a_natural_beauty

I've meaning to share my social networking sites/apps for awhile. With news of how the former Twitter app is going it makes me feel the need to share all the more. More people have been jumping ship and swimming towards other social networking. Today I listened to NPR where they discussed how "X" has gotten the last few months and it wasn't a positive vibe I was getting...
I go through phases where I use them more than others. But I feel I can trust you all enough, so if any of you would like to add me on any of these - feel free :-)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessica.c.slaby

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_a_natural_beauty_/

Blue sky: https://bsky.app/profile/ladyjess.bsky.social

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/160712782-jessie

https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/lady_jess_87

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/miss-slaby

Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@Lady_Jess

Current Mood: sleepy

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

silver_chipmunk

Just followed you on Facebook (under my real name) and Bluesky (under silver chipmunk).

From:

a_natural_beauty

Okay, thank you! I will add you and follow you back :-)

From:

matt_zimmer

I have a Facebook account but I have literally never posted a single thing on it so it probably wouldn't help.

From:

a_natural_beauty

Oh no worries! ^^;;

From:

jasonderoga86

I'm not very active at all these days on social media, due to the heightened political tension that circles around it. I actually wasn't that much into it at all until a short while ago when some bad things went down in my community and I was concerned about my friends; things like our city mayor's impending recall after two years of an unfathomable violent crime and retail theft surge, two shooting incidents -- one during the 2024 graduation ceremony at my alma mater high school three blocks from my house, and another on Juneteenth (a mass shooting that injured fourteen people) at a famous lake near the community college where the eco-art gallery I debuted Sneakers' U-Force #1 to the public and was photographed and interviewed took place in 2010), and the sudden loss of a very close friend of mine in mid-July to a stroke and complications from Covid-19 brought me back to inform my friends of the state of the city I live in and also to bring together solidarity for the people who suffered in the aftermath of the shootings and for the friend I lost and their family. In fact, it was through social media that I found out about my late friend's son who had to enter 9th grade this year without his dad, and how his family had put up a donation page for his family's funeral expenses/financial support. Since I was unable to make it to the wake and celebration of life, I made it up to my friend's son with a $1,000 donation and a personal written "eulogy" addressed to my late friend's survived family. It was the first time in my life that I had lost such a close friend; the fact that Covid reportedly had a part to play in his passing made it especially hard, because at my former job we lost one of our brightest clients -- an artist and staunch advocate for those on the autistic spectrum -- had also suddenly passed away from Covid-19 earlier in mid-May.

It was also a time of immense grief and coming to terms with a repressed rage I'd been harboring for a long while -- knowing that Donald Trump was ultimately responsible for the damage Covid-19 wrought on America, on those grounds I charged him with not only the loss of two of my friends to the coronavirus, but for basically cursing America to have to live with it; America remains the one country in the whole world with an absolutely staggering Covid mortality rate: more than a half-million Americans died at the end of 2020, and the number is still climbing to this day, albeit at an obviously slower rate. All of this baggage really inflamed my already contemptuous views of Trump to a whole new level -- to see him becoming the GOP presidential nominee for the third time in a row in spite of all the horrors he unleashed on America as well as how he's terrorizing the country now... I often find myself wondering, Why couldn't Covid-19 have just crippled him so he couldn't finish his first term? It's not fair that he fully recovered from Covid and was able to do what he did during and after the election while other people are still getting sick and sometimes even dying, like my two friends! And now he's had two near-death experiences and he's still terrorizing the country like he doesn't have to learn gratitude for being spared twice? My God, this is a sick joke... Alas, the only thing I could do was to take solace that America finally seemed to grasp the gravity of his continued presence in politics and just how insane and demented Trump has become.

As for Twitter (I still don't call it "X" as it sounds really ridiculous), I totally get you there. I actually stopped using Twitter back in the Obama years out of a lack of interest; I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I sporadically used my account for about a month or two and just wasn't feeling it anymore. But one day I got a letter from the Southern Pew Research Center that highlighted the controversies surrounding Twitter when Elon Musk acquired it: the details of how Musk's Twitter quickly led to a stunning surge of hate speech and threats against nearly every minority group, accompanied with a map of America showing where hate groups using Twitter were busiest, made it abundantly clear to me that I made the right call by no longer using it back in the Obama years -- I had no idea that someone could turn a social media platform into a literal cesspool of hatred and promoting violence.

The final nail in the coffin? Last year, in late summer I believe, a male Jewish college graduate was targeted by Antisemite hate groups spinning a conspiracy about him somehow being a government agent seeking to vilify Neo-Nazis for some assumed "radical leftist" plan. When Elon Musk found out about it, he took the liberty to endorse that conspiracy theory. Shortly after, the Jewish grad started receiving several death threats from Neo-Nazis all around Twitter, to the point that for one day he and his mother had to leave their house and spend the night at a hotel out of fear for their safety. Obviously, the Jewish grad filed a lawsuit against Musk for his obvious role in fanning the flames of what was already an extremely dangerous conspiracy theory as well as personally endangering his life and that of his mother's, but I don't recall ever hearing about how that case turned out -- Musk had already denied having had any real role in the Jewish graduate's predicament, and knowing how stupidly wealthy Musk is, he probably suffered miniscule damages, if any at all. No sir, Twitter is as dangerous as ever; it's basically the new 4chan, run by someone who should NOT be the richest person in the world. All that wealth and power in the hands of someone as erratic and volatile as Elon Musk should alarm every government in the world: if he becomes too influential to international and geopolitical affairs, the consequences will be devastating -- ongoing wars, insurrections, attacking climate change measures... Elon Musk would stoke all of these and more just to satiate his appetite for global discord. It's VERY sick, what he's done and what he's now capable of.

From:

a_natural_beauty

That's very generous of you to help with your friend's passing. I'm sure they appreciated it and your kind words. :-)

As with everything, I can see how social media can be used for bad things like hate groups... but at the same time I can see how it can be used for good. I've found some very nice people in my stamp groups that I have been trading with for a few years who are helpful, friendly and often giving me extra stamps in with our trades. Also there are some other helpful groups I am a part of - plant related ones that can help you ID a plant or save it when it's sick. Also I'm a part of hearing loss groups and we help each other out with all sorts of things.
The other ones I use - Blue Sky, Mastodon and Tumblr are more for sharing my art and creative related posts. I feel like Twiter has become a dumpster fire to be honest. I had an account for a bit but got rid of it soon after Musk bought it.