#118

drafts/Against a Social Media Methodology.md

@@ -6,9 +6,42 @@ A big theme in my 20s has been coming (slowly) to terms with the fact that I bui
 
 This is _not_ an essay about how to “optimize” your social media use. It is - at least in part - a sort of manifesto against the very idea of designed online behavior beyond simply **being considerate** in a sense that predates even the spoken word. I, myself, have occupied a position well on the _chaotic_ side of the spectrum. You could say I have been mostly _chaotic neutral_ throughout my 12 years on Twitter thus far, and am actively working toward (and advocating for) _chaotic good_.
 
+<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I do not understand the mentality of Twitter users who behave as if it is an intraweb competition and/or it has value in and of itself.</p>&mdash; ※ David Blue ※ (@NeoYokel) <a href="https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/753114804617932801">July 13, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
+
+`https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/753114804617932801`
+
 ## Assumptions at bat
+
 1. For the vast majority of mainstream social users, no amount of [insert vague overused marketing jargon noun] will *ever* result in a substantial accumulation of money/"influence" (which seems to be the diluted zag of "POWER" of the moment.) Those interested in learning about "marketing" should know that no authority on the subject would ever tell you to *start* with Twitter - this I can say with certainty. 
 2. Though Twitter was designed upon certain frameworks with certain rules which form quantifiable formulas where they are dependent upon a user's choices/methodology to produce results which we *have*, indeed, become more adept at predicting with study over time, it was *not* created as a *game to be won*. Perhaps more importantly, the "prize" of "winning" in the sense held by those who resist this assumption (notoriety, "influence," relevance) has continued to prove ultimately worthless (or worse) time and time again throughout the very short history of the cultural element as it exists today.
 3. If both 1 and 2 pass scrutiny, the only remaining reasonable prerogatives in one’s social media use is to engage with _both_ strangers and friends in a manner which generally **adds value to the lives of all involved**.
 4. 3 is not only _possible_ - it is easily _reproducible_. Most of my evidence is centered around my own experiences, but I believe - if I took the time - I would be able to find infinitely many publicly-facing examples. 
-5. Though I am going to use my own methods to demonstrate 4, **neither my ideas nor my behavior are the only means of interacting positively on social media**.
+5. Though I am going to use my own methods to demonstrate 4, **neither my ideas nor my behavior are the only means of interacting positively on social media**.
+
+Over the past few months, I've started a few Posts for this blog regarding Twitter, its properties, and its recent feature addition frenzy which I'll probably never finish. I finished the first and narrowest one - the aforelinked Tweetbot 6 review - but the (debatably) most important one - highlighting how irresponsibly and distastefully [Twitter butchered Periscope and built Spaces atop its technology](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/issues/79) - would make less and less sense as time goes on. I definitely got caught up in the "death" of the live video streaming service, fueled by my now quite old desire to celebrate it[^1], which I will hopefully accomplish *eventually* in a very sentimental essay. In *this* Post, I hope to aggregate the remaining sentiments/insights I've been tossing around regarding the whole of it, beginning - oddly enough - with a quite dramatic comment on RSS, of all things:
+
+## "Podcast" is in desperate need of terminology parsing
+
+_Audio is having a moment_, says the cacophony about heavy wood transistor radios humming in the private spaces of a populace under a plague’s siege. In the end, it could only have been the scent of such beautiful desperation to finally lure the money in, followed single-file by the American story, as always. The Undisputed OG of Broadcast Media rises like a Tucson from the embers of ad tech’s Great Crusades not to seek revenge, but to comfort the only known complex verbal species amid their Biggest Babel Breakdown yet. All it requires, truthfully, is a decent _approximation_ of a real two+-sided conversation. Well… An _infinite list_ of such approximations, anyway, to leave playing in the background. To just hear two people taking turns speaking and then listening.
+
+<audio controls>
+  <source src="http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/audio/egc-9-18-2004.mp3">
+</audio>
+
+Honestly, I had absolutely zero intention of contributing any more to this _Digital Audio Renaissance_ conversation. Though I have been stipulating about _The Fateful Day_ when Apple might finally give in to its perception of competition and implement any sort of paid/premium content differentiation function in its directory of RSS feeds as the certain beginning of The End of the medium we recognize as “Podcasting,” I still didn’t consider the recent news of this day’s scheduled manifestation worthy of another meta-media post. Nay, it wasn’t until I overheard a _Windows Weekly_ host describe podcasting as a “new medium” with apparent sincerity at some point within its [**seven hundred twenty-first** episode](https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/721) that I truly lost my mind.
+
+My third, fourth and fifth eyes all opened wide, and I realized **he and I were definitely _not_ attributing the same thing to that term, anymore**. You probably shouldn’t already be aware that it’s long been produced by This Week in Tech (stylized popularly as _TWiT_) - which happens to be _the_ oldest podcast-first, for profit media group I can remember - surviving or not. The live, compressed, fucky frame rate image of Leo Laporte sitting alone in a studio-lit room wearing the crown of studio headphones with a mic pointed vaguely at his face is darn near old enough to be considered a _childhood memory_ of mine.
+
+<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I honestly think iOS 14.5 makes the Podcasts app worse.<br><br>“Latest episodes” used to be on the front page in place of Shows You Might Like (which now shows me episodes I’ve already heard) and is instead buried in my Library.<br><br>Up Next doesn’t even show… the next episodes 😒 <a href="https://t.co/he5wlCqRMM">pic.twitter.com/he5wlCqRMM</a></p>&mdash; Matthew Cassinelli (@mattcassinelli) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattcassinelli/status/1385254668335341569">April 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
+
+`https://twitter.com/mattcassinelli/status/1385254668335341569`
+
+Essentially, I meant to proceed from there to argue simply that **it's time for a new term to encapsulate this medium**. As someone who has listened to podcasts since pre-pubescence, I've had plenty of adjacent thoughts for years. When [*S-Town*](https://stownpodcast.org/) debuted in the spring of 2017, for instance, I couldn't help but observe it in the same application beside my own work - supposedly within the same medium - and remark with awe on the diversity of content carried by Real Simple Syndication. This was also amidst the peak of my disenchantment with ad tech, when I was vocally against the whole idea, yet this stance did not include podcasts distributed via RSS. I'm assuming my reasoning had mostly to do with the obvious - that pure RSS is completely inept when it comes to gathering listener data[^2] - but simple oversight shouldn't be ruled out.
+
+
+---
+
+[^1]: Because I feel guilty about taking it for granted.
+
+[^2]: For the uninitiated: podcast analytics are definitely gathered (and have been for years,) but only by various third-party protocols.
+

notes/SocialMediaMethodologyNotes.md

@@ -7,9 +7,17 @@
 For a good part of my Junior and Senior years of high school, 
 
 * `https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1351947764859613187`
+
 * By design or not, The Ratio _fundamentally_ disincentivizes discovery, sincere exposure to new perspectives, and indeed most of what we constitute as “human connection.”
+
 * Ultimately, I don't really have a choice but to continue using Twitter as I always have, so I'm going to make the most of it and continue to post whenever and whatever I, myself, would like to see on my timeline - even if my account ends up in such low opinion of The Twitter Algorithm that my Tweets become obfuscated entirely from everywhere on the site save for their full, canonical web addresses, which I will then publish via plain text files hosted on my NeoCities.
-  * Disclose: the excerpt from my astrology about indiscriminately work
+  * Disclose: the excerpt from [my astrology](https://www.notion.so/rotund/The-Day-of-Reformed-Precocity-1bbbb5f6369646fbae7024c3295523e4) about indiscriminately viewing my work.
+
+    > Above all, those born on this day must learn patience and discrimination. Not all of their work is of the highest caliber, though they expect it to be and can firmly believe it is.
+  
+* **It's okay if you don't understand.** You can leave it at that.
+
+* We have all inevitably become *sus*, which is okay, but we should be particularly mindful about it.
 
 ## Assumptions in Question
 
@@ -40,14 +48,26 @@ For a good part of my Junior and Senior years of high school,
 
 ***
 
+### Related Tweets
+
+* [I do not understand the mentality of Twitter users who behave as if it is an intraweb competition and/or it has value in and of itself.](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/753114804617932801)
+* [Technically, the only feasible route for Twitter continuing in a static format is purchase by government to become a public service.](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/696094018862718976)
+* [the solution to Twitter's financial discombobulation will always be paid premium accounts.](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/841212000436912129)
+* [in This Present Time I can have regular interactions with my adolescent celebrity crush that I *actually* would not be able to convince my 14-year-old self are real. not because of their significance but the opposite.](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1393805699445047301)
+* [Nina Laying Down Twitter Moment](https://twitter.com/i/events/1395934071197474828 )
+
 ## References
+
+* "[The platforms try a little transparency](https://www.platformer.news/p/the-platforms-try-a-little-transparency)" | *Platformer*
+* "[Our plans to relaunch verification and what’s next](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/our-plans-to-relaunch-verification-and-whats-next.html)" | *Twitter Blog*
+* "[Relaunching verification and what’s next](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/relaunching-verification-and-whats-next.html)" | *Twitter Blog*
 * “[Measuring influence on Twitter | Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2024288.2024326)”
 * “[Do You Know the Twitter Limits? Spam, followers & following](https://iag.me/socialmedia/guides/do-you-know-the-twitter-limits/)”
 * “[Twitter’s timeline algorithm, and its effect on us, explained.](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/cover_story/2017/03/twitter_s_timeline_algorithm_and_its_effect_on_us_explained.html)”
 > After all the outrage, fewer than 2 percent of all users opted out of the algorithmic timeline.
 * “[Getting Ratioed on Twitter Is Good - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/ratio-twitter-good/600334/)”
 * “[3 Reasons Your Twitter Follower Ratio Is More Important Than You Know | Inc.com](https://www.inc.com/hillel-fuld/3-reasons-your-twitter-follower-ratio-is-more-important-than-you-know.html)”
-> If you follow more people than follow you, what you are in essence saying to that person is "I followed all these people, but only some of them found me interesting enough to follow me back."
+> If you follo	w more people than follow you, what you are in essence saying to that person is "I followed all these people, but only some of them found me interesting enough to follow me back."
 > Not only that, but you are also saying "Yes, I may have recently followed you, but don't take it too personally, I like to follow a lot of people, so really, the fact that I cared enough to follow you doesn't mean I am genuinely interested in what you have to say."
 > Not doing great on A
 * [Twitter is testing a new Tip Jar feature for sending money to your favorite accounts - The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22423583/twitter-tip-jar-feature-sending-money-venmo-cashapp)