12 - we are becoming too intolerant
About two or so month since I wrote this post, I had since reactivated my FFXIV bluesky and returned to being active there somewhat, but more often than not I still find myself returning here, content with reading posts I happen to like in both the Trending and Discover pages. A part of me has held on to the idea that "if something is beneficial, it's worth giving it some thought".
The past two months or so, I'm realizing that the reason Bluesky stresses me out is because - much like so many fandom communities on any social media, actually - the FFXIV community in this particular social media site has not shaken off any of the bad habits that are so ingrained in them after being on sites like Twitter, Tumblr (or god forbid, Reddit) for so long. The vague posting and skirting around important issues such as racism and homophobia, catastrophizing and making huge noise out of small things that would have stayed obscure - like a shriveled up dying troll - if people actually decided to actually heed the advice of "don't feed the troll", the incessant policing of small and insignificant things like headcanons and shipping. These problems are absolutely not exclusive to only just FFXIV fandom; I've seen whispers of the same thing from other fandom and non-fandom communities in Bluesky's Discover feed from time to time, so it's not like this is a problem that's only unique to one community.
Which is exactly why this is so stressful after a while. It's not just one community. It's everywhere. If you've been studying (or even are an expert in) the prevalence of social media and how it affects us, you'd probably come across studies in recent years suggesting that social media as a whole IS designed to make you feel like shit. And if you've read the news about that one study that shows that X's algorithm is coded to try to shift your politics to lean right this week, it does point out something crucial: we're becoming a little too intolerant over time (and for X specifically, that shit is by design. Get off of X now or make the deliberate choice to spend less time on it while you still can).
I'm unfortunately sort of seeing this in real time while taking care of my mom to the point that I'm considering uninstalling Facebook and Tiktok off her phone to protect her. She will be turning 67 this year. Her Tiktok and Facebook reel feeds are full of good content about Islam, but increasingly it's beginning to show her short form videos about American politics and its relation to Israel that sound as if they're borderline conspiracy theories (even if they ARE anti-Trump and are anti-Israel). See, I wouldn't have that much of a problem if it wasn't for the fact that these reels are coming from right-wing accounts that are almost certainly antisemitic in nature (the kind of people that associate Israel to be representative of ALL Jews). Most recently my sister had gotten so upset with my mom because they had been arguing about vaccines again, because a reel just happened to play that was very much antivax - in front of my sister who's a healthcare worker at the same hospital my mom is currently undergoing cancer treatment in.
You probably think I look like the above image as you're reading this post, but to be honest I do feel like the way social media is designed and how that permeates into our interactions there, from politics and social issues all the way down to fandom interactions and normal every day stuff, are intricately linked. And I do understand that our collective exasperation of how intolerant we're becoming - whether we're just sick of seeing other people's bullshit, or we're the ones who realize we are becoming the bullshit we're sick of - is the main reason we're all breaking away from it and returning to create a space on the internet that is ours unequivocally.
It's been a constant in my own mind these days as I made the decision to turn off my XIVsky account again as part of my Ramadhan observations. It's not that I despise the game itself, and not that I don't treasure the overall community and friends I've made in the near six years since I started playing this game. I'm just realizing with much more clarity, after 2 or so decades of being in social media in one way or another, that I don't really want to mire myself in a bucket full of crabs, whether it's just FFXIV or any other social media "community" I'm in. I don't like logging in and wondering with so much anxiety that someone is going to vaguely post about something that sounds serious and you have to hunt down to even figure out what that was, leaving you exhausted. I don't like having to see one more Google document of a call-out post where it's 200 pages of bad communication and private shipping/character preferences only for the actual problem of racism and bigotry of the person being called out to only be on page 200, as a fucking footnote. I don't want to constantly see my sexuality, gender and relationship with my religion to be hotly debated and dehumanized by the most bad faith of "leftist" actors not even two days into the holy month of Ramadhan! What a exhausting existence to be!
I'd rather I have no eyes on me than be a jester on a public stage these days. Might be a mite impossible considering my work as an artist is somewhat dependent on social media... but I would like to eventually move away from that too. I think come the end of Ramadhan (or even sooner maybe, depending on how annoyed I will be about about it in the coming weeks), I'll migrate away from bluesky for my FFXIV posting altogether and permanently stay on my FFXIV blog, so I'm looking at options that will let people interact with my posts directly via comments or via e-mail (I've tried e-mailing pseudosingleton today about a really good post on the Trending tab about how de-googling their life has been super beneficial to them - that was really cool!). Maybe actually use my Ko-fi page to actually post things, like how a Patreon works, for my art. I already have a Discord to have my small communities in, but considering the news about Discord's age verification plans it will be a matter of time before me and my friends would eventually find another function like Discord to use for chatting and gaming together.
And my single prayer is that I hope, with or without the deliberate decision to move to a more peaceful, more independent space on the indie web, we will find it in ourselves to strive to be kinder and more thoughtful in an age where intolerance and anger is profitable and you're somehow the product.
Further reading:
Some articles and papers that might be something you'd be interested in reading, related to my post & my feelings about social media as a whole: