Honestly good for you. We’d all probably be better off with less to no social media.

To each their own of course, but I tend to agree. :3

*whispers in your ear* furaffinity is a social media site

Boy, I would not call FA a social media site. Yes, technically it is, by the extremely wide umbrella term of "social media," but when most people say "social media," they are not talking about sites like FA.

First, it's a furry site. I think we absolutely have to differentiate "furry" vs "general." Moving all furry content onto general sites, like Twitter, was a huge mistake. A huge mistake.

Second, when someone mentions "social media" they generally think of general communication. That's not Furaffinity. It's an art gallery site first and foremost, and the ability to post comments on submissions it doesn't make it a social media site. It's not a site for general socializing, whether there are journals or not. It's not the place to go to for complaining about your job or talking about your cooking, or posting a hot political take. Again, it's an art site. Do people do that in journals? Sure to an extent, but the journal system is basically a separate part of the site that most people ignore. I know way less about various furries by going through their FA page than I would by going through their Twitter profile or Facebook page, and that's a huge boon for FA and a huge strike against Twitter. That's why I don't call FA a social media site: it's about art, not socializing. Good.

Third, YMMV as to whether this is a defining feature of social media, but all the popular sites use algorithms that push content. IE, if I look at FA, I'm seeing submissions in my queue list. I'm not seeing a random assortment, I'm not seeing retweets to someone that isn't in my watchlist. Crossposting ala retweeting is either impossible or cumbersome, intentionally. I'm not getting pushed into reading/watching stuff that the site "thinks" I'm going to want (usually as a way to boost engagement).

All of these things are ways in which FA, Sofurry, et all are different from what most people would consider "social media."

I replied myself below just for the sake of putting forward my own view, but yes, this. :D

By a technical definition yes. but I think that colloquially, and certainly what 'I' meant by social media, are sites like FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc where the primary purpose for users is supposedly just networking and communication, usually with some sort of infinitely scrolling feed element and an algorithm that incentivises inflammatory views by rewarding engagement whether positive or negative.

FA has elements of community engagement, the ability to follow/watch people, to share journals and 'shout' on individuals walls, as well as leaving submission comments of course. But the way it's used, and the fact it's used primarily by a niche, opt-in audience of people who in theory share a common interest on a much smaller scale, without any algorithm interference in who you see interacting with you (comments, submissions, journals, etc all give notifications in a simple oldest-to-newest format in your inbox, and only show you content from users you've actively chosen to watch), very much sets it apart from the types of social media I was referring to.

Again, you are technically right, but to avoid further discussion over a definitional disagreement that really doesn't have any purpose in this discussion, please just understand that I was using the term "social media" in a more colloquial way to refer to a specific sub-type of social media doom-scrolling sites like twitter, facebook, etc, and that if you find that definition inaccurate, it's just my inability to express my understanding of the technology in an accurate manner, for which I hope you'll forgive me. :)

Good on ya for resisting that siren’s song…I’ve been unplugged from social media for a while now, and I don’t miss it.

I like talking with people, but I don't like having people's loudest, most vile opinions stuffed in my face 24/7. Plenty of other ways to achieve the first thing without the second. :3

Exactly!

God sometimes I wish I had your strength to just ignore social media and turn away :'D I'd probably be more productive too as a result! But sometimes there are some good things on there, and it's those little things I think that keep me anchored xD

Truly it's not about strength, I deleted them cold turkey because I DIDN'T have the strength not to find myself checking them far too often when I actually had them, haha.

Do you plan to upload to SF again?

It's tough, when I was posting to two sites the extra time I had to put in to re-formatting the story and doing all the keywords, etc for a second site meant there were days when I just skipped uploading all together because I didn't have the time to do it all. Plus, while not a 100% overlap the majority of people who watch me on SF, and interacted with my work there, also follow me on FA.

Finally, and it sucks that this has to be a factor but I can't deny that it is, I virtually never got commission interest or new patrons finding my stuff and reaching out via SF. Furry writing is my full time job, and while yes in theory posting to a wider variety of places can expand my audience further and thus potential income, I'd spent years consistently posting on both sites, and the majority of my growth both in watchers and income was all centred here on FA.

I don't dislike SF or anything like that, there's just a tonne of little reasons why posting there just doesn't really work for me at this point. I'd definitely return there and start posting again if something about that changed, i.e. if I was just writing for myself and didn't have to stick to a more regimented posting schedule, but until I magically win the lottery or something, I'm not sure how I'd find myself in a circumstance where that would happen.

I really do wish SF was more popular. Then again, I wish that their interface was better too (I can't believe that the stupid epub format is still a requirement for story saving). I just liked the idea of a searchable story site that everyone uses. Do you think you got more comments/faves/etc on FA for the same story? That was my impression which is.. unfortunate.

I got a lot more interactivity on FA in all forms, which is one of the reasons I trailed off my posting there when I did. Also, wild as it may seem I find FA's search function much more reliable. I tag my stories well and as a result most of the time even if someone messages me asking for a story without being able to remember the title, I can find it so long as they remember what kinks and perhaps species of characters were involved. On SF, there were times when I would try to find my own stories on my own user-page and wouldn't be able to. :c

Boy, I've definitely tried to find a three-year-old story of yours and been unable to find it on SF (even though I know it's there) but have found it on FA. :/

The trick to finding a specific creator's work (assuming they tag stuff) on FA for me is just searching "username" "tag"

Like, if you search jeevestheroo judy hopps it very accurately pulls up every piece in my gallery (at least within the last 5 years) that contains those keywords. It's simple, straightforward and I love it for that. <3