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  • I hate people. Full on misanthropy usually.

    But it's always been people that make the best things about social media.

    Like, back on reddit, the communities I was most active in had an actual sense of community. There were people that I even talked to away from reddit, if they were willing to put up with my grumpiness about only using very specific platforms (like matrix) to keep as much anonymity and distance as possible.

    Back during the brief era I used Facebook, there were people that took part in various groups that I still keep in contact with.

    Now, on lemmy, I've met a great person that is quickly becoming the kind of friend that makes me really think hard about my policy of maximizing anonymity. Just a truly awesome person that I hold in high esteem. I've also got lemmy friends, where we'll never likely talk elsewhere (and might not get along if we did), but I look forward to running across here. That's where the fediverse shines, it's still very community driven and people first.

    And that's the best thing about social media, when you ignore the bullshit, and remove corporate influence from it. Yeah, most people in the world are assholes, but once you get enough people in the same place, you're eventually going to run across the good ones. I've lost count of how often I've cried at the kindness and goodness of people, how much genuine, literal laughing out loud I've done, the people that didn't know how much I needed a kind word, and gave it just because that's how they roll.

    The threaded part of the fediverse is better for that than reddit was, and than branches like Mastodon, but even on Mastodon, the mutual support people give is such a refreshing thing to see.

    That's the shit right there. That's the tits, the bomb, and the real deal.

    Even when I run across the assholes, and have to put on my own asshole hat to deal with it, I know, I know that there's also good people out here.

  • A few years ago I mentioned on reddit that I had depression and didn't have much support. A really kind user started messaging me once a month checking in, it really meant a lot to me that this total stranger did this for zero benefit. It really helped me through a rough time

  • I don't know if streaming sites count, but watching Twitch livestreams helped me improve my English considerably. Which was a great boon for me both in personal life (connecting with communities that share my interests but are too niche in Ukraine) and work life (we often collaborate with teams in other countries and even a lot of internal communications are in English).

  • I look back pretty fondly to the days when we didn't call social media "social media" yet. Seemed a lot easier to make friends back then and it was a lot more uh, social. Although even in the early days of Facebook, I made some interesting friendships that started as poking battles. Looking back now, those days were fulfilling something in me that I didn't even realise.

    In the real world (especially fresh from school where you have to wear uniforms and boys have to have boy haircuts and girls have to have girl haircuts and everyone gets separated and categorised), I would always end up with male friends first. But my online self was making pretty much exclusively female friends. That other decades long friend I mentioned before was someone that I actually met in a chatroom on a South African app called Mxit lol. I honestly miss those days and a lot of the cool people that I was friends with for a while (GothMoth and isawred, if you ever happen to be here and scroll past this, hi it's me, Zaphod_Beeblebrox).

    And apart from longing for the "good old days", I'm gonna say that ever since I had certain awakenings and started questioning things, from starting out terrified of saying the wrong things or being seen as an imposter or invader, I have found the LGBTQ+ community to be 99% welcoming, open minded, warm and friendly people. From the few communities I interacted with on Reddit to here on Blåhaj. I've come across nothing but encouragement and acceptance. And it warms by cold black heart. So to everyone on Blåhaj, even though I haven't made personal friends with anyone, you rock and you're all my favourite people. And it makes me kinda sad that I took so long to get here.

    And one more positive that happened in recent times. You starting the Women's Stuff community. I was battling to enjoy Lemmy before that and you brought something that puts a smile on my face daily, even if I mostly just read and lurk. And your acceptance of non-binary people into the community means the world too. Small act, but it's something that brightened this confused individual that doesn't know where they belong's skies a little.

    Edit: actually just realised that the moment I stopped making online friends was the moment I ditched everything else for Reddit lol.

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