Somebody, somewhere?

The shepherds of the internets, the people who write the software that gets unsuspecting humans to feel that they have connections with others through this or that social media platform, have really outdone themselves with “threads.” And in outdoing themselves they have gotten people like me (if there are any people really like me) to become totally uninterested with “connecting” by way of "threads."

The account, which I am about to remove from my phone, is full of posts from people offering lists of people they are interested in having “follow” them: musicians, artists, people who own dogs, people who like rice, photographers, film producers, foodies, etc., and they trust the trusty threads algorithm to do the work of connecting for them. They even address their posts, “Dear Algorithm.” But in reality these lists give a lot of easy information to Meta so that they can target threaders and their followers for ads in other Meta platforms. By making these lists, innocent people interested in finding people who share their interests are simply feeding the hungry algorithm. 

I admit that I have found some interesting people who post on threads, but I have other ways of reading what they have to say. And their work, which has nothing to do with my potential interactions with them, can go on without me.

The promise of finding people just like me is really not for me. In the decades of my life before using the internet, I managed to find people who shared my interests, concerns, and struggles. The common ground I found had a lot to do with circumstances: living in a particular place, working in a particular place (or field), being an outsider in a country or a culture, being single, being part of a couple, having small children, having not-so-small children, having aging parents, participating in particular activities, and not participating in particular activies.

I have learned over the years that I prefer to engage in activities and friendships with people who do not share ALL of my interests. One or two shared interests is enough. By interacting with people who are different from me I gain perspective about life and about the world.

I do appreciate the  “power” of social media mainly because I can use it to share, and I love the ease that the internet offers for me to answer zillions of questions and access music by way of the IMSLP. I also really appreciate the ability to connect with groups of people who need music to play by way of Facebook. And my blogs add a huge amount of value to my life.

I have nothing to sell (work I have done that is sold is the property of one or another publisher), so I view my (non-commercial) corners of the internets as a way of offering something to somebody somewhere who might need it in order to make their life easier, more interesting, or more enjoyable.

It's too bad that most of the messages that I find in my email inbox are put there by people I do not know who want to sell me something. I know that there are people online (like me) who are not selling something. I guess that selling is the main reason for the internets, and without that “marketplace,” blogs like this one wouldn't exist.