Given the current fuckery in the United States of America, I have deleted my accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and Threads. I am in the process of detangling and deleting my Facebook account, as well.
As such, I have moved to BlueSky and Substack, where I am still learning but am impressed with these new “grown up” social media sites.
Follow me there:
You can also still find me on YouTube.
Here’s what I have learned about these social media platforms:
- BlueSky allows you to create Lists for the people you follow that both filter your feed to show posts by those people AND allows you to restrict your post access to those people. I have lists for my Besties, My People (friends and acquaintances), News and Politics, and Artists. I love being able to switch tabs to see all posts related to those topics separate from the others.
- BlueSky only allows you to upload 60-second videos and you can only upload 25 videos per day. Boo. I do expect that this will change within 2025 because the needs exists for a full TikTok replacement. If I recall, TikTok limited its videos at first, too.
- BlueSky is built on the AT Protocol which means billionaires can pound salt.
- BlueSky Feeds allow you to follow tags and filter your view to show posts in those Feeds. I’ve added #poetry and love it so far.
- Substack hosts your favorite independent journalists and political, science, and health experts. To me, it feels like social media for smart people.
- Substack will read many of the articles to you, which I love. My life requires me to multitask, so it’s awesome to have the app read my favorite writers to me.
- Substack allows for long-form newsletter for short-form “notes” for posts.
- Substack allows for longer videos and a media list that looks TikTokish.
- Substack allows for post comments and subscriber chats.
Anyway, I’m still learning a lot, but I’m going to start feeding my content into these new platforms. I hope to see you there.
