All trans, all the time

For months now, Right Wing Twitter types have been high-fiving each other about the claimed stagnation and Lefty navel gazing of Bluesky, as if Twitter was on the ascendancy again under the glorious reign of Elon the First.    (Musk continues to wave around highly, highly dubious claims of Twitter being "the no.1 news app" and such like.)

I continue to dip into both apps most days, rarely engaging in each, just as always been the case.   And perhaps this isn't the optimal way to use them, but I mainly just look at the "Discover" column on Bluesky and the "For You" half of Twitter, since for these apps I am happy for a bit of algorithmic serendipity to  show me something I might be interested in.

Based on this type of usage, here is how I would describe both apps:

X/Twitter:  ALL TRANS, ALL THE TIME.   (By which I mean, seemingly half of the tweets I see are about the trans issue in an aggressively anti-trans, full blown moral panic, and/or ridiculing, kind of way.  To paint a complete picture, I would say 40% is anti immigration, MAGA stuff, about 5% is Musk's personal contribution to conspiracy world, and a mere 5% or less is stuff I am happy to see from the handful of centrists who have declined to jump ship.)   Trump could be machine gunning suspected illegal immigrants while incarcerating the entire Democrat side of congress, and X users would not care, as long as that really ugly transwoman doesn't get to use a female toilet.  As a culture war issue, it's still running as hot as hell, if X's algorithm is any guide.     (I know, maybe it isn't an accurate guide, as Musk can't keep his dirty fingers off the algorithm, hating transactivism as he does because of the son/daughter who has rejected him.  Or is it purely my fault for occasionally clicking on a trans tweet?  I don't think so, somehow.) 

Even for someone who shares the view that the trans issue definitely warranted a correction - and (to be truthful) finds some of the ridiculing posts funny (because it is hard to believe what some men who think they are "real" women think looks "sexy") - the "all trans, all the time" attitude at X just feels exhausting after all these months/years of such content.  

Bluesky:  Still suffers from weird outbreaks of "LOOK AT MY CUTESY ARTWORK" posts from time to time.   When I first started using it, I noted that the Discover feed was overwhelmed by pet photos, particularly of cats.   Since then, by blocking or noting that I do not want to see of that type of content, I have stopped that happening, but for some oddball reason, every few months I will get a burst of people posting their latest artwork, usually in a quasi-anime or fantasy illustration style.  I have never shown interest in such content, but the algorithm "tries it on" for some bizarre reason, and I have to spend a couple of days of "do not want to see content like this" marking of the posts.

That said, the "death of Bluesky" seems vastly overrated to me - if you "curate" your interests and posts adequately,  it broadly works in a decent way.   (And although I forget to check them much, the individual topic fees, on "Science" for example, can be pretty good.)

I get that the app may be the home of the chronically "woke" Lefty activists demanding this and that, which gives the place the feeling of lack of balance in the same way that X does in the opposite direction.  But as I say, they can be avoided and not interrupt one's feed much.  It's certainly easier avoiding aggressive Lefties on Bluesky than it is to avoid mad MAGAs on X.

 

I guess what feels missing from using both of them is an app for the "mainly centrist" users who would like to see something like the old usefulness of Twitter - where you knew that you could get good links to news report, and local input on events (even something like big weather events as they are happening) - relatively reliably and quickly.   Neither X (personal Muskian grudge machine) nor Bluesky (too far "woke" Lefty activist haunt) has that same functionality that Twitter used to, and I still miss that somewhat.