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The journal where I rank social media Part 2
a year ago
Opinions and experiences are my own. Your mileage may vary.
Snapchat:
This app gamifies interpersonal relationships. It uses cutesy emojis to show reciprocation and interest (or lack thereof). If you’re “lucky” enough to see screenshots of your friends’ Snapchats, then you get to see exactly where you rank in comparison to their other friends. And you get to see how they have mile-long streaks with other people and not with you. What a treat!
That shit was extremely harmful to my mental health.
Snapchat’s signature “thing” is the ephemeral nature of pictures and messages, which is annoying and impractical in most contexts.
Rating: 0 out of 10
TikTok:
Pros: Kept me sane during the height of the pandemic. I had a blast making and sharing short-form videos, some of which I’m still proud of to this day. Good for dumb entertainment.
Cons: Largely populated by children and people who act like children. Bad for getting/sharing actual information.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Instagram:
Vapid and shallow. I hate how you can’t upload pictures via desktop computer, copy/paste text from image descriptions, post clickable links, or download photos without using weird workarounds. I hate how hashtags are practically useless on there now, and it’s almost impossible to discover small creators unless they’re using rare, niche hashtags.
People there do seem a lot more chill, and a lot less combative, than Twitter. I like how Instagram is centered around sharing your OWN content (instead of regurgitating other people’s posts, which is largely what Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook are about). People seem to enjoy the fursuiting/art content I share there, even if they don’t say much. It feels like ALL my characters have some kind of audience there, as opposed to Twitter where people are solely interested in Lullaby.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Snapchat:
This app gamifies interpersonal relationships. It uses cutesy emojis to show reciprocation and interest (or lack thereof). If you’re “lucky” enough to see screenshots of your friends’ Snapchats, then you get to see exactly where you rank in comparison to their other friends. And you get to see how they have mile-long streaks with other people and not with you. What a treat!
That shit was extremely harmful to my mental health.
Snapchat’s signature “thing” is the ephemeral nature of pictures and messages, which is annoying and impractical in most contexts.
Rating: 0 out of 10
TikTok:
Pros: Kept me sane during the height of the pandemic. I had a blast making and sharing short-form videos, some of which I’m still proud of to this day. Good for dumb entertainment.
Cons: Largely populated by children and people who act like children. Bad for getting/sharing actual information.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Instagram:
Vapid and shallow. I hate how you can’t upload pictures via desktop computer, copy/paste text from image descriptions, post clickable links, or download photos without using weird workarounds. I hate how hashtags are practically useless on there now, and it’s almost impossible to discover small creators unless they’re using rare, niche hashtags.
People there do seem a lot more chill, and a lot less combative, than Twitter. I like how Instagram is centered around sharing your OWN content (instead of regurgitating other people’s posts, which is largely what Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook are about). People seem to enjoy the fursuiting/art content I share there, even if they don’t say much. It feels like ALL my characters have some kind of audience there, as opposed to Twitter where people are solely interested in Lullaby.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Loved instagram when I started trying it as an alternative to DA, wanted something to be my main alternative location to rely on. Yes! Uploading from pc is a bitch, you can do it using firefox development tools, that's how I uploaded to mine. They then introduced the ability to upload from pc but it never worked for me, so stuck with using firefox Responsive Design Mode. It's a nuisance you can't upload PNG and you have to change the size/shape of your pics. But what instilled fear in my mind was their non existant customer support. If you lose access/get locked out of your account, there isn't much you can contact to help regain access. This happened to an account I had but also read horror stories of other users, some that had sponsors and large followings D8.
Out of the mainstream services I've talked about, Instragram is probably the best one for artists/photographers wanting to maintain an easily accessible/browsable public gallery and give people a taste of their work. At the same time, it's terrible. Less because of the users, and more because of the technical constraints and total lack of customer support.
Yes yes! What I liked about instagram is how artists could be seen by folks outside of art communities. Love art communjties, with other fellow artists but people who don't do art may not frequent these places. So instagram is great for reaching out to folks like that :D.