Like most people, I've been flailing around on social networks these days. I used to be a Twitter ride or die, but turns out Twitter basically dies when an egotistical man baby buys it and burns it down along with $20 billion dollars in the process.

So as of early 2024, here's what I'm posting where, who it's generally for, and why I am posting there. For the purposes of this post, I'm casting a fairly wide net in terms of I consider social media. Your mileage may vary.

BeReal

Photos from the front and selfie camera at almost the same time with a caption once per day. For people I know IRL, and trust with seeing my kids, my home, and my location in the world at that exact moment.

Retro

One photo per day (sometimes more), old school Instagram style before filters. For people I trust, but not necessarily people I know IRL. Still sorting out where it fits exactly, but I like the focus on photos and how the past drops off your archive unless you give someone a key to see more.

Micro.blog Cross-Posting Monster

Mastodon / Micro.blog / Bluesky / Tumblr/ LinkedIn: Text and occasional photo which get cross-posted from Micro.blog. For anyone who wants to follow along, but it feels slightly more niche than Twitter or Threads in terms of potential reach or influence. This group feels more like a weird 5 headed monster that used to just be what I'd post on Twitter pre-2020.

Threads

Text, photos, and the occasional video. Same general vibe as above, with the full knowledge that anything I post there could be shown to a family member on Facebook.

Instagram

Photos and videos in posts or stories. I have a business profile that's public, and a personal account that's private. The personal account is for people I trust or think I know, but not necessarily people I know IRL. Business account is for #marketing in the laziest sense of the word.

Twitter

Text with the occasional photo / video. Used to be a public soapbox of sorts. These days apparently you can only see someone's pinned tweet if you're not logged in. I connect with a few local people, a sport (Go Winnipeg Jets!), and a dash of networking in the tech world. But most tech people have moved to Mastodon, Threads, or LinkedIn. I keep naively hoping it will return to it's former glory, but it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Buttondown

Text with a photo. An email newsletter I send out once a week to ~35 of my best friends on the entire internet 😉. You can join anytime by signing up.

YouTube

Video, duh. I have a lot of audio / video tutorials on here. I keep hoping I'm going to find my way back to posting more, but haven't yet. Generally I post for the "How do I do..." on a Mac or iOS device crowd, with a focus on podcasting and live streaming.

TikTok

Video, duh. Though they've been promoting "photo posts as a way to juice engagement" to me so who knows? I go through addictive phases of watching too much TikTok. I post stuff on there for fun and to make myself laugh. But 55% of the time I'm very close to deleting my account out of stupid embarrassment.

Twitch

Live video, duh. I've done the occasional live stream (and on YouTube), but I think in 2024 once my Covert Dock 2 arrives I'll use this channel to live stream my attempts at finally finishing Breath of the Wild.

Discord

Text, photos, videos. It's private forums for conversations and meme sharing among internet friends. I also use it with a few clients for back and forth instead of email. I'm mostly active in the ShopTalk Show d-d-d-d-d-discord, but also the Goodstuff one, along with a bunch of software servers I visit occasionally.

What Am I Doing?

On the one hand it's completely ridiculous that I spend time on any of these, but I do owe a lot of my initial work opportunities to being a silly guy on Twitter in it's early days. It's also my social water cooler as someone who works from home so I justify it in that sense as well.