There's an interesting problem in digital preservation, which is that preservation only exists actively. Only the things you actively move to new formats, survives.
Community is probably the same way: it has to be actively maintained in order to outlive whatever spot it's currently in.
The ideal social media is not actually any particular instance, but an up to date contact list. Everything else is details, and every hangout spot will inevitably go rancid.
That game you love vanishes if no one bothers to crack it and pirate it and emulate it.
That person you like, vanishes if the ground turns sour and you didn't figure out a way to find them after fleeing elsewhere.
If you're gen x or millennial, odds are you have known some people online for *decades*. Across multiple now-dead forums, across vast gulfs of time in internet years. You've probably got a friend group that outlived multiple sites.
Which is interesting. Gen X and millennials grew up having to learn how to use computers, how to go online, etc.
One of these skills later generations didn't learn, was how to reconnect outside walled gardens.
If you're over the age of 30, your first internet friends were outside walled gardens, they didn't really exist yet.
You found them, and then found them in half a dozen different places none of which were the really *important* thing. The important thing was they were there.
If you're *under* the age of 30, pretty much all you've known were walled gardens, you didn't really need to learn the skill of finding a friend hanging out somewhere else.
This is probably part of why everyone on bluesky is 38 years old: 38 year olds are basically the only people who consider it totally normal to flee a sinking ship and then just casually resume the conversation on the tropical island they end up on.
They've outlived dozens of ships.
People who are much older, are busy oogling shrimp jesuses and big boobied centaur women on facebook.
People who are much younger, only know 3 or 4 walled gardens and only maybe 1 has died on them so far.
I like the idea of being 38 (although I'm not quite twice as old at the moment!)
But before Internet, we had... snail mail. Amateur Press Associations. (*deep bass voice* FANZINES!)
This natter is only just to say, I recognize a lot of what you're describing.
Not quite true.
I'm a decade older with friend groups of the same age or older and we've all gone through the same thing.
Basically people who got online in the 80s and early 90s.
Nearly 50 but yeah, not my first social service rodeo. And whenever a new thing looks like it might get traction I'm always going to namesquat my handle as soon as possible in case it becomes the new place and my friends want to find me. I'm also less likely to use it if I can't be cunabula there.
Turned 31 and for the sake of my well-being, I feel less anxious about randomly making posts here than on Twitter where I feel like I’m judged for no interaction.
Even if no one interacts here, the ones who do interact are more meaningful than just a bot on Twitter or mutuals I’m not close to.
I'm 58 and you'll find a good number of people my age or even older who have been experiencing this kind of platform migration since the 90s. Some subset of those 25+-year relationships end up on FB because it's simpler.
I've outlived the heyday of BBSes, of USENET, and the demise of the entire BITNET network. I've seen off Tribe.net and LiveJournal. The number of smaller fora I've posted to and are now dust are unto a legion in number.
We Techie GenXers know how to leave a party. :)
I mean I feel like there's a flipside where you're jumping from burning building to sinking ship to tidal island but you lose a friend or two each time, and stick with the ones remaining. But you're kind of trying to keep the same vibe and maybe not finding as many _new_ friends each time either
I definitely agree with this (40-year-old here); but I'd add: queer people experience this at an accelerated rate, as social media repeatedly go through the cycle of "we need early adopters/artists/weirdos to get the excitement and early numbers up" to "we need to 'clean up' for our IPO".
Casting a side-eye at that 38!
But, another Gen X thing - I think we were pretty much the last of the "pen-pal" era.
Thus my tendency to make silly little cards to send to online friends where they actually live.
The entire INTERNET could go tits-up. It would be inconvenient, but still okay. :)
I’m in my 40s and grew up in a shitty boring town. Spent most of the ‘00s travelling the country/other countries to hand out with online friends. Eventually moved to live near a bunch of them. Still here, still know them, still travel to see people I’ve known for 25 years online.
Oh. Damn. I'm 38. And so is my husband, who is also here on Bluesky. Uh, shit, I don't like it when somebody is that accurate about me.
Keep it up, though.
