Been over putzing around on Mastodon (the new social network thingie) that everyone seems to be abandoning Twitter for. I dunno, I haven't been on Twitter since BackWhen. In any case, I got curious.
So, I'm on the "https://mastodon.social" instance, which seems to be the on-ramp for Mastodon in general which, by default becomes everyone's home, although there are a TON of instances more narrowly tailored to various interests.
After looking around for a bit and getting settled in, I actually signed up for an account ("@a_dust@mastodon.social, for those of you who know what that is) and even set up an introduction "Toot" (which is what they call Mastodon messaging instead of "Tweets" -- too precious for words).
My intro paragraph:
"Mostly just hanging out watching the cavalcade of white liberal guilt continuing to morph through an increasingly dense, complex, and nonsensical thicket of CWs, hyper-sensitivity, self-hatred, and virtue-signalling, woker-than-thou weirdness."
(A "CW", for those of you playing at home, is "Content Warning" which they slather around any time they post something that might be triggering or some goofy crap. For example, true believers echew the #TwitterRefugee tag bceause it might offend people who've lived through the REAL refugee experience. I use #FuckingMorons a lot.)
It's like an even more "woke" version of Portlandia.
However, scientists and artists and writers are posting stuff in there that's worth seeing, as is @maria_drutska and some others posting from the battle front and living in the ruins of Kviv.
From her I learned the terms "vatnik" (propaganda whores who think every word from Putin's mouth is golden) and "Orcs", whom we all know from the Ring series as the cruel, sadistic, black-hearted, vicious, barely-humanoid animals of Mordor, or in the present case, Russian troops.
So far as I can tell from interviews and whatnot I've seen, even villagers who've been subject to the destruction, occupation, theft, pillage, rape, and murder that happens wholesale everywhere the Russians go call them "Orcs". One perfectly nice old lady talked about how troops stopped her, told her they were out of vehicles and they were taking hers, dragged her out of her "Lada" and beat her (they were in a hurry so didn't bother with the rape), then drove off. She found it about 1/4 mile away. It had been hit by some exploding object, was upside down, burned out, and with "four dead Orcs" in it.
She said with considerable satisfaction that she was sorry to lose the Lada, but at least it died taking four Orcs with it, and she was proud of it.
Drutska loves dead Orcs, dropping exploding objects on Orcs, killing Orcs in armor and vehicles, and Orcs running for their lives from a variety of high-velocity and high-tech NATO-furnished Orc-killers. She looks forward to the day that the vatniks will be tried for war crimes.
What can I say: I like her.
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| Drone Dropping Exploding Objects On Orcs In Trenches |
I've also taken occasional prods at some of the more outlandish postings and political positions, but it's pretty boring since most of these hyper-offended Online Warriors have about the same sense of humor as a Crusading 19th-Century Fundie Preacher running a tent revival.
But, they can be entertaining and as I've always said, time invested in knowing your enemy is never wasted.
Do I recommend it? Yeah, in kinda the same half-assed way I'd recommend a constantly annoying pillow-fight with balky, confusing interfaces instead of the "spike your foot to the floor and be relentlessly beaten with a 2X4" editorial, stream, and advertising policies that is true life on Facebook and Twitter these days.
And also it's PC to be pissed at Elon these days, which means a huge uptick in posts on Twitter explaining what a piece of shit he is and how much they're leaving Twitter, each one of which is money in the bank for Elon. Oh, well, what's the point of holding a moral position if you can't advertise it?.
So, what's not to like?
I do look forward a bit to the day when Twitter folds and Elon looks a bit stupid. But yeah, the whole super woke thing is so tiresome. Unless you think it's the only just and moral position to take (one of my sisters does, we almost fell out over it, so now I'm wary). I never got into Twitter - don't really have time between maintaining the farm in an extremely minimal sense, writing, sleeping and watching dumb Netflix stuff. So maybe I should go look at Mastodon.
ReplyDeleteWell, this ancient old blogging account creaking along on a site owned by the original Great Satan is pretty much my only real social media presence these days. And I don't bother arguing with the super-woke anywhere anymore unless literally laughing out loud at them counts. That does seem to annoy them as apparently they think they're serious. I always figured being that clueless had to be an act.
DeleteAnyhow, I was one of the early practitioners (if not originators) of "Combat Prose" back in Usenet days. I was really good at it. But the longer I was in, the stupider the people got. After awhile it was like having to get up every morning, shower, shave, feed the animals, get a cuppa, then stop on the way out the front door to deliver a near-fatal beating to some barely literate mouth-breather carrying his plastic sword and cardboard shield who once again wants to try to fight.
Boring, in short, and about as intellectually challenging and rewarding as beating a puppy. In fact, I knew I was done for when I started feeling sorry for the poor creatures.
Flash forward to today: So far as I can tell, the deterioration has continued to the point that "Idiocracy" is now considered a documentary film, and even trying to think down to their level is like driving a spike into my forehead.
Much better to laugh at them and move on.