MAKING TRUTH IRRESISTIBLE

The Future of Online Community

Hermit cards from the Smith deck, the Rider Wait and a Muppet version

Despair is a land we move through. We should not be building any buildings there. —Akaya Windwood in conversation with Rebecca Solnit

In this Missive:

• Thoughts on moving through despair & making truth irresistible

• An Invitation to the Outlier Hour on Feb. 1st—an online meeting with hopeful prompts & safe space for talking about our online communities in flux.

• Practical tips for making your online life less oppressive

• A Mastodon primer

June Jordan once said her function as a poet was to make revolution irresistible. Well OK, that is the function of us all, as creative artists: to make the truth irresistible. —Audre Lorde

We are at a crossroads. Our online spaces are changing whether we stay on big socials or not. I am interested in building and fostering better places online—places that are irresistible, where truth can flourish. I’ve realised recently that I can’t do this while also showing up at the old places, despite the community there wanting me to keep feeding that machine.

Our dilemma is real. For me, every professional contact I have operates on IG. (And X, but I have deleted that account.) Others have families, friends and audiences they have built over 15+ years. Some may be able to leave all at once, but for others, this disengagement will be gradual.

This change at Meta is not sudden, though it might feel like it. Everything feels sudden these days—part of the psyops shock-and-awe—a strategy employed by despots.

My last post about lifeboats off big socials touched a nerve. There was fruitful discussion—but a backlash of defensiveness. I am not proposing a boycott. Using Meta products isn’t a purity test. Staying or going is not a moral stance.

Many of us were already uncomfortable with or perpetually drained by these platforms. Those of us feeling the most pressure are usually creatives driven to promote our work so that we can survive financially.

Meta and X are giving disinformation and hate speech a permanent place in our shared spaces. Big socials are mining our connections, not just for marketing but for the dissemination of hate, the erosion of human rights and the criminalisation of healthcare for women and trans folks. [Let me be clear about what I mean below: a trigger warning for anyone not wanting to read about abortion bans in the USA.*]

‘There’s something to say about those places we are not.’ —Liz Ogbu in conversation with Rebecca Solnit on Blue Monday

This change at Meta is not sudden, though it might feel like it. Everything feels sudden these days—part of a psyops shock-and-awe strategy of despots. This hostile shift hits us where we live. The power men like Zuckerberg and Musk have been given over our lives and the mediation of our relationships is immense.

Many of our friends, allies and chosen family have already been driven out, and more will leave. This shift at Meta is another kind of gentrification. Some of us pay higher ‘rent’ to Meta—artists, writers and other creatives pay in ideas and skills we have mastered over decades. This unpaid ‘content’ is now fed to AI behemoths that devour it and spit out again.

If we are only looking at what will please the algorithm rather than what is true, we are reduced to selfies and cynical, reactive hot-takes. Sometimes, if we really need to be seen on the platform, we pay in with images of our faces and bodies. The cost can be high in other ways: some have endured cyberbullying, censorship, unwanted attention, and cyberstalking on Meta platforms. This is about to get much worse for the most vulnerable in our communities.

Some of us have had to leave communities/families/institutions in order to survive. Gentrification, hostile environment and abuse have forced us to make a choice. Sometimes I feel I’m being driven out, just like I was by these inchoate tech bros in San Francisco in the early 90s. The thing is, I took that love of place with me. I am the embodiment of SF circa 1989. (That is the subject for another post. In the parlance of our times, IYKYK.) In other places like Long Beach, California and London, I hung on a bit longer and brought that love with me. Did I love my community on Meta products? Yes. But I don’t know if I can’t take it with me. I don’t know if that love is portable.

Closing the laptop is also an option. The Hermit from the Modern Witch Tarot

In a discussion around the changes at Meta, Angela Maria Spring offered some wise words. (Watch out for Angela’s poetry collection coming out from FlowerSong in the near future)

“It’s Hermit year and I think we need to begin thinking smaller again. Like hermit crabs finding new little shells and seeking our immediate communities. This newsletter is one of those immediate communities we’ve chosen. We can interact with you within your boundaries and still information and resource share. In fact, the less time we dedicate to mindless scrolling, the more time we have to attend each other. The idea that we must reach AS MANY people as possible is dangerous on multiple levels. It makes the reaching of even one person less meaningful…Our attention one of the most valuable things we possess in this broken system, let’s take it back.”

The Hermit from the Mesquite Tarot

Angela reminded me that in the Major Arcana tarot cycle, this year corresponds to The Hermit. The Hermit from the Mesquite tarot, above, is my favourite Hermit card. The star inside the lantern on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot card becomes the very essence of The Hermit. This star-in-a-jar is tiny; its confinement is also a healthy delineation of boundaries. A bright seed illuminates a makeshift lantern.

This star-in-a-jar year welcomes the return of sub-culture. It abandons the metrics of follower counts in favour of authentic connection and reciprocity. It feels small but is irresistibly true, and bright.

Our transitions to other online spaces will take tinkering, trial and error and patience. I think about my first computer in the early 90s. Artist Glen Kaino helped me set it up. He made it seem like we were making mud pies, as if nothing could go wrong. When I was up and running, I got copies of Geek Girl zine, which took the same attitude towards tech. (This zine from the 90s is archived at the Wayback Machine).

Let’s share other ways of doing things. I want to help build something else. I’m not running away or reacting out of fear but phasing out big social as I make something better. Those of us that have had enough, let’s go, and nurture the spaces that hold us well. Let’s create them if they don’t exist yet.

Those of us that remain on big socials must question our habitual passivity in the face of what’s coming or perhaps already here—the exploitation of our most vulnerable friends, family and allies. Some have told me they will subvert or redeem Meta or X from working on the inside.

Audre Lorde, from her speech addressing a women’s conference in 1984:

“For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.

Is Meta/X our only source of support? How does it taste to say these Lorde’s words, standing where we find ourselves?

Our reality counters to the hellscape foisted on us, but we must maintain the connections and keep telling the stories that make it real. The rebellion will start with the discovery of new tools, with astonishment, wonder, and showing up for each other.

“The future belongs to those who combine critical thinking with creative building and skeptical analysis with hopeful action.” —Joan Westenberg

We need to be talking amongst ourselves and building our stories. —Charlie Jane Anders

OUTLIER HOUR INVITE

In this time of crisis for our online communities, I’m hosting an Outlier Hour online for all my subscribers. There will be writing prompts to boost our imaginative powers, and I will hold space for us to air our hopes, dreams and fears about the state of our online connections. Come as you are. You can keep your camera off if you need to. Bring paper, something to write with and a candle to light.

Feb 1st, 7pm GMT

Find your time zone here

Here is the Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82115119543?pwd=a93hzQ9X5AydFNkCI7hsoOigMXs5jF.1

Please RSVP if you plan to attend by commenting below or emailing contact.allysonshaw@gmail.com if you haven’t already.

Some Tools to Make Your Online Life Less Oppressive

Turn of AI in Gmail & Web Search:

I use Gmail, so my emails are mined for AI. I never liked the ‘tab’ sorting, so I have found a way to turn this off as well as turn off AI crawling. (It also turns off filing newsletters like this one as ‘promotions’. All emails will be in your inbox.) Here are step by step instructions.

AI Free Google search is a revelation!

Use this URL work-around to see how much information is available when not filtered through AI. https://udm14.com/

Other Online Communities not tied to Meta or Venture Capital:

These are online communities I use regularly and can recommend. There are many others like Ampwall (alternative to bandcamp), Ghost (alternative to Substack) and Pixelfed (not really a replacement for IG, but being touted as such). Do you use any others you recommend?

• I LOVE Mastodon (see easy steps to getting started below). This is my profile on Mastodon.

• Bookwyrm, an alternative to Amazon-owned Goodreads. This is my profile on Bookwyrm

• Signal is an alterative to WhatsApp (What’s App is owned by Meta)

How to MASTODON in 8 easy steps.

Mastodon is a user-supported social media network. It is free to use and is also AD FREE. (Some users donate to the people hosting their servers, but this is optional). Mastodon has a chronological timeline, no algorithm, and allows for infinite customisation. It is not tied to venture capital in the same way as Bluesky. Already there? Share your profile in the comments.

1. Watch Mastodon explained in 180 seconds.

2. Find an instance to join. It’s the place that hosts your account, and usually you can talk to all other accounts on the Fediverse (though many instances block fascist instances like Truth Social, etc.) My instance, Wandering.shop, is invite-only. Beige.party is a super cool instance with good folks on it and requires no invitation. You can find other instances based on your interests or geographical location. (Your instance will have a ‘local’ feed where you can see what everyone on your server is posting—like a community within a community).

3. Populate your bio with a picture (include alt text for it in your bio). Say a bit about who you are and what you are into.

4. First Post—make it an introduction with as many hashtags as you can think of that explain your interests or communities you’d like to connect with. Like #knitting, #Tarot, #WritingCommunity, etc. Pin this post to your timeline so it’s the first thing people see.

5. Follow hashtags to find your peeps—search for your favourite hashtags in the search bar, and click ‘follow hashtag’—this will populate your feed with cool stuff while you find your people. I enjoy following #Mosstodon, #Tarot and #StandingStoneSunday as well as #Caturday.

6. Have friends/chosen fam or favourite accounts? Tag the ‘bell’ next to someone’s name on their profile and their posts will appear in your notifications so you’ll never miss them.

7. You can use Mastodon on your desktop or phone. Download the Mastodon App for free, or the Metatext app. Both work great.

8. Retoot (share on your timeline using the little arrows-square at the bottom of a post in your timeline) anything you think is cool or interesting. That’s what keeps Mastodon humming along—people sharing others’ work.

And a few more tips:

—Block with abandon! Don’t like someone’s ooky vibe? Some stranger’s adversarial tone? That random reply guy lurking around? BLOCK THEM and cackle with glee.

—Check out some other tips.

—Follow blogs and Bluesky accounts via your Mastodon timeline with RSS Parrot.

—Check out Meljoann’s guide to deleting Meta and joining the Fediverse!

Something to dance to while you untangle yourself from Big Social

We have a theme song. (Thanks, @Meljoann!)

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*One ‘breaking point’ for me was hearing last year that legislators in South Carolina have introduced a bill which would criminalise abortion as murder. If a woman were convicted, she would face the 30 years without parole or the death sentence in that state. In the past FB has handed over ‘private’ chats between family members as evidence. This is not looking good. After having spent seven years with the words of women about to be executed for an invented crime, I had to really think hard about where I wanted to be.