell you more crap, saying things go together when they don’t. I’m talking about after they bought the clothes and they’re showing you what they bought because you’re their friend or relative or whatever.
Just misunderstanding social cues. Where I live (Spain), there’s a script you’re supposed to follow for certain things and newcomers, understandably, don’t understand the script. One famous example is buying new clothes. They all look great on. The idea here is that the poor person spent their hard-earned money on the new clothes. Damned right they look great on! Another would be birthdays celebrated in public venues. Perhaps someone you know is celebrating their birthday in a public venue and you had no idea they were celebrating their birthday on that day. You walk up to them and wish them a happy birthday, BUT you were not invited to this celebration. Since you weren’t invited you did not come prepared with a present for the birthday person. The safe thing to do is to ignore, socialize with the people you came with, and make like that person isn’t even there until they approach YOU. When and if they approach you, you make pretend you’re all distracted and you have to be like, “Ahhh! I didn’t see you! What’s up?” The reason: that person is buying all the invitees the drinks and food. In exchange, the invitees have brought presents. It’s a very nuanced and weird situation all of us have encountered. We err on the fear of not having brought a present because we had no idea because we were not invited.
The fact that he did not want to buy it for the price he had to buy it for is enough for me to conclude that he doesn’t give two shits about it. The ones he bought it from don’t give two shits, either. It’s just money. For Musk, money lost. For the former owners of Twitter, money gained. The rest is just blah blah blah to them. This is not so for the users of Twitter. It means much more to them socially than it does to the people who bought it and sold it. This, for me, is fascinating as a social phenomenon. Fascinatingly sad in a lot of ways.
He didn’t want to buy the company. So, he’s turning it into a pet project. The end. The oxymoron here of this story: The winners of the 44 billion Musk payed for it probably don’t care that their creation is being run into the ground while the users of the platform are obviously in an uproar. In the end, the creators and founders, etc. did it for the money, not the cultural impact they would have on the world. Twitter’s former CEO has allowed himself to be interviewed from time to time to say what he thinks Musk is doing wrong, but he doesn’t seem to have any hurt feelings or express any kind of extreme regrets for the company being sold. From what I’ve seen in the news, he’s pretty dry. The drama comes from the user end. This tells me something about how, in the end, it’s just rich people doing business and doing as they please with what they please. It’s kind of sad. Like, let’s say I made something really cool with my own two hands and my creation got turned into something monstrous. I’d be upset. The people who made twitter are happy with their riches. In the end, the outrage and scandal is kind of pointless because it’s just a thing that makes more money for big business rich tech people and it always was just that.
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A lot of them also restrict content. There are disadvantages to joining smaller instances, depending on the philosophy of the person who runs the instance. There’s even an instance that does not allow communities to be created on its own instance. It will accept applications from people who wish to create one, but they mostly reject applications on their own whim. I think the future of Lemmy as a Reddit alternative will rely on larger, freer instances to be supported well so they have room for growth and change. I have my personal preferences. I don’t want content from exploding-heads, but I also want to see the content I want to see. Some smaller instances are restricting that content, almost seeming to be like cults in the making. There are small instances from which it is impossible to find and subscribe to communities from lemmy.world. You have to search for them on a larger instance, then copy and paste in the address bar in your browser. I imagine on a dedicated phone app that would not be possible. So, you can advocate for “spreading out” all you want. In the end, if the goal is to have a strong alternative to Reddit, spreading out is kind of pointless for a lot of users.
I’m almost 48. My profession: foreign languages and literature. I have had a computer since I was 7 years old. I know how to use Linux and I have played video games all my life. I know a little code. I’m good with computers. A lot of people my age in my profession are not all that good with computers. They think they are because they can make a PowerPoint presentation or took a class on how to use a spread sheet as a grade book. So, I don’t know, I don’t think everyone on here are older tech nerds, so it’s not exclusive to them. They could be the majority, though. Am I a nerd? Yes. But a different type of nerd. I speak three languages and read six. I can diagram a sentence and correct peoples’ grammar and vocabulary in my sleep. I know all about literature from the 16th and 17th centuries. I play video games and I like technology enough, but it does not consume my life. Are there lots of people on here like me? I don’t know. I DO know that I’ve interacted with a lot of younger people on here. To understand how to use this new type of social media you have to understand technology pretty well. It isn’t for people who just want to tap or click on stuff that “just works.” You need a basic understanding of how decentralized social networks function to be able to navigate it and you have to have patience with things that might slow down or do strange things every once in a while. There are lots of people my age that would not have the patience to learn how to use this space on the internet. In a lot of ways, they are very similar to the stereotypes of “average twenty-somethings” I’ve seen mentioned in this thread. No worries about privacy. In some cases, perfectly happy with their privacy being invaded because they want to see ads related to products they would buy. I also enjoy shopping. It’s fun. I don’t like ads, though.
It’s just the way federations work. I think a lot of people are worried because it’s a new type of social media with a different structure. You don’t have to rely on one place anymore to socialize online, you can pick and choose what you want to connect to. If you don’t like one style, you can pick another style. The thing that worries me is whether or not there different styles will continue to exist or if one entity will monopolize everything. The nice thing is that most modern democratic countries have laws about monopolies and they do in fact work. Several monopolies have been avoided or eliminated in the past.
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Yeah, exactly. I don’t have Facebook, Instagram, etc. because I hate them as an online experience. I’m here because it’s not that kind of experience. If the fediverse turns into the type of experience meta imposes on its users, I would just have to hope that something else alternative that I like pops up.
I think defederating from them is a no-brainer for the fediverse, but who am I? Just a user of the fediverse. I do not own an instance. I choose the fediverse over meta and its facebook crap, so for me it’s a no-brainer. For owners of instances, maybe it isn’t such an easy decision. It costs money to run an instance, for example. Federating with the Facebook corporate goons at first will seem useful to some instances, especially the big ones that want to stay big and general. When the big and general ones that fall for Meta’s scheme to take control of things, the smaller instances on the fediverse that chose to defederate will be there to join.
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Exactly. This is why federation is cool. The individual can choose where to go. Oh, kbin and lemmy.world, you didn’t defederate from the corporate shills? OK then, I shall defederate myself from you. Plenty of instances.
I really think it would be a great movie plot. Could even be a slasher film.